roxanne_davis
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Posts posted by roxanne_davis
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<p>Yes I have a website:<br>
<a href="http://www.roxannedavisphotography.com/">http://www.roxannedavisphotography.com</a><br>
I do as much marketing as I am able to. My business does well in the search results for photographers in my town, but it has just been extremely difficult to generate clients.</p>
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<p>I charge the same or slightly less for my sessions and my prints as other photographers in town who have my level of expertise.</p>
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<p>Steven, that is good in theory, but in my case I can't charge a higher photo session fee than I already do. If I did, my clients would go elsewhere because there are other good photographers in the area that charge about the same as I do now. By the time I add in my time for editing the photos I'm lucky if I make more than minimum wage.</p>
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<p>The thing that is most odd in this case is that when she booked the session, she said "There are lots of family members to take photos of so lots of photo orders for you!", so she obviously intended to order pictures herself, and she is about 60 years old, and the older the customer the more likely they are to want prints in my experience.</p>
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<p>Well that is an idea, but the price I charge is dependent on the size of the photo they order, and I'm not sure what size I would base it on.</p>
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<p>Recently, I have encountered some portrait clients that want only want digital copies of their photos and no actual prints. I would like some advice on how to handle this, and how much is reasonable to charge for it if I do it.<br />Because of the area I do business in, I can't charge a very high fee for a photo session, so a good portion of my income relies on photo sales. Because I live in a small town, there is a lot of competition for business, and the demand for photographers is not very high so business is slow, and I really need all of the photo sales I can get.<br />This is particularly a problem when I do a portrait session for a large family gathering (extended family) as I did recently. After I posted the proofs (I post my proofs on my Zenfolio website so my client can view and purchase them at their leisure), one of the family members contacted me and asked about buying just digital copies of the photos. My policy up to this point has always been that for a fee a client could buy a CD of low resolution watermarked copies of the photos the client orders prints of, but I don't sell just digital copies. In this case, they have not ordered any photos, and if I don't offer digital copies they may not buy any photos at all. They told me they love the photos, and I get the impression that it is a rare occurrence for that many members of their family to get together at once, so it is very puzzling to me that they have not bought any of the photos. The problem is, if I sell digital copies they can easily share them with the rest of the family, and if they are not low resolution and watermarked they can get their own prints made, and no one else in the family would buy any. Even if I tell them that they can't share the photos or have prints made, and to do so would be illegal, that would not deter most people from doing so. So as you can see, it is a big dilemma. Obviously I would be better off selling digital copies than selling no photos at all, but to do so under such circumstances I feel I would have to allow them to only buy a very small number of digital photos and charge a significant fee for them, but I am not even sure what would be reasonable in such a case.<br />I would greatly appreciate any advice as to the best way to handle situations like this, and if I do sell just digital copies of the photos, how many photos to allow and what to charge, or any other suggestions you may have.</p>
How do you handle clients that want digital copies of their portraits?
in Business of Photography
Posted
<p>Yes Jeff, I was around in the film days. I do spend considerable time post-production, and I have always depended on selling prints to be compensated for that time. You have made some very valid points, and I definitely need to restructure my business model.<br>
Up to this point I have always proofed all of the photos that turned out well thinking that it would help me to sell more prints, but it is very time-consuming editing that many RAW files. I think I need to set a low limit on how many photos I will offer as proofs to cut the time I spend in post-production.</p>