commercial shoot - employment agency

someone has contacted me to see if i would be interested in shooting for their business. It's an employment agency, 2 locations (about 30kms apart). They would like me to shoot on both locations on the same day (8 hours), mostly portraits of their employees, to be used for their website and for their Annual Reports. They also want to keep the photos for future use (marketing/advertising​)

As I am not a commercial photographer, I am not sure how to go about it, what type of questions I should be asking. I also don't have an existing contract for this type of job (I am a wedding photographer), Is there any available free contracts available online that I can use? How would I price it, would I price it the same as a wedding, or do I price it differently, since the photos will be used for publication.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Regards,
Rhommel

Generally you charge a creative fee as well as a usage fee for a corporate shoot.

Do a one day shoot might be $2500 and unlimited use non exclusive rights to the pics may be $10k

I'm guessing they're looking for a per-person price to do the shots. When dealing with smaller companies like this, they typically weigh the cost of having a photographer come to the site and doing professional headshots vs buying a digital camera and having someone take a photo against a blank wall. I find that these companies will tend to expect a price between $10 and $25 per person. How many employees are in each office? I would say you should plan on 30 minutes of setup, 5 to 10 minutes per employee (mostly spent rounding the employees up, not actually shooting), and 30 minutes to tear down at each location.

Thomas Campbell wrote in post #14735170
Generally you charge a creative fee as well as a usage fee for a corporate shoot.

Do a one day shoot might be $2500 and unlimited use non exclusive rights to the pics may be $10k

hahahahahhaahhahaha.

good luck with that. Unless this is a fortune 100 company and this shoot is being done for some sort of ad campaign they are launching, you won't see $10k for a day of headshots.

JacobPhoto wrote in post #14735673
I'm guessing they're looking for a per-person price to do the shots. When dealing with smaller companies like this, they typically weigh the cost of having a photographer come to the site and doing professional headshots vs buying a digital camera and having someone take a photo against a blank wall. I find that these companies will tend to expect a price between $10 and $25 per person. How many employees are in each office? I would say you should plan on 30 minutes of setup, 5 to 10 minutes per employee (mostly spent rounding the employees up, not actually shooting), and 30 minutes to tear down at each location.

hahahahahhaahhahaha.

good luck with that. Unless this is a fortune 100 company and this shoot is being done for some sort of ad campaign they are launching, you won't see $10k for a day of headshots.

Then you don't give them unlimited exclusive use. You have the talent, you get to dictate the terms. And chances are that they don't need unlimited exclusive use. Corporate photographers make their money off usage.


$10-25 per person? Tell them to GFY. No one can make a living at that price, especially if you are giving away the files. You would make better money working at Starbucks. Which is probably where you end up if you charge that.

Tough to get usage for headshots at a small local business. They probably have no idea what usage is, and have probably only been exposed to retail photography where the pay for the pics and they think they own them outright.

What I try to do in these instances is quote them a set price that includes 5 years usage. Ie, take your normal rate, tack on the 5 year usage for web use, and give them that as an all inclusive price and never bring up usage. In the end you've received 5 years usage, and in all likelyhood after 5 years when people have left, new people arrived, etc, they will re-shoot anyway.

If you shoot for them later on a project with more elaborate usage, that's when I educate them. I then tell them how I structured the usage into their fee on their headshots since the usage is pretty well defined, but will be breaking it out on the new project in order to save them money. At that point you already have a relationship with the client which also helps.

sfaust wrote in post #14772735
Tough to get usage for headshots at a small local business. They probably have no idea what usage is, and have probably only been exposed to retail photography where the pay for the pics and they think they own them outright.

What I try to do in these instances is quote them a set price that includes 5 years usage. Ie, take your normal rate, tack on the 5 year usage for web use, and give them that as an all inclusive price and never bring up usage. In the end you've received 5 years usage, and in all likelyhood after 5 years when people have left, new people arrived, etc, they will re-shoot anyway.

If you shoot for them later on a project with more elaborate usage, that's when I educate them. I then tell them how I structured the usage into their fee on their headshots since the usage is pretty well defined, but will be breaking it out on the new project in order to save them money. At that point you already have a relationship with the client which also helps.

I agree!!!

Thomas Campbell wrote in post #14735985
Then you don't give them unlimited exclusive use. You have the talent, you get to dictate the terms. And chances are that they don't need unlimited exclusive use. Corporate photographers make their money off usage.


$10-25 per person? Tell them to GFY. No one can make a living at that price, especially if you are giving away the files. You would make better money working at Starbucks. Which is probably where you end up if you charge that.

How long does it take you to shoot one mugshot of a corporate employee? This isn't a glamour model shoot where you're spending two hours per person. Half an hour of setup, five minutes per person, half an hour of teardown, burn the files to a disc, get paid. Let me know when you have a $25/person job that you're turning away, I'll gladly take $300/hr with no post work.

nathancarter wrote in post #14773094
How long does it take you to shoot one mugshot of a corporate employee? This isn't a glamour model shoot where you're spending two hours per person. Half an hour of setup, five minutes per person, half an hour of teardown, burn the files to a disc, get paid. Let me know when you have a $25/person job that you're turning away, I'll gladly take $300/hr with no post work.

A company that needs one single mug isn't generally going pay someone to come to them (or at least, won't pay much.) Companies tend to do large groups or they will have one or two VIPs do several environmental portraits in addition to a backdropped headshot. And for that, you are probably going to get a 1/2 day rate.