How Do Photographers Think About Money?

A Few Thoughts on Creating Photography Products that Sell

Art on the Navaho Reservation, Gray Mountain, Arizona: Photo by the author.

OK, look. You doubt you will need a calculator for this, most of us can figure it out pretty quickly.

Question: How much do you want to pay for the things you want?

1. as little as possible?
2. as much as possible?
3. I didn’t understand the question.

I imagine that most of us chose, 1. As little as possible.

Guess what — so do our clients. They want to pay as little as they can for as much as they can get.

Wouldn’t anybody?

So understanding that we freelancers begin to think, “Well, if we start small, they will begin to realize how good and wonderful we are and will willingly open their giant wallets and throw cash at us cackling, “Take my money… you are worth every nickel. You are the god of all things digital…”

Yeah. That rarely happens.

We get stuck working for those nickels, hoping for their understanding of our value to change. And guess what, my overworked little munchkins… it NEVER does. Well, it can happen, but again, that is rare, and rare stuff is not worth talking about when we are looking for our own value propositions.

So what do we do now?

We stop chunking out small gigs for little money and make sure we start at the right price. The right price is what we need to charge for the value of our work — and the value of our time — and be able to stay in business doing what we do.

How much do you get for a headshot?

$250?
$450?
$850?

How many headshots do you have to book to make a goal of $8000 a month?

This is our goal, by the way.

We aim today for a solid $8K+ per month. Annualized, of course.

Well, at $250 per headshot, that would mean we have to do 32 headshots a month. 40 per month at $200.

It can be difficult enough to book 2 headshots a month when you are starting out, can you imagine trying to market and book 32 headshots per month? With the marketing, you would literally not have any time left to shoot, edit, and process the 32 headshots. You would end up walking in circles and chanting something like “Take me away Peter Hurley, for I have sinned”.

But if we can book 2 good-sized projects a week or one big project a week, it becomes much more doable.

Our goal is $2400 per week.

That is two half-day shoots at $1000 per, or one medium day-rate shoot at $2400 per.

That means 2 or 3 clients per week.

And voila.. goal achieved.

“But wait, Don, you pickle-brained moron… how are we going to get that kind of work,” you shout from the back of the bar.

By focusing our efforts on that kind of customer.

Look at your customer roster.

Too many restaurants do not expect to pay over $200 for 30 photographs because they have been trained to purchase volume instead of quality.

And, sadly, there are lots of underemployed folks that consider $200 for a couple of hours amazing money. They are working somewhere making $16.50 an hour, and they just got a chance to shoot pizza for $100 an hour!?!??!?!?!?!

They are part of your competition as well as the other pros you are bidding against.

Perhaps you can get a leg up on the competition by creating “Package” pricing that lets your customer know you understand their needs. And at the same time, you remove a lot of the back and forth that can take place with a regular “bid” structure.

(Don’t worry, you will have plenty of those opportunities. Packages can’t handle every possible shoot situation.)

Are you pitching headshots instead of “Influencer Packages”?
Are you looking for any old gig that can happen, or have you set your sites on something substantial? If you do that and you hold on to it with all your attention and strength, you just may be surprised by what happens next.

Are you thinking small? Because you think you have to think small in order to “break into” the business?

Because that is bogus, dudes. You gotta get gnarley and tubular with your focus… and party on!

It will be most excellent.

Have you thought about bundling? Have you thought about adding items to the packages that seem like a great deal to your customer but are a lucrative upsell for you?

Consider:

“I will shoot your headshot and full length for social media for a price of $1100. You will get four prints or files that you can use on your websites and social media accounts.”

Orrrr ….

“My social media package includes a headshot, full body shot, and poses that cover all the angles you will need. We will spend the time necessary to put you in the best light possible and make these shots do what you want them to do.

Need more customers?
We can focus on a welcoming approach that matches your demographic focus.

Need more sales?
We can help them see how passionate you are about what you do, and convey that passion to them. They will be begging you to take their money.

Whatever your needs are, we will craft an experience that will be driven to success.

Deliverables include:

Four high-resolution files ready to be used in print and media.

Four medium-resolution files for websites and online PR kits.

Four low res files for email, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram

The same files at medium resolution without a background — a “cutout” — for making social media posts, calls to action, and Instagram stories.

Let’s get together and talk about your immediate needs, and what will be needed down the road as your business keeps on growing.”

(Maybe show a cutout and get them excited about what they can do with it.)

Another crazy idea may be to offer them a “fantasy” — “hero” portrait using their image and one of the AI generators. Or make it a “painting” or a “cartoon” or so many other ways to beef up the sale without costing you much money at all.

And no matter what area of photography you are in, look for opportunities for a retainer. Retainers keep the cash flow flowing with cash.

And that is a good thing.

Major points.

Do not charge by the hour.
Charge by the value of the work.
Occasionally charge by the shot, but always look to your unpublished day rate to get the per-shot price.

EXPLAIN

If your personal day rate goal is $2400, then you have to ask yourself how many shots you can do in eight hours.

If it is large furniture on sets, perhaps two = $1000 per shot.
If it is plated food with unique styling, perhaps six = $350 per shot.
A day running all over the factory could be a project rate = $3000 (including eight photos, and additional photos at $300 per)
Client wants a buyout? Double the rate.

A fictional “Product Package”.

All packages include minimal editing; color correction, sharpening, and leveling. Cutout backgrounds are an additional $10 per shot.

25 Drop ‘n Pops, on white, 1 view: $1200 (half day)
10 shots of products, on white, 3 views each: $1600 (half-day premium)
4 Styled Product shots on white, hero shot style, $2400 (Your day rate?… Hmmm…)

Of course, the numbers could be meaningless depending on where you work. In LA or Chicago, they are low. In Albuquerque, they may be worth considering.

After all, location, Location, Location.

Shooting by the hour is painful if they try to nickel and dime you with little, crappy 2-hour shoots where they cram everything but the damned kitchen sink into that hour and are then pissed off because they didn’t look amazing. Shooting by the day is problematic because sometimes it doesn’t take all day, and then they think you owe them the remaining two hours because they “paid for it”.

Create a few package deals that alleviate the questions they may have about time and money, and save yourself from constantly rebidding these kinds of shoots.

Thinking like a business is not the same thing as thinking like an artist.

Do you think that there is $9 of coffee in that Venti?
Or did those shoe inserts really cost them $52 to make?

Picasso had less than a dollar’s worth of paint on a $10 canvas. Ya know.

We do not care about what it costs to make; we care about what it is worth to the client. And having that client think that it is worth what they paid for it because you created a simple-to-understand package price that fits their needs means more wins.

Start planning your package rate products NOW.

This photo of me is by Carol Rioux: light-painted in Calgary, BC.

Hi, I’m Don Giannatti, a photographer and mentor for up-and-coming photographers. You can find me on my website, Don Giannatti, and at my Substack site, where I also publish for creative people.