[68wSteve]

Howdy All,

So im getting ready to do my first paid shoot of a family and infant. I have been looking on the internet about pricing and what not. Also with how people pay for full release of rights for printing by the customer. So im still a little baffled but here is what i came up with. If people could please give me their in put it would be much appreciated.

Whitford Photography

Pricing and Packages

Family Starter Plan
1Hour Studio/Outdoor Shooting
(20) Wallets (Choose from 2 Pictures 10Ea)
(10) 4x6 (Choose up to 10 Different Pictures)
(3) 5x7 (Choose up to 3 Different Pictures)
(1) 6x8
(1) 8x10
$75
Additional Time Pro-rated at $20Hr

Family Advanced Plan
*Starter Plan +
(2) 5x7
(2) 8x10
(1) 11x14
$100


Family Keeper Plan
1Hour Studio/Outdoor Shooting
DVD of All Pictures at Full Resolution for Self Printing
Reproduction Release Form
$200
Additional Time Pro-Rated $20Hr

Additional Prints:
5x7 $2
6X8 $4
8X10 $6
11x14 $15

Customer will allow Whitford Photography to use pictures for display in portfolio on Pbase.com/whitford_photography and Facebook.com. Whitford Photography will obtain a written release form if needed, when submitting pictures to Photography contests.

Also... Here is a sample release form i found.

"This agreement is entered into between __________________________, hereinafter Photographer, and __________________________ and _________________________, herein after customer.

In acknowledgement of payment in full for photography services performed on (insert date/dates) in the amount of ___________, the Photographer hereby grants to the Customer unlimited reproduction rights to the photographs for personal (non-commercial) use . The Photographer also acknowledges that the Customer owns the copyright of images commissioned for domestic use (for example, family portraits, wedding photos etc). The Photographer claims a "right of restraint" to prohibit the use of images commissioned for domestic use being used for commercial purposes without prior written agreement. Where images are commissioned for commercial use, the Customer acknowledges that the copyright is owned by the Photographer and subsequent use will be as agreed. Requests for commercial use of photographs are to be submitted for approval. An additional fee may be payable.

Photographer reserves the right to prohibit the copying of a cd/dvd containing the photographs where the cd/dvd contains a presentation produced by Photographer.

The Customer hereby indemnifies the Photographer against any claims and damages, including reasonable legal fees, arising from the Customer's use of the photographs and the Photographer's use of any material under instruction from the Customer.

The Customer hereby grants to the Photographer the right to use any image taken as a result of this agreement for display in the Photographer's portfolio, exhibitions, competitions and other promotions of the Photographer's work. The Photographer agrees that he will act on a reasonable written request from the Customer that particular photographs not be used for these purposes. Other than for these purposes, the Photographer agrees that no commercial or product promotion use will be made of the photographs unless agreed to in writing by the Client and/or the person(s) indentifiable in the photograph(s)."

All parties date and sign.
Source(s):
pro photographer

[joeyc]

Hey Steve,

At first glance, I think you 'underpriced' your time. I've not done portraits, but I try to value my time between $70-100 an hour (including PP). My work is mainly product and commercial type shooting, but the premise should be the same. While I typically charge by the project (and not hourly), I do use a formula that takes my hourly rate into account - usually starting at $100 hour - which gives me room for negotiation. Is your time only worth $20 an hour? There is a fine line between charging an attractive price (to get interest) and undercutting yourself. I think you need to bump the prices a bit. You'll spend more time than you plan to. I promise.

[joeyc]

Also, I would leave your usage rights simply at professional/personal portfolio and not limit yourself to pbase or facebook. That is too specific and gives you no room to change your medium. And frankly, the customer probably doesn't care if you use pbase or zenfolio or whatever. As long as your not intending to make additional money off the shots of them, I don't think they will care.

[George Lama]

I can't comment on whether you're packages as a service (your time) are under-priced because I'm not sure of the going rate for photographers in SK. Perhaps you should look at what photographers in your area are charging and base it on that.

