aubry_jensen Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 <p>I am a professional photographer with a degree in photography. I have been asked by a company to do some "product" shots for them. They would like me to take detail shots of an emergency vehicle and trailer they have made and are trying to sell. The images will be used in a 16 page pamphlet they are making for clients and potential clients. I have no idea what to charge. This is the first time I have done anything like it. They just want the straight images. No editing by me. They have a specialist/designer that will edit them for the pamphlet. So they are paying me pretty much just to take sharp, good quality images. I have no idea what to charge. Any advice? Anyone done any work like this before?<br> thanks in advance for any advice!</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zensphoto Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 <p>What is your hourly rate? Perhaps you should charge them by the quarter hours if you think it will only take an hour to capture what you hope they are looking for up to two hours to really shoot a good couple hundred photographs they can use now and later. I know it took me two and half hours to photograph a football field I was covering for a grand opening of it. I am sure you can manage to work out a full two hours of photographs for what 150 to 200 an hour to make it worth your wild.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob_sunley Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>How about $300 per hour, min 4 hours, depending on where in the world you are. :)<br> How big is this vehicle, in studio shoot, or outside, their premises or others? Have you ever shot a vehicle this size before? Do you have lighting equipment to do this job.<br> I would have expected you already have an hourly/daily rate set for your work.</p> <p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigblankphoto Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>Seems like the client is pretty serious with a 16 page pamphlet. Not sure of their budget, but I would pull out all the stops and plan on at least 4 hours of photography. Technically the shoot is going to be a lot of problem solving so I would raise your hourly rates slightly for this one.<br> Between us; no one cares if you are a professional photographer with a photography degree. It is right up there with saying you have 35 years experience. In commercial photography the only thing that counts is results.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Laur Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>How many people will you need along to help rig up the lighting that's usually needed for this sort of thing? Do you have that sort of gear, or were you planning on renting a drive-in studio for this purpose? That's usually going to be thousands of dollars, right there. Never mind your time, or your assistants' time. <br /><br />Or, does the client understand that they're not looking for the sort of vehicle photography that normally comes out of such projects? It's easy to get sharp, detailed photos of large vehicles. It's <em>not</em> easy to get them in an environment where the surroundings that you see reflected in the vehicle's (usually large, and very shiny) panels and other surfaces, or that you see through the vehicle's windows aren't severely distracting.<br /><br />It's all of the same problem you run into while shooting a counter-top kitchen appliance, only it's at dozens of times the scale, requiring dozens of times the working space, dozens of times the backdrop and floor material, dozens of times the light and light controlling surfaces, and usualy dozens of times the <em>hours</em> and production costs. <br /><br />If, however, they're just looking for some rough shots they can use for prototype marketing material, and once they start getting some sales, they'll get into more serious finished work ... then it's a simpler and less expensive proposition. I have shot many large vehicles in that mode, where the high-end production features are outside the budget and time constraints. But it still takes hours of work, and you have to be ready to be on site all day while the outside light does different things to the space in which you're working. <br /><br />Just charge your normal hourly rate, add in your equipment rental costs, your assistants, whatever you have to use to transport gear to the scene, and price it all to take at least a full day. I <em>highly</em> recommend an advance visit to where you'll be shooting the vehicle so that you can get your head around the lenses you'll need and what the lighting issues really are. If, when you say "detail shots," you mean only shots of specific features on the vehicle/trailer (individual pieces of hardware, not the entire vehicle/trailer pair), then that's another thing entirely.<br /><br />You can certainly get more specific advice on pricing and logistics, but you're not providing anywhere near enough context/details to get more than speculation on how to approach it.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aubry_jensen Posted October 31, 2011 Author Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>Thank you everyone for the advice so far. To answer a few questions . . . no i have no done anything like this before. I have done product, in studio and such, but never this large of a scale. Also, they aren't too picky on a lot of things. As far as the lighting of the vehicle, we are planning on taking it to a airplane hanger and using that (since a lighting set up for that would be intense and finding a place to shoot it, even more difficult) So we will go to the hanger for the outside vehicle shots. As far as the details . . . There really is no room for much lighting equipment. I think I will just have to use a tripod and longer exposures.<br> As far as my hourly rate, I don't really have one for commercial/product work. I have prices for portrait sessions of all kinds but I don't even know what the going rate for this type of thing is. I guess this will be where I decide a rate and set it for the future.<br> They are guessing the shooting will take about 4 hours (not including driving time and prep work on their part) So I am thinking about 6 hours total. I don't need to rent anything and wont be doing any post editing on the images. I am torn. From your comments above I am hearing anywhere from $150-$300 an hour. What seems best considering there is no post editing involved for me? I don't think this company has a huge budget for this (otherwise they would have rented out a studio or something to that extent for the exterior vehicle shots)</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigblankphoto Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>$150.00 - $300.00 seems a little steep for just showing up with your tripod. <br /><br /><br />Since you are outside there should be plenty of room for lighting plus the nearby hangar could provide power. Better yet see if you can shoot inside the hangar.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aubry_jensen Posted October 31, 2011 Author Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>Craig, what seems like a reasonable hourly rate to you?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigblankphoto Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>Not sure. Your Cost of Doing Business is probably much different then mine. If I was to guess I would say $100.00 per hour tops.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keithdunlop Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>Are you equipped to handle this job? You're going to be photographing a large vehicle for a catalog and the plan is to do the shooting in an airplane hanger with no supplemental lighting? Longer exposures on a tripod is not a lighting solution. Commercial vehicle photography requires pretty sophisticated lighting set-ups to be accomplished professionally.</p> <p>That said, Matt's advice is spot on.</p> <p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc_david Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 <p>I would think that a job like this would run in the 5-10k bracket, but this is based on an elaborate shoot, much as Matt described it, involving gear+studio rental, assistants, pre and post production etc. Obviously if you just show up, shoot what's there and leave you won't be able to ask for much, but the result probably won't be worth much either. If you've never shot a vehicle before, maybe you should do a practice run using a similar setup to what you'll be doing for the shoot. I think you'll quickly see that shooting a vehicle is one of the most challenging things you can shoot. I tried once, for fun, and I quickly realized how difficult this was.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shane_hughes Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 <p>This is tough, because as a photographer, you price your rate to be all encompassing. Any other shoot your hourly rate would have included the post processing, and since that is a huge time expense (at least for me) that I would reduce their rate pretty significantly if I didn't have to do that portion. The actual shooting for me is only about 25-35% of my time when I do a job. So if it were me, I would reduce my costs by at least 40% of what I usually charge since the post processing would have been at least 50% of my time. If you typically charge $150/hr because you know that 1 hour of shooting = 2 hours of PP for a total of 3hrs, then really you are really only charging $50/hr. (at least that is how I explain it to clients). But even without PP I wouldn't reduce your rate by 66%, but I do think reducing it by 30-40% would be very reasonable AND still be worth it to you since you will not have much if any "after work" on this project.<br> Just my $.02</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aubry_jensen Posted November 12, 2011 Author Share Posted November 12, 2011 <p>Thank you everyone for your help! The shoot when wonderfully and I figured out all the pricing details. You all gave great advice. I really appreciate it!</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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