Apartment Shoot comming up...

Okay guys,

I recently did a shoot for a new club that opened up in my area. It was for two pretty good friends of mine that just partnered up with another guy for the place. After I took pictures of the club, the other owner (we will call him Floyd) approached me and told me that he had some apartments across the street that needed pictures if I was interested. Well I of course said that I was and he got my card and told me that he would be in contact soon.

To my surprise yesterday, he called me. I went and met up with him last night to look over the places and discuss some things. Well I show up and he tells me that it is six loft apartments that he purchased over two years ago and they are just now being completed. The four smaller apartments are around 1500 square feet and the two penthouse apartments are 3300 square feet. The pricing for these places range from $250,000 to $400,000 I think.

He hands me the keys and just tells me to walk around and look at everything I need to then go back across the street to the club and talk to him. So I spend about an hour looking over everything. The places are very detailed and nicely laid out. From my observations it will take about 5-10 pictures for the smaller apartments and anywhere from 10-20 for the penthouse apartments. Thinking of taking a shot of the entire building from the road and a few landscape shots from the roof to show off the view.

After getting everything in mind, I walked across the street and told him about how many pictures it would take. He told me to just go home and think of a price and call him tomorrow. We shook hands and left and that was that.

Now this is my first time doing a shoot of this nature and am used to doing shoots for friends, family, online magazines, and alot of things that generally don't pay much if anything. I know that cost for full rights to images range vastly in price when it comes to advertisement. I was originally thinking of just charging $100 per apartment for the pictures and $100 for the outside and shots from the roof. Upon doing research on the site I’m not sure if this is the right price range. Any advice from you guys on this issue? I just didn’t want to name some price that seemed astronomical and be automatically turned down. This is something that would look great in my portfolio.

Thank you
Justin

Wow! Good for you....
Are you going to print out the images or you are going to give this to him on a CD?

I guess that price is ok... It doesn't seem too high... However, if you were to go down a little and say about $ 80 to 90 and then, if he likes the shots and want them, then go back up to $100??

Oh well, what would I know... I am an amateur! I hope one of the pros will direct you...

However, good luck!

These will most likely be on a CD. He told me that he was going to put these on the building's website. And also use them for some other types of advertisment.

Thanks for the input and the kind words

can anyone help?

Don't sell yourself short. It's going to take you some time, to take the pictures, transfer them, either to CD or print, etc. He's going to be making 'profit' off of these apt's. I'd say charge per apt...based on your time spent there, plus factor in any additonal expenses. Time, gas, food, etc. It's a business, think about how you would make money in your business.

Good luck with the shoot. I'm sure you'll have tons of fun.

Charge the $700 you plan to charge, and then add maybe $20/hour,
Or. do $500 + $20-$25/hour (maybe more)

Just my personal thought... I have never done a paid job so don't take my advice too seriously

Since you want the work the idea is to price it high enough to be worth your while but not so high he tells you to bugger off. Say it takes you a couple of hours to shoot and a couple of hours to process, what do you think's reasonable for that amount of time? If he called a commercial photographer they'd want a couple of hundred dollars per hour, plus they'd only give limited usage rights, and might end up charging $1K-$2K, at least in my area. Given you have no experience or portfolio keep it reasonable, but don't fall for the "there will be more work for you later" trick. Tell them "great, i'll give you 25% off your second job".

$100 per apartment seems reasonable until you consider what you'll be shooting. Living room, bedroom(s), kitchen, bathroom, balcony... so at least 5 shots @ $20 each? If you do the job right, it will tale at least 1/2 hour per. If you don't really know what you're doing, it will take longer.

I'd charge a day rate + so much per shot & include a "standard print" in the per-shot pricing. (See below: not going to nickel & dime a client .)
I would not give him a CD of the images. I'd supply 4X6" proof images, as a guide to what quality can be expected. It you give the client a CD & they take it to the local drugstore & come back with crappy prints, they will be YOUR crappy prints he'll be showing people?

From another thread:
Hourly rates: The better you are & the faster you work, the less that you're paid! And if you travel to a location & back, how do you get paid for the rest of the lost daylight? It's pretty hard to book two 1/2-day jobs in one day.
In metro Detroit, a fairly large market with lots of competition, I charged a day rate of $600/day (1970s prices), 10 hours my door to my door, & included 50 "Free" miles. (That's how much I hate paperwork & I'm not going to nickel & dime a client anyway).
For a good client who's in a budget bind, I'd offer an (infrequent) 1/2 day rate, $350, 5 hours my door to my door. Keep in mind that the first time you cut your prices for someone, everyone else will hear about it & it will soon become your "Normal" rate.

Sticky: How much Do I Charge? One of the most often asked questions & 4 pages of comments!

Marketing the value of what we do

jackies35 wrote in post #4870708
Wow! Good for you....
Are you going to print out the images or you are going to give this to him on a CD?

I guess that price is ok... It doesn't seem too high... However, if you were to go down a little and say about $ 80 to 90 and then, if he likes the shots and want them, then go back up to $100??

Oh well, what would I know... I am an amateur! I hope one of the pros will direct you...

However, good luck!

Sounds like nice work if you can get it. It never ceases to amaze me how many people get work from friends and family. Must be why I'm not getting much work, not many friends and all my family is dead. I know; it's another topic, lol.

This has been a topic of much confusion for me too- In Orange County Ca. Day rate for a specialist doing architecture would start at approx $800.00 for the full day and call it good.
I would do the same, because I am a generalist, I charge less. I would at this price say you are in addition to giving him a good price you are able to offer a discount on the next job and thus is why the price is lower. I would make sure and have him sign a property release, and as if it would be much of a problem for photo credit if he uses the images online, a link to your web site or something. The property release also should cover you for any potential property damage to his things, and loss or stolen property while there, just to cover your butt.

I would, if it where me tell him I can put the photos up on my site, let him choose the final shots he likes, touch up those shots and issue him a password to access the images, he can download them himself to his hard drive with the notice that you can't be responsible for final results as monitors/printing/ etc is all out of your hands, I would give him as a previous poster said, one shot of each apartment, if he likes those, tell him for $10 a photo you can do the printing for him...is this nickel and diming? Not to me, it's up selling if your confident in your work.