I can tell you that it looks like you are giving way too many images for the price of the package. Print costs are pretty standard but might be even more expensive in SK. Think of this:
* You need to first consider what is that hour worth to you. Don't think of it as whether you want to get paid $20 an hour, $30 an hour, etc. Think of how much you want to get paid for that hour plus how much time will it take you to process the images and get them ready for print.

* You have to order the prints and pay for them. I looked at your printing costs based on Mpix published prices only because I don't know your local cost, but you will spend about $20.00 in printing.

* If you have packaging for the photos, little boxes for the wallets, burn CD proofs, print proofs for them, etc - all that should be figured into your pricing.


At $75 a package, minus print costs, that leaves you with $55.00. If you have a one hour session, plus setup time, plus the time to prep the photos for proofing, plus discussing with the family what they want to order, ordering time, preparing the photos to deliver them... I'm sure you get it - you don't want to end up doing all that work for $10 bucks an hour. You also don't want to get known as the cheap guy either.

Do some research in your area and see what the going rate is, then rethink your pricing based on where you want to be.

Hope this helps :-)

Here in the US I get $100/hour in studio. For location it's $100/hour + travel time/expenses. That's when I want work. Otherwise it's way more. And even then I still got bookings at the higher pricing.

[68wSteve]

Well after looking on here and talking to somebody else here is what i came up with and gave the customer. I can alway change after this one. The studio i use is provide at another base for $5 so setup is pretty much nothing. Just go in, shoot and im done. As far as other places in the area, they are all korean places but only looked for printing prices not studio prices. So well see how this goes, what they order or how they feel and make adjustments from there. Thanks for the input. Below are new changes

Whitford Photography

Pricing and Packaging

Basic Plan
1Hour Studio/Outdoor Shooting
CD of 5 Full Resolution Pictures for Self Printing
$75

Family Starter Plan
1Hour Studio/Outdoor Shooting
(10) Wallets (Choose from 2 Pictures)
(5) 4x6 (Choose up to 5 Different Pictures)
(5) 5x7 (Choose up to 3 Different Pictures)
(1) 8x10
$125
Family Advanced Plan
*Starter Plan +
(2) 5x7
(2) 8x10
(1) 11x14
$150
Family Keeper Plan
1Hour Studio/Outdoor Shooting
DVD of All Pictures at Full Resolution for Self Printing
Reproduction Release Form
$250

Additional Time (Any Package) Pro-Rated $50Hr

Additional Prints:
5x7 $2
6X8 $4
8X10 $6
11x14 $20
Customer will allow Whitford Photography to use pictures for display in portfolio. Whitford Photography will obtain a written release form if needed, when submitting pictures to Photography contests.

[cwood]

Do I read this right?

Your basic plan is the same as your "family starter plan" except the "basic plan" comes with a CD where they can print their own images at walmart for $0.15 and the "Family Starter Plan" comes with $2 worth of prints for an extra $50?

I'm not sure why anyone would "upgrade" from the basic plan if that is the case. You should be selling the CD separately.

I think if I were you I would go with a flat rate for time and then offer different print packages with a CD of images worth more than anything else.

[MJB DIGITAL]

what kind of currency are we talking here?

[68wSteve]

All prices are in USD. Most of my work right now is for other soldiers stationed here in korea

[George Lama]

You are in a unique situation, not just because of your location, but because of the customers you serve.

You understand better than most of us what the economics of base living are all about, so you should price accordingly.

[MJB DIGITAL]

Customer will allow Whitford Photography to use pictures for display in portfolio. Whitford Photography will obtain a written release form if needed, when submitting pictures to Photography contests.

You should have a model release for EVERY portrait you make. That way, when it comes time to enter the contest, you don't have to track down your client and get the form.

This might be trivial, but I think it might be illegal to sell a client their own portrait without having written permission to sell their image to anyone whether it be them or not. Not sure about that though...and it's not like you would get busted for that....