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The question always arises, how much should I be charging for my time?
There are many guidelines available for what is seen as the minimum recommended rates for freelance photographers
But what are my costs vs Profit? This should give you a baseline to work with! Lets say in example one: we have a part time hobbiest or person|s wishing to start their own photographic business, and in example two: we have a full time photographer currently running or just starting his new business! We all know that decent photographic equipment is not cheap and once you have chosen your choice weapons e.g Canon | Nikon or should you wish to buy studio flashes e.g Bowens | Elinchrom etc you would then need to purchase your basic modifiers and lenses to suite your needs.
Example one: So lets start with a estimate of R50k for a basic setup of one DSLR one decent midrange lens and two very basic studio lights with an umbrella and a softbox! You now have the tools but no customers! you would now need to source some business and depending on your choice of advertising you now have added expense. The most popular form and least expensive form of advertising is Social networks e.g (facebook, twitter, myspace) etc! But is it really free? The reality is in order to use these networks to your advantage you A need an internet connection and B you need the time to spend creating your presence!
so in this example we are going to add a minimum of R500 to your monthly expenses to get your business. Lest not go any deeper here but use your own initiative and take into account any expenses you may add to this e.g (website, hosting, flyers, adwords, services, travel) etc
Now lets take those expenses and depreciate them over a year (seems a bit short but trust me with technology refreshing as quick as it does you will most likely outgrow your equipment in this time) So in this example lets take the R50k we invested for equipment and R500*12 = R6k giving us a very unrealistic and small R56k per year divide that by 12 and we have a monthly expense of R4666 per month - Great now we already know that if part time we do maybe two portrait type shoots a week giving us a total of 10 per month I would need to charge a minimum of R466.60 per customer just to break even with my Investment (the more customers we have the less the break even)
BUT WAIT we haven't really earned anything yet except maybe experience and you still have allot of work to do e.g (post processing, Editing, shoot time) etc! Now if you are already earning an income and your just starting out then great maybe you have ample free time you do or do not wish to charge for but working cheap has its pitfalls
Pitfalls of working free | cheap You now have some business coming in and your on the road to establishing a business or brand! Well done! But what are you charging for your time? It's all good and well having a means of income and doing it part time but what if you want to grow your business and start dedicating more time to photography? Now I have to look at my actual living expenses and add this into the same formula as previously discussed thereby increasing my actual break even! Suddenly the reputation for cheap work does not work in your favor as you have now built an expectation for cheap work! the moment you increase your rate as with anything people are adverse to change and will now go shopping for the next best cheap photographer to do their images.
Rather than now growing your'e business you have now decreased your clientèle! Suddenly it would have made sense to rather have charged more and accurately recovered my time and effort! If you wish to get an idea of the Base recomended charges for photography checkout Safrea take this as your staring point and build it into your expenses.
The reality of it all is we love are work and are blessed with the ability to capture moments feelings expression and colour and should be rewarded so! I know we all feel how can I charge so much when I don't feel my portfolio is up to standard or you wish it to be better before increasing my rates, but trust me whenever you get a call they have already seen some of your work and already interested in using you.
Don't feel threatened by photographers that are more advanced than you different people have different tastes and mya prefer your unique style over theirs. Yes you may get less business at first but by establishing your worth and business correctly from the start will only work to your advantage. As word of mouth and your marketing budget increases so will your business, as with anything give it the time it deserves and you will be rewarded
Next time I will focus on the example two: Most experienced photographers already have discovered what they need to charge to cover their time and expenses and some may have even felt the pinch of not charging correctly but their are far more things to be aware of Hope this has helped
Kind Regards
Paul Moore
Hi All
So the year has come to a close, and lets face it... globally what a tough year!so many things happening and too little time and money to do it.. well the good news is it's over. looking forward to starting the new year with a bang! For us as a team we are expecting some serious gfrowth and we have taken a challenge upon ourselves to develop a new form of lighting and styling..if its possible we will do it
As a starting special for the new year we have almost halved our price for the first 15 people who are wishing to either start or update their portfolio!
checkout the prices on our site and contact us for more details!
info@divineinspirations.co.za
hello,
Welcome to our blog, for featured stories and events happening within Divine Inspirations!
Among the features currently being implemented are:
Models! Dashboard
Stock! Image Bank
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Thank you!
Divine Inspirations Crew.