Am I charging too much, or too little?

tim wrote in post #5586932
This is why school photography isn't something i'd bother pursuing myself - too much work for too little gain.

I'm not sure its too much work, they have a very streamlined process, and I doubt they do much that isn't automated when it comes to PP and such. So yeah, they charge a lot less but offer a different product. More of a portable photo store studio, their skills are in the people management, not the photography.

4.99 is exactly what I am charged by Mpix. $3.99 sounds better to me and I have figured that $1 in my cost. Its my way of doing things. I dont packages, ship or handle anything

I would do a base package at whatever you want to be your minimum-$15-$25. I think you will have a lot of parents who buy the base and then copy it (home scanner, walmart, whatever, however illegal it is) and then not buy any further.

You pay a 30% kickback? You should ask them if they'd like to take possesion of your gear as well. The biggest kickback I give is 20% and it's only because the dance school that I work with does all the posing up of the kids. I just have to show up, set up, and shoot. Easiest money in my business. Ironically, this school pays better than any other job that I have... including weddings.

ashleynaugust wrote in post #5595023
I would do a base package at whatever you want to be your minimum-$15-$25. I think you will have a lot of parents who buy the base and then copy it (home scanner, walmart, whatever, however illegal it is) and then not buy any further.

yeah.. that happens and it isn't anything you can avoid. But I've earned repeat customers who do order more and also book private sessions with me so it all evens out. TIP... if you print on luster paper... the scans get all these little specular dots on them, and their copies look like crap.

We just did a shoot for our son's preschool graduation, all the kids in cap/gown. Ended up doing a TON of PP on the pics since originally we were just there shooting candids for a slideshow, we had no backdrop, no extra flash, no reflector (outdoor photos at 12 noon in Vegas).

I think the quality is not an issue, the issue is how much would a parent be willing to pay?

Our package was 1 8x10, 2 5x7 and 4 wallets for $25, or double for $40. If you buy the package you can a-la-carte extra prints. Our cost for printing this was $6 from CPQ, so we made $19/order. It was $9 shipping ($1/package sold).

Here's a sample of the photos, I think not too bad for not having ANY pre-planning for a "formal portrait" - clarity problems are due to resizing by Gallery.

Wow, that's a lot of work for not much of a return.

tim wrote in post #5653541
Wow, that's a lot of work for not much of a return.

$2000 profit for 30 hours of work...and you say that's "not much of a return"? I don't know what the economy is like in New Zealand, but here in the USA, if you're making $2000 for 30 hours (that's less than a 40 hour work week), then that's very good money. My math comes to about $100,000 per year. Kudos to anyone who can shoot photography, work for themselves, and make $100,000 per year. That is very successful.

I was commenting more on the $18 profit per package. I also find that most people don't add in all the time overheads, between finding the job, photographing it, post processing, lab orders, print collation, print delivery, admin overhead, etc. The hourly rate of $66 per hour before taxes isn't too bad, though I suspect you'll find good commercial and wedding photographers will make several times that (though they have more overheads).

Thanks Snyper... I kinda thought the same way.

In my total time report, I included EVERYTHING (except the marketing/finding the job since it was for my son's school).

FYI we are wedding/event photographers and do VERY little work during the week (other than editing, marketing, sales etc.) so anything we can do to add to our paid work, especially during off-days, is "gravy". Our typical wedding package is around $200-250/hour for shooting and we spend about the same amount of time in PP so it works out to $100-150/hour.

Also have to mention that obviously for future shoots we'll have a better background/backdrop and will have MUCH less PP. Heck, look closely at the grass... most of it is cloned in, since there wasn't a big enough grass spot to take the shot... we shot in a 25x30 "yard" with a road about 15' away and a fence about 2' to the right of the picture, and the picture was taken almost standing in a parking lot!

the top left is a tree stump and picture an oval-shaped dirt (no grass) that extended from the tree to just past the top of the girls hat!

As I mentioned, this shoot was totally impromptu, we were not prepared for "portraits" at all.

Weekday work is nice for a wedding photographer

It's funny to hear the views of wedding shooters on youth sports/school photographers.

I think a key point being missed here is that youth sports photographers make the money in the volume that they do.

It's different horses for different courses. Last time I was in Rochester at a Kodak Summit, they were telling us how European photographers look at the American school picture day industry with envy. For whatever reason, they don't have school picture days there. In fact Kodak's DP2 (every pro lab's backbone) was created with the school/sports workflow in mind, Kodak decided it could also work for people/portrait labs.

If you don't think there's money to be made in youth sports and schools then you obviously haven't heard of Lifetouch, Haltermann, or Gump Sports.

School photography is ALL about your software and order taking. A good order taking / lab order entry system creates the efficiencies that allow youth sports and school photographers to make good money.

It's not glamourous or artistic work which may put off some people. But it's good money.

We just finished fulfilling all the orders, 14 kids total and all their parents placed the order, the least amount was $10.00, the biggest sale was $363 came from one of the kid's parent who bought 4 Platinum packages along with a mix of individual prints, total sales was $957.00. But I throw in a few surprise extras (8x10, 11x14, etc) to those who order $100 and more, I gave the big client a 16x20 and 3 8x10 for free as an appreciation and a jumbo bonus, all these freebies that I threw in also serves the purpose as promotion.

I'm very glad I did not change all those packages that I had offer, ESPECIALLY the single prints option. 2/3 of the parents went for 5x7 and 4x6 from different poses. Some of the parents are a bit tight on money so having the single print option also allow them to get atleast something, and in my book something is better than nothing, a little bit here and there added up to a big chunk of my sales. Needless to say I will continue to offer single print in different size as an option from now on.

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Here's a few from this session:

http://www.pbase.com/y​auyi/graduation

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cjcastan wrote in post #5666587
It's funny to hear the views of wedding shooters on youth sports/school photographers.

I think a key point being missed here is that youth sports photographers make the money in the volume that they do.

It's different horses for different courses. Last time I was in Rochester at a Kodak Summit, they were telling us how European photographers look at the American school picture day industry with envy. For whatever reason, they don't have school picture days there. In fact Kodak's DP2 (every pro lab's backbone) was created with the school/sports workflow in mind, Kodak decided it could also work for people/portrait labs.

If you don't think there's money to be made in youth sports and schools then you obviously haven't heard of Lifetouch, Haltermann, or Gump Sports.

School photography is ALL about your software and order taking. A good order taking / lab order entry system creates the efficiencies that allow youth sports and school photographers to make good money.

It's not glamourous or artistic work which may put off some people. But it's good money.

Now that I've done it, I'm 100% agreed with you. Another thing I have learned is that, being flexible is key, of all the parents that I asked, they ALL said having the option to order single prints from different poses instead of getting stuck with only a few big packages is very important to them.

The most time consuming process from the session I just had was sorting files, and make sure I did not mixed up or missed the orders. Once everything is sorted out and in place, it's just a matter of placing the order and upload files to the print labs. WHCC does a kicks ass job in their ordering system, and very fast shipping. I'm very impressed with the print quality and services I got from them.

Shooting kids isn't easy, especially on group shot! it's a pain in the neck to get all those kids to look at your camera at the same time, little buggers simply wont' stop moving around. if you ain't got the patience I don't think you can thrive in this type of shooting.