We all know that you, or someone else can charge so much less than the current established photographers. There is no doubt in anyones mind. So let's explore that for a couple of minutes. I'm not here to tell you that you shouldn't reach for the stars and go for your dreams. If this is your passion, you need to do it. What I am doing here is giving you a reality check. I'm wanting you to truly understand what you are in for if you want to do this for a living, and then at the end, if you even want to do it part time.
So if you are wanting to go into photography as a full time business, here are some things you need to keep in mind, and also ask yourself:
1) The business of photography is just that. A BUSINESS! People tend to forget this. It's one of those 80/20 things. And unfortunately it isn't 80% for the fun part. It is 80% business and 20% photography. You are going to need to get your tax id, you'll need to open a business checking account (for the simple fact that in order to get any discounts from the good photography suppliers, you're going to need it), you'll need to register your business name with the state, or if I wanted to, i could see your really neat studio or business name, come along and register it, and come to you and say i have that name registered with the state and you would have to change it. Getting the idea? Now, with all that paper work filled out and submitted, you'll have to start submitting your monthly sales tax, which could eventually lead into a quarterly submission. Then you'll be filing on your annual income tax. BUT, this isn't all together a bad thing, because you'll definately be taking a loss for awhile, so it will bring your taxable income down. Oh ya, you need to keep every receipt, keep track of every mile you drive for your business, etc... Ok, so that's where the 80% starts to take place. The other part of the 80% comes in the form of marketing, advertising and things like that. We all want to just use word of mouth, but when you are starting against the established guys, you have to spend some time doing that stuff. Somewhere inbetween all of that, you do get to spend your 20% doing the fun stuff.
2) Most people will start off with the idea that they will just charge like $45 for a session and give the client the disk of images, and let them make the prints themselves. So let's go on that assumption. It is cheaper by far than what the other guys are charging. So if you are planning on doing this for a living, the first thing you need to do is ask yourself, how much do you want to take home each year... what do you want your salary to be? Just for the ease of the thing, let's say $20,000. In Boise, that's reasonable unless you're giving up a great job. But, for a photographer starting off in his first year, that's almost a dream, but let's use it anyway.
So the thing you need to ask yourself now is do you want to take anytime off the first year? If you have kids that are school age, do you take family vacations during the summer? For this example, we'll say you normally take 1 week. So here's the basic breakdown so far:
20,000 a year
51 weeks
= $392.00 week
= 9 sessions a week
= 1.25 sessions a day
Now, if we break it down like that, 1.25 sessions a day doesn't sound like much. Remembering this is $45 a session, giving the disk with the images away. But let's be a little more realistic. This is 7 days a week. Ask yourself if you want to work 7 days a week. Ok, you're a go getter, so you're willing to do that the first year. I applaude you. This is assuming you can get 1.25 sessions every day, without missing a day except that 1 week of vacation time.
Now, the next thing you need to ask yourself, is are you strictly going to be shooting on location? Like outdoors so that you don't have to go to the expense of buying studio lights, and everything else that goes along with getting that to work properly? If the answer is yes there, here's something that is a little more realistic.
January, traditionally dead, studio or not. It's dead. Photographers pretty much plan on not doing anything, but if they get business they aren't going to turn it away. December is pretty good if you have a studio, but I've still had people want to do stuff outside. You just have to be quick when you shoot. But nowhere near enough to consider doing 1 a day. Same way with November. February, still cold as you know what. If March warms up, let's say that you start getting your customer base back up. So now we're down 17 weeks out of the year.
20,000
35 weeks
=777.00
=111 sessions a week
=15 sessions a day
Again, that is 7 days a week. So you kind of see where I'm going with this.
