How to price your photography
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 16. January 2012 - 6:42
Yan of http://yanphoto.com wrote a blog post: sick of it, in which she states how hard the life of a photographer is: no business, dead… Her photos are good, so why can't she get any work?
Because like most photographers, she doesn't understand the business of photography. First the facts, then the solutions.
- Photography is booming
- Photography is exploding.
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 1. November 2011 - 6:00
Yesterday was Halloween. There are a lot of stores that open just for a few weeks to sell fireworks for Halloween. PhatBoy had a Fireworks Blowout Sale. I don't think that they realized what it meant.
Fireworks Blowout Sale click on image for gallery
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 23. October 2011 - 19:10
The problem with a race to the bottom is that you might win
— Famous saying that too many people attributed to themselves
Wedding Photos: $149 click on image for gallery
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 27. July 2011 - 17:48
First anything that you put on the Internet will be borrowed and stolen whether you want it or not. Right click scripts don't really help, copyright notices can easily be removed with Photoshop's content-aware fill, too big of a copyright notice and people won't even look at the photos. Flash doesn't really help, many people don't like flash (including me) and there are hundreds of programs that take your flash stream and extract the photos for you.
So what's the solution? It's actually a few steps.
- Make the image large enough for people to see and experience the photo. The size?
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 30. June 2011 - 17:52
Crumbling HeadStones is a haunting beautiful photograph … Photograph is 11 in. by 10 in. unmatted … Photograph is custom printed using professional photography satin finish paper. Art Gallery quality! …
Price: $7 including shipping
Ad from Craig's list
I have removed the “artistic” descriptions.
- Price: $7 including shipping
- Photos are 10 by 11 inch
- Custom print
- Payments via PayPal or money order
What am I missing? Here's my costing:
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 10. May 2011 - 21:38
Most people think that they are not being paid what they are worth. In the early 1990s, Robert Half, the employment agency, did a study in the workplace asking people how they rated their own work performance, then asked the employer the same question. The result was (from memory):
- 80%+ of the employees rated themselves as good and above
- 60% of the employees were rated as average by their employers
We have a disconnect here. There are 2 reasons why you are not getting paid what you’re worth:
- You don't know what you are worth, or
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 14. April 2011 - 17:50
We are not selling a product, we're selling an emotion, so we have to capture emotion in a way that anyone can identify with.
— Toby Shingleton, American Greetings (the card company)
I live in Canada and Costco is offering 4” by 6” on special at $0.10! How much can you charge for a piece of paper?
- How will the “potential” customer relate to the photo.
- The buyer, of photos, is almost always a woman.
- Women relate mostly to their childhood, their children, and the current “fad” like the royal wedding…
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 7. April 2011 - 5:51
The difference between blueberries and apples (one bad blueberry spoils the whole bunch).
If you serve yourself blueberries by the handful, you won’t be able to inspect each one. And so just one rotten blueberry can ruin the entire bowl of cereal.
An apple is different. It’s hand picked. Pick the wrong one and it’s not such a big deal, you can just pick another. If you sell apples, then, the goal is to make the great ones great, really great. If you’re in the blueberry business, on the other hand, the goal is to eliminate defects.
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 30. March 2011 - 20:42
Ever thought of become a professional photographer, earning a living from photography? The “Dreaming of Turning Pro” will tell everything you need to know to start. The difference between the “Dreaming of Turning Pro” and the other e-books is that the “Dreaming of Turning Pro” deals with:
- How to start?
- How to get your first customer?
- Which equipment to choose? (Actually the choice has already been done for you)
- Where to promote your website? (And no, it's not Google)
- How to contact the buyers?
- What are the secrets (hint: lot of hard work and no real shortcut)
- …
Dreaming of Turning Pro, How to Earn a Living Being a Professional Photographer
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 30. March 2011 - 5:45
Last week, I spent an afternoon with Kim. I “consulted” with Kim about a year and half ago. He already started being a professional photographer, so we spent a day on how to get him going. Every few month, we’d keep in touch via email, “How are you doing… fine… blah blah…”
Kim decided to do children’s birthday parties… The children spend the afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese… He takes the photos, sometimes he prints the photos, and sometimes he gives the mothers the DVD of the photos.
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 9. March 2011 - 18:15
If you look at almost all photographers, there's a session fee that ranges from $100 to $$$$. It's either the session fee + the prints or the rights or the session fee is applied toward the cost of the prints.
Then we get to the price list:
- 4” by 6”
- 5” by 7”
- 8” by 10”
- 11” by 14”
- 16” by 20”
- …
Now charging $20, $35 or $50 for a 4” by 6” is ridiculous!
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 7. March 2011 - 18:13
Joel R. is a colleague. He been selling prints of mostly macros of flowers and bugs for the last 10 years. Don't call them bugs, he says they are insects. No, they are bugs, to be crushed. I hate bugs! In anyway, business has been slowing over the last few years. He wanted to expand in the industrial field. We spent an afternoon, I consulted (meaning I charged $$) and showed him how to start (this will be included in the soon to be released “Turning Pro” workshop) without a portfolio.
In 1½ day, he found a “could be” aka the potential customer.
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 19. February 2011 - 8:39
Facebook is the largest photo website on the Internet. There are over 30 billion photos on Facebook. The vast majority of the photos are from smart phones, iPhones and from some from point and shoot cameras. This month, Feb-2011, Facebook changed the rules for posting photos. The maximum size of the photos used to be 720 pixels wide or tall. Now, the maximum size of the photos posted on Facebook is now 2048 pixels wide or tall. This also includes a new photo viewer for paging, saving the photo to your computers…
At 720 pixels, people can print a half decent 4” by 6”.
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 10. February 2011 - 6:33
I used to be a “master” at Photoshop. But that was many, many moons ago, before the receding hairline and the white hairs on the chest and Lightroom. I need to do some Photoshop CS5. I went to a large book store, there were only 3 or 4 books on Photoshop CS5. They had many books available on Photoshop CS3 and CS4, but there are too many changes since CS3, especially the GUI and quite a few from CS4. I asked if I would get a large discount since the books were old and outdated.
Submitted by Syv Ritch on 20. January 2011 - 6:32
February is the shortest month of the year. You'd think that not much happens in February. Did you know that February is:
- American Heart Month
- Black History Month
- Canned Food Month
- Great American Pie Month
- National Cherry Month
- National Children’s Dental Health Month
- National Grapefruit Month
And for the February special days:
- National Freedom Day
- Ground Hog Day
- The Day the Music Died
- Thank a Mailman Day
- National Weatherman's Day
- Lame Duck Day
- Send a Card to a Friend Day
- Boy Scout Day
