What am I worth? This is a question every new photographer ultimately asks himself. If you’ve ever wondered what you should be charging your clients and what the best way to go about it would be, keep on reading. I will go over how to determine your personal creative fee and how to present it to your client in a way that makes sense.
Welcome back to our series on pricing your commercial photography. A few weeks ago we released Part 1 of the series which explored the benefits and pitfalls of working for free. As we explored the topic it became evident that working for free has its place but in order to create a sustainable and professional industry we must educate our community on the importance of properly pricing their work. Thus in Part 2 we will begin by showing you my personal approach to laying out a commercial invoice and the thought process behind the layout.
Focus is a word we are all familiar with in photography, but is the same true in business? The purpose of focus as it relates to photography is to keep what we want to see, and to draw attention away from the things that might otherwise distract us. The concept is almost second nature to many photographers, yet seems so foreign when you see how they run their business.
There are an endless amount of options to help organize your daily tasks. Whether you are a working professional or simply a procrastinator, we have all felt the suffocating feeling of projects as they slowly begin to pile up. Some folks might be lucky enough to inherit a photographic memory or super human organizational skills, but if you are like me, you possess neither of those. Here is the best $15 I have ever spent to help keep myself organized.
Over the coming weeks I will be releasing a series of articles that will guide you step by step through the process of pricing your photography for commercial work. I will show you how to structure an invoice as well as go in depth to discuss the different parts of the invoice itself. I will show you how and why you should be using license agreements on all your work. I will even explain how you should calculate your own rates in the commercial marketplace.
Keeping your models and clients happy on set is vital to creating images that evoke the full range of emotion. Part of your job as a photographer is to bring everyone on set to a mind space that is calm and comfortable. Here are a few tips on how you can play the good host.
Photography is a dream career for many of us. The reality is, few of us can actually turn that into a full time career. We keep our regular 9-5 jobs to pay the bills and grab the odd photography gig here or there.
Every once in a while though, one of us will slip through the cracks and enjoy some moderate success. So much so, that it begins to interfere with that regular 9-5 job, and a decision must be made to transition from one career to another. Many aspiring photographers jump the gun and attempt to take on a full time career before they are actually ready. When that time comes for you here are 5 things to consider and help make sure it's the right move for you.
As a fellow commercial photographer I know that clients come to us for consistency and reliability. They hire us because when they are spending the big bucks on advertising campaigns they don’t want to leave things up to chance. It is part of our job to deliver the end product on time and free of flaws, but even a professional at the top of their game still battles with human error.
You've all seen these images. It's the knob-and-hanger set up that has become the signature style for many kids retail sites such as Zulily. What you do not see, however, are all the tools that go into creating these minimalist images. The bulk of my work as a commercial photographer is with product, one of which is children's clothing for sites like Zulily, so let me give you a sneak peek into my personal tool bag that I could not work without.
There are many factors to success in the creative industry. Of course a big chunk of it has to do with the quality of the work, but we know quality isn’t the only factor to being successful as a photographer, otherwise, there would be a lot more of us. Yet most photographers put all their efforts into developing their technical or artistic abilities and leave the entire business chunk untouched.
There have been many books written on the subject of face anatomy and how it impacts not only our perception of someone but our reaction to them as well. There are features we deem as authoritative, feminine, funny, somber, and so on. With over 7 billion people in the world we've got quite a few unique faces out there, and yet, certain features and proportions are universally and subconsciously interpreted as "appealing".
