pricing staff photos

[katara_simmons]

<p>Local sheriff's office wants me to give them a quote for staff photos. About 100 images in all. Any suggestions are appreciated.</p>

<p>Thanks,<br>

Katara<br>

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[commercial photographer in]

<p>First things first, You have a very powerful website. Great job on that. As far as pricing, I would say you need to find out some more information.<br>

How many people will you be shooting? I know you said about 100 images, but is that 100 different people? Do you need any special equipment such as backdrops, lights and such, or will you be doing existing light environmental photography? How do they want them images? Do they want them on a CD, do they want 4x6 prints, 8x10 prints, or what?<br>

Standard fee, I would say is about $25.00 per hour for your time providing you don't need any special equipment. Then I would tack on an extra fee for the prints or CD's they will want delivered. I would figure out your price, by multiplying whatever you want your hourly fee to be, by how many hours you think it will take to photograph, edit, organize, print and deliver the images. Then I would tack on a fee for the images you have to print. Me personally I don't add anything extra to the cost of the prints, since my hourly rate also includes editing and printing images. Add all this together and you will have how much you sould charge.<br>

Now that's my way of figuring out prices, but someone else might have a different idea as well. Hope this helps you.</p>

<p>Frederick Claus</p>

[Charles_Webster]

<p>Frederick, I don't know where you are located, but here in Silicon Valley you can't hire someone to mow your lawn for $25/hr. Photographers who know what they are doing are ~$75-150 per hour and more if they have any reputation at all. Here $25 gets a Craigslist shooter who has a DSLR, the kit lens, no lights, and no experience.</p>

<p>Katara, you should price yourself according to the local market. Head shot sessions for realtors and lawyers here typically run $150 per head with a $5-600 minimum.</p>

<p>Either quote them a per head price or a per session price with a certain maximum number of heads per session.</p>

<p><Chas><br /></p>

[katara_simmons]

<p>Thanks for the feedback.<br>

Just to clarify some things, there are between 80-100 deputies to photograph, lighting will be required as well as an American Flag as a background. High-Res images will be delivered on disk. Photos will be shot on-location and will be scheduled in 4-6 sessions.<br>

I agree that I should quote them a per head price, but should I also include and hourly rate as well?<br>

By the way I live in a relatively small town in central FL.</p>

 

[dori_konig]

<p>Katara - i love your website, who produced it for you?</p>

[katara_simmons]

<p>Thanks Dori,<br>

I bought a template from BluDomain and did the rest myself, very easy to use and the price was right!</p>

[dale_murray2]

<p>*EDIT when I originally wrote this reply I thought it was for 200 people not 100, so basically cut everything I wrote by half. $2450-3850 for the job using $1400-2200 day rates. The per portrait fee would remain $24.50-$38.50 which is still ridiculously cheap, honestly, but this is essentially assembly line work.</p>

<p>Let me preface my post by assuming this is a situation where you will setup a backdrop and lighting and all your subjects will come to you - much like a school photo job.</p>

<p>I think the best way to approach this is with a day rate of about $1400-2200 (10 hour day), possibly more depending on your local economy.</p>

<p>If you assume you are able to get one good portrait every 10 minutes (Adults are more self conscious than children and it will take a few moments for them to compose themselves for the shot) then you are realistically looking at a 3.5 day job and eating lunch while you shoot.<br /> So the bid should be $4900-$7700 for the job, which is $24.50-$38.50 per shot - which is absurdly cheap, honestly.</p>

<p>In my case I am using a sliding per shot scale to increase participation. If I get a group of 20 or more people signed up then I will charge $70 per person and will not shoot more than 20 portraits ina day, which is giving me a $1400 day rate.</p>

<p>When figuring costs make sure you allow time for post work, granted you will be able to color balance all shots with an action and you should not have any exposture issues, but you will need to crop and sharpen each image individually - so you are looking at several hours of post work. In retrospect, having done the math, you may want to go higher than what I originally suggested.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

[alan_myers]

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>This sounds very much like an on location, "high school seniors" type of shoot. You might ask some local photogs for a quote for that, as a rough guide. I'd tack on some more on top, for the, edited/corrected, high res CD and unlimited usage... Perhaps another $500 to $600.</p>