Pricing question???

[HarlessPhotography]

I am fairly new to this, and someone has asked me to do some candid pictures at an office Christmas party, but have no idea what to charge. The party will have an awards ceremony also, with about 25 people in attendance.

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

[thatsridiculous]

charge what you would for a portrait session, or two hours of shooting. it also depends on what they want afterwards, if they want files, charge appropriately. for instance, i'm shooting a 1 1/2 hour christmas party on saturday with about 40 people expected, and charging my base session fee of $200 plus $200 for medium resolution files.

[HarlessPhotography]

Heather, thanks, this party is about 4 hours. They would like all the pictures on a CD.

[BenE]

Originally Posted by HarlessPhotography

Heather, thanks, this party is about 4 hours. They would like all the pictures on a CD.

All on a CD... Priceless.

In other words, you will only be paid for your time, plus nothing for reprints, and they can have whatever they want.

My suggestion would be commercial rate, but not sure what that is in your area. I would imagine from $100 to $200 per hour. For a CD with all images, I would charge an additional $500, but I am not in a large metro area.

[my3peas]

First, you'd need to decide what your time is worth. I would then decide what I will offer them in terms of the images. Are they straight images, untouched or are they edited images? Of course, the edited images will cost me more in terms of my time, so I would charge more for those.

You need to establish your value first!

[HarlessPhotography]

All pics will be untouched.

[thatsridiculous]

just to give you an idea, of course (your pricing is based on YOUR value, and no one else's), but for that I would charge $400 simply for shooting it, and $400 for a high resolution flash drive of edited images. Corporate events will likely be all in one spot, with little adjustments needed for exposure and white balance. A lot of my wedding editing time goes into making things artistic, but for this, simple and clean is the name of the game. I'd do it for $800, knowing full well that's all i'll ever get for the images. NOW - if they want a disc of images with a full copyright release, that is, allowing them to use the photographs for things like backgrounds, headers and promotional items, I'd charge more for the disc. If its for personal, facebook, or a photo gallery, the normal high res price would apply. Like I said - that's my way of doing things, and its all subjective to your market, the event, and the value you place on your time and talent.

[TXAvi8tor]

Originally Posted by thatsridiculous

just to give you an idea, of course (your pricing is based on YOUR value, and no one else's), but for that I would charge $400 simply for shooting it, and $400 for a high resolution flash drive of edited images....its all subjective to your market, the event, and the value you place on your time and talent.

I agree, and I'd love to see photographers routinely getting $800 for an event shoot of this nature. But I think that at that price, the requesting party's eyes will roll back in their head and they will fall down.

Not saying it _should_ be that way, but that it IS, and I don't think expectations can be managed by quoting a shoot of this nature at that price in a mid-market city. They'll simply get someone else, who will likely do a worse job, thereby continuing to reinforce existing expectations.

To me, $400 for the shoot + images (run through Lightroom with a preset applied) & a release limited to what they're likely to use 'em for (employee newsletter, website, perhaps local newspaper?) is a way of establishing an expectation of paying a fair price for value.

And I'd dang sure be shooting this strobist-style, with a couple of flashes cross-lighting the venue from opposite corners, triggered and filled with my diffused on-camera strobe, and with the awards ceremony similarly and appropriately lit. For the event organizer / attendee, auxiliary lighting is one of the easiest differentiators from the "person with a camera," "casual," "CHEAP" shooter. Not to mention the superior results.

Doing so is at least a start in the right direction, as opposed to causing them to think, "Oh Heck no," and to get someone else.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

I bet in their minds that anything above $50 an hour would be a high fee since they know a joe/sarah who has a dslr that would do it for that price or less so you have to justify to them in a way why your rate is higher which indicates that you will need to bring in additional lighting. They may want "candids" but for that award ceremony they will want pretty much posed pro level shots.

As to the time committed you will need to add an hour or so at the minumum to the shoot time to do post production work (simple level adjustments and crops -there is always someone doing something on the edge that you don't catch when you shoot that needs to be cropped or ps'd out) plus your travel time to and from the venue.

If your there for 4 hours I will be that you will shot north of 400 shots and maybe a lot higher than that so do you think your shots are worth $1 or more each? So you can come from it in that direction as to figure out your pricing leves.

Since they want them on CD like mentioned above the only $$ that you will get on this gig is the shoot fee.

Also get at least 50% in advance if not the whole fee and defenitely all the money before they are handed your product.

[BenE]

Originally Posted by DEMDeepEllumMusic

I bet in their minds that anything above $50 an hour would be a high fee since they know a joe/sarah who has a dslr that would do it for that price or less so you have to justify to them in a way why your rate is higher which indicates that you will need to bring in additional lighting. They may want "candids" but for that award ceremony they will want pretty much posed pro level shots.

As to the time committed you will need to add an hour or so at the minumum to the shoot time to do post production work (simple level adjustments and crops -there is always someone doing something on the edge that you don't catch when you shoot that needs to be cropped or ps'd out) plus your travel time to and from the venue.

=============.

Good points about the production time. When I noticed the location of the OP, I thought about drive time, also. That is something many forget about... plus gas.

The point you made about lighting is also a good one. I am leaving in about 45 minutes for a similar job (awards banquet), and I spent about an hour packing my lights, checking all my equipment, and putting fresh batteries in all my wireless. It will take me about 30 minutes to set up and test everything. Then afterward I will need to pack up and drive home.

A 4 hour event can become 6 or 7 very quickly, that is (in my opinion) if it is handled in a professional manner.

I am not providing a CD. I prefer to have control of what the final print looks like. I do not want someone to take a file to a mart and have something printed, then have another potential client look at the print and say......... Well, you know.

[Flores]

just a newb question/observation:

I have seen someone shoot 'social media profile' pics, and provide them in appropriate digital size (Ie, looks like crap if you print them, but great on face book)... assuming someone were interested in a higher quality image, they were told it was available, but at a price...

Since the specific purpose of the pics was for profile images, I don't think the high end ones sold or generated much interest, but I'm wondering if the expectation was set that the CD images were GOING to be low quality (ie not worth printing), would that create the expectation that the 'courtesy/editorial' shots they hired you for could be had at a higher quality for an up charge?

I would think the point of paying someone to take pics would be so that everyone else can participate in the event, so your fee should be based on the expectation of the results as well as your time. If they want higher quality images, the total price will go up.

Don't know, just running off on my keyboard here...

[texkam]

It depends how good you are. What you are capable of delivering. Nice clean snap shots or well lit professional images. It also depends on the expectations of the client. Many clients are pretty unsophisticated and are simply looking for pictures that are in focus, reasonably exposed and reasonably composed. These type of clients don't understand why photographers want to charge so much to take a few pictures. If you shoot amazing images that use the lighting techniques discussed above, but the client is unsophisticated then you've got a problem. A lot of good info from others in this thread. Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.