The other drawback about giving the disk to your client, is that you don't know where they are going to print your images at. If they do it at home, and their printer isn't calibrated, or they use bad paper, poor ink, etc... and your images come out looking terrible, they show someone the pictures, the person looking at them isn't going to say "oh the paper is bad and the ink quality is bad", they are going to say the photographer wasn't any good. Gauranteed. I'm not just saying that. Another photographer might say that, but the general public doesn't think like that. You know the saying "any word of mouth is word of mouth, good or bad". Ok, it's a combination of sayings. So, if you do that, you're taking a big chance. Why do I bring that up now? It is going to become clear, but it has to do with that $45 session and giving away the disk not working in the above scenario.
3) In the Boise area (Treasure Valley) one of the problems you'll run into if you are solely shooting environmental, is that when it comes to high school seniors, you are going to somehow have to come up with a way to get the year book pictures done. Right now, I know there is one or two schools that allow for an environmental shot to be used, there are 2 schools that shoot the tux and drape shot themselves, but the rest are requiring the seniors to have their head shots to be done by a photographer. So while you can do the Seniors outdoor shots, how are you going to do their actual yearbook picture? Now, while you can charge them however much for their session, you can refer them to another photographer for their head shot. If you can work out somesort of a relationship with another photographer, you might be able to work a deal. Otherwise, you are going to find that a photographer is going to charge $50+ to just shoot the headshot for the yearbook. More than likely on the + side. So, if you are honest with your customer, you are going to tell them that your session is going to cost $xx, but then their headshot for the yearbook is going to cost them at least $xx. More than likely you're going to lose business for the simple fact that people are going to go ahead and go someplace that can take care of all of it.
4) Which leads us into the "I'll buy studio lights". That isn't a problem either. It can be done. I've known plenty of people who set up in their homes, then tear down, or set up in their garage, or somehow make it work. The cost of studio lights can run anywhere from $500-$2000. It's up to you on how much you spend. Again, do your research. Make sure you're going to be able to shoot straight out of the package. Are you going to need instruction from someone, and if so, where are you going to get it? If you are the type that can read about the different types of lighting (there are so many), and learn that way, that's a good thing. Then you'll need a background. The schools require a certain color. Luckily they all require the same color. But that is probably going to run you around $80+. You're going to need someway to hold it up, but that can be fairly inexpensive. On the cost of the lights, if you are going to be in this for the long haul, get the best you can afford. You won't get your money back out of them. If you spend $500 on a set of lights, no one is going to give you $500 on a used set of lights when they can buy a band new set of lights for $500. And Boise isn't exactly the mecca of photographers looking for used equipment. So can you see where I'm going with cost and your prices? What was once a $45 session giving away a disk, breaking down the number of session per day, to suddenly, possibly having to add equipment, increasing your cost... (NOTE: You will want to check your instruction book that came with your camera. Some DSLR's aren't equipped to automatically shoot with studio lights. In this case, you are going to have to purchase something along the lines of a Pocket Wizard, which allows you to "fire" your lights. One will attach to your light, and one to your camera. This will add another $300 or so. Remember you will need two of them. Also, you can just play around with your lights to get what you think is the right look with shadows and stuff, or you can buy a good light meter to get it right the first time. There is another $200+. So again, the cost just keeps adding up)
5) Increasing your cost: Speaking of which... How old is your camera right now? How old is your computer? If you don't have an external hard drive, you need to get one. And honestly, every session you shoot, in addition to moving it to your external hard drive, you need to be copying it to a disk. If you aren't getting it off your main hard drive, and you are shooting a ton of sessions, your computer is going to bog down. Ideally you will have a computer dedicated to your business (good thing is that it may be a write off, check with your accountant). If you are starting to use your camera more, the greater chance of having to send it in for a possible repair. Do you have a back up? If your computer goes down, hopefully you have backed up all your images in case your external hard drive bites it. These aren't things that are to scare you, these are things you can ask any professional photographer about, and they will tell you horror stories about. Showing up at a wedding and having their main camera go down, and if it wasn't for their back up.... That kind of stuff.
