[Leica] Re: Charging for photos

[harrison at mcclary.net (Harrison McClary)]

Larry,

The way I bill is pretty standard.  In the days of film the way I and 
everyone I knew worked was to bill a "day rate" or creative fee, which I 
like better as it does not tie you to a time period.  The day rates are 
pretty "standard"  Most photographers who have a similar level of 
experience and ability are usually in a pretty close area price wise.  
Most magazines have a set day rate.  We then charged for all expenses.  
Which in film days was film, processing, travel, phone, messaging 
services, food, assistants, location, models, whatever additional fees 
were incurred outside of my "professional" charges.  Now it is Digital 
fees, location fees, models, assistants and the like.

IMHO it would be kinda silly to charge a set fee and say that is it.  
One shoot may requite 3 rolls of chrome and nothing else, another may be 
10 or 15 plus assistants and special equipment rentals, models and 
location fees.  If you do not add in billing for these you go broke in a 
hard hurry.
I do not have a studio.  I deal exclusively in commercial and editorial 
photography on location.  I give detailed quotes with all expenses 
guessed at as close as possible, however should the shoot go over the 
estimate says in very plain terms additional fees will be billed.  I do 
not charge per photo I shoot, but I do charge for my time in post 
processing these shots, just like I charged for all film and processing 
when I shot film.  That fee is dependant on the number of shots yes, but 
that is simply how I track time in processing.  There is a minimum and 
then a rate after that.  Simply to cover the costs of all this digital 
stuff.  I am now the lab and fed ex so I need to be charging for that as 
I did in film days.  In my business with the three computers, large hi 
end monitors, profiling equipment, numerous DVD and CD burners, all the 
digital cameras I'd guess I have well over 35 grand tied up in stuff I 
never needed in film days.  Further more the computers and cameras get 
updated at a pace FAR greater than in film days.  I look at a new camera 
as if I am buying a years supply of film at one time...so I need to 
expense that out over the next year.  Same with this MacPro and all the 
toys that went with its purchase.

Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:
>
> Harrison,
>
> Your logic is impeccable, and, I suspect, applicable to many 
> photographers.
>
> I have not been a professional photographer for some time but the 
> practice of charging film costs for each individual shot is foreign to 
> the way I and many of my associates did business. For a number of 
> years I maintained a small office/studio on S. Park Avenue in the 
> heart of New York's photo district. Most of my sales were to specialty 
> publications (travel and marine) and for corporate reports. Many of my 
> friends did fashion photography on contract to magazines. Virtually 
> all of my sales were for specific projects, not individual pictures. I 
> may be just demonstrating my lack of familiarity with the current 
> professional climate but the only photographers I know that charge by 
> the individual picture are wedding photographers and school 
> photographers.
>
> I retired before the digital era but since I converted my personal 
> photography to digital, I have spent about $3000 on a 20" iMac, a 
> quality digital camera, and image manipulation software. Fortunately 
> many of my film lenses could be adapted to fit the digital body. I 
> have a lot of other computer equipment but the equipment I cited is 
> used almost entirely for photography. So far I have taken about 6000 
> digital images. Dividing the number of pictures into the equipment 
> cost, each picture cost me about 50 cents. Allowing for my usual 
> success rate of one in ten, were I still in business, I could 
> justifiably bill a client $5 for each exposure. 


-- 
Harrison McClary
Harrison McClary Photography
harrison@mcclary.net
http://www.mcclary.net
ImageStockSouth - Stock Photography
http://www.imagestocksouth.com
Tobacco Road: Personal Blog:
http://web.mac.com/whmcclary/iWeb/tobacco-road/Blog/Blog.html