Help and Advice please

[gambitsgirl]

I haven’t been here a while. I had a good friend die and I stagnated. Then I did a family shoot and they didn’t order so my confidence went down. Today the people I did the shoot for told me they want to order (I’m my hardest critic). I don’t do portraits so I wouldn’t let them pay me a sitting fee up front and said “just see if they even turn out”. Now the questions are

1) OMG what do I charge for sitting fee (took 300 photos but I’m a freak and it was at a remote location – park)

2) WTH do I charge for prints?

3) I’ve been asked to make prints for the local “art trail” of local photos. WTF do I charge for those?

Really – I do this all for fun and now I’m a little freaked out.

xoxoxoxo

I’ll see if I can post some of the photos I’ve been asked to print

[gambitsgirl]

crap – how do I post photos

[Yoyo]

Charge for time at $60/hr and 100% markup on consumable materials and other expenses (i.e. photopaper cost $5, charge $10). Ok, so maybe you haven’t got all the experience needed to justify a $60/hr labor rate since you probably need to take more time to do things than a well experienced professional, but still I’d go with a “parts and labor” approach to pricing. Research what other photographers in your region are charging, and price accordingly. Have you got a business license and tax ID? Being a good photographer is only half of being a professional photographer. You also need to be a professional, which quite often seems to be the difficult part. Good luck and welcome back.

Secondly, I never figured out how to post photos here either.

[Kestrana]

To post photos use the url inside [ img] [ /img] brackets (remove spaces). You’ll want to not have too large or too big of images to display properly.

As for a sitting fee, I would just cover the cost you incurred to travel to the location + maybe 25%.

For prints, it should cover the cost of the prints. Do you know where you’re getting the prints from? Mpix is a good place to check out. Whatever you charge, you probably want to strike a balance between reasonability and profit. For our wedding photos, the prints were ridiculous – like $4 for a 3×5. But be confident in your photos – they liked them so you deserve to get a fair amount of profit.

Prints for an art trail can be more expensive. Are you selling matted prints, framed prints, plain prints? Is it at an art fair or are they hanging at a gallery?

[gambitsgirl]

crap – how do I post photos

[img]http://www.r2soccer.com/items.php?p=13555[/img]

*crosses fingers*

[gambitsgirl]

Charge for time at $60/hr and 100% markup on consumable materials and other expenses (i.e. photopaper cost $5, charge $10). Ok, so maybe you haven’t got all the experience needed to justify a $60/hr labor rate since you probably need to take more time to do things than a well experienced professional, but still I’d go with a “parts and labor” approach to pricing. Research what other photographers in your region are charging, and price accordingly. Have you got a business license and tax ID? Being a good photographer is only half of being a professional photographer. You also need to be a professional, which quite often seems to be the difficult part. Good luck and welcome back.

Secondly, I never figured out how to post photos here either.

She’s a rather good acquaintance (known for about 7 years) and she didn’t blink at $150. Christ – photographers here go from $200 – $1000 sitting fee :-/

found out how to post. About to post sample of photo shoot for them

[gambitsgirl]

To post photos use the url inside [ img] [ /img] brackets (remove spaces). You’ll want to not have too large or too big of images to display properly.

As for a sitting fee, I would just cover the cost you incurred to travel to the location + maybe 25%.

For prints, it should cover the cost of the prints. Do you know where you’re getting the prints from? Mpix is a good place to check out. Whatever you charge, you probably want to strike a balance between reasonability and profit. For our wedding photos, the prints were ridiculous – like $4 for a 3×5. But be confident in your photos – they liked them so you deserve to get a fair amount of profit.

Prints for an art trail can be more expensive. Are you selling matted prints, framed prints, plain prints? Is it at an art fair or are they hanging at a gallery?

That was my next question. I know walmart is out of the question. I’ll go check out your site. I was looking at more high end shop here ‘wolf camera” which does processing but if I can find one online that’s good too.

Also – I thought about matting the art trail photos but then also thought about a box/leaf through thing also. Each stop on the local art fair is a location in town and things are shown differently. There is a pottery stop (or a few) at the kilns. And then there is a painting stop at a frame place. There is metal works at a stop. So really – it’s up to me how I do it O_O

[Kestrana]

I would definitey check out mpix. I love their quality, and they have options for virtually any sort of matting and framing, including metal prints, canvas, etc. For the art trail I would definitely charge 100% of cost.

[gambitsgirl]

so she picks and tells me what she wants and I order.

[gambitsgirl]

I would definitey check out mpix. I love their quality, and they have options for virtually any sort of matting and framing, including metal prints, canvas, etc. For the art trail I would definitely charge 100% of cost.

just looked and it’s perfect. My site is on zenfolio and it uses mpix to order through. Now I just have to figure out how to set it up :-/. Although it charges a fee to use it through zenfolio so I’ll nose around and see what it costs to do it myself.

thank you so much

[Kestrana]

Ordering through mpix itself doesn’t have a fee other than cost. I have an mpix pro account which is a little more complicated but you might want to look into that if you’re ordering a lot.

[Farktographer]

I wholeheartedly agree with Kes that mpix is a great site to order from. I started ordering small prints from them, and when I was happy with the quality, I jumped up to a handful of 11×14’s on metallic paper – loved it. I’ve seen the quality of a lot of other photo printers and wasn’t as happy. Now I’m just sad because mpix won’t ship internationally, so I need to find a new printer in the UK.

[gambitsgirl]

ok. Thank ya’ll. What I’m going to do is get a couple of my favorites on the metallic paper to see what it is and will put those in frames (I find hopefully at flea markets) on the art trail. Pictures I wouldn’t mind hanging around here if they don’t sell. Then I’m going to make plain prints to sell for less. If people want a particular print on better paper or matted or whatever, I’ll leave an order form. This covers all aspects right? I’ll spend tonite picking out the ones I want. Thank you for the information!

[sleeping]

Unframed prints probably ought to be bagged with something stiff (cardboard etc) behind them, both to protect them from handling and because they’re a pain for people to take home otherwise, e.g. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/307334-REG/Print_File_PF1114BAG_Polyethylene_Bag_with_2.html

[gambitsgirl]

Unframed prints probably ought to be bagged with something stiff (cardboard etc) behind them, both to protect them from handling and because they’re a pain for people to take home otherwise, e.g. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/307334-REG/Print_File_PF1114BAG_Polyethylene_Bag_with_2.html

These are things I would never think of. Thank you. 😳

[Author]

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