6) For those of you wanting to start a full time business, the outlay of $$ never ends. Again, this isn't to scare you off from following your dream. It's a reality check. Know that in the beginning you will spend more time at home when your family isn't there, and less time at home when they are there. As time passes and you become established, you can call the shots and say you won't work past 5:00, or on weekends, or however you want to work it. But at the beginning, can you really afford to pass up on a session? So do your homework.
7) On the idea of charging for prints. If you have someplace that charges say $3.00 for an 8x10, you can't charge $6.00 for that print and get away with it. Again, start adding everything up. How many 8x10's are you going to have to sell to make the salary you want? Even in addition to the session fee you want to charge. Even if you're making your bills this month, what happens during the months when nothing is happening? December, January, etc... What happens when your camera finally dies on you? Ya, you paid maybe $2000.00 for it, but that doesn't gaurantee that it isn't going to break down. I just put a roll of black and white film in a 20 year old film camera that works like a charm. On the other hand, i have a 10 year old digital camera that I can tell maybe has another year on it if I'm lucky. Digital cameras have limited life spans on them. Don't shoot less, shoot like you normally would. Most digital cameras are rated to get 100,000 shutter releases. Some of those get less, but most get more. But there are other things that can go wrong sometimes. So don't think of your business and the amount you charges as of "if I charge this much, I can pay these bills this month". Think of it as "If I charge this month, I can pay these bills for the next 6 months plus pay for anything extra that comes my way". Figure all of that in to what you charge.
8) Part timers: You may not feel like all of this pertains to you. A lot of it does. Equipment if still going to break down on you. The quality of prints people show others are still going to effect your word of mouth, so take a lot of that to heart.
9) The thing you need to worry about, is if you are fortunate to be able to stay home with your children during the day, and you are photographing other children, if you are taking your children to the session with you, you have to make sure that they aren't constantly crawling on you interrupting you as you shoot. If you are photographing other children, hopefully you are down on your knees at there level most of the time. So if your children are at the age where they are going to crawl on your back are tackle you from the side, or want to play with the other kids, and make it hard for you to do your job, it's not going to be as easy as you thought. And even though your kids are the greatest kids in the world at home, Murphy's Law is going to kick in as soon as you break that camera out and start to photograph other kids. They will go from the angel that everyone in the world knows, to Satan's little helper, than no one in the world would know. So be prepared.
10) The other hard part, is that when you start to really get good, you are going to find that all the other parents who want you to photograph for them will have kids that are school age, so they need you after school. Well, suddenly that starts to put you later in the day. Even if you don't have kids that age, you are suddenly working later and later. At first it isn't a problem, plus it's extra spending money. Then it's can you maybe do it on Saturday. "Well, it's a good friend". Then it's another good friend on a Saturday. Well, then you know someone who wants a sunset shot at the lake. It would be so beautiful. Then suddenly it's no fun anymore, and the money isn't worth it, so you stop. Well, you have to ask yourself is it that it isn't fun, or do you want to just go back to doing it during the week day? Maybe charge more, and set specific guidelines... You have that option.
Overall, please remember that there are reasons that professional photographers charge so much. I hope some of these examples help you to understand why. Some of the things I didn't add are that the majority of us attend continuing education courses throughout the year. (you didn't know they even existed did you). They aren't cheap, and they cost to get there, plus the hotel cost, etc... That's how we stay ahead of the competition. Just like any other business, we have to make a living. We all know that a Big Mac meal doesn't cost McDonalds anywhere near $5.00, but we still go there. They probably have a bigger mark-up than we do if the truth be known.
The cost of equipment insurance alone would blow your mind. So things like that aren't even taken into consideration. There is a lot more than just taking pictures involved in being a professional photographer. Again, please please pleas follow your dreams. But go into this understanding what it's about. As soon as it stops being fun, get out of the business, and start shooting for fun again. As a matter of fact, never stop shooting for fun. In the midst of the 80% business, always keep shooting fun. The first time you go to a session and think anything along the lines of "what am i doing here", get out!
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