(no subject)

[terpsichoros]

I found this on Tribe, and wanted to save it somewhere else. It's in reply to someone who wants to start doing paid photography working for starving artists. It is hard enough to make a living as a professional photographer without finding a niche that "lack the funds to pay a photographer". :-)
Here is what I suggest that you do, and what most photographers just starting out won't do:

• calculate how much money you need to make to live the lifestyle you want to live. Include personal expenses, retirement, savings, health insurance etc. Go through your checkbook and credit card statements and add things you'd like. Add in income taxes, social security taxes etc.
• calculate the expenses you need to run a photography business. Be generous as most photographers will underestimate this greatly. Include equipment insurance etc. Allow 10% of sales for marketing costs.
• Add them both up. Add profit (10%).
• Calculate the cost of the equipment you will need to buy or already own. Add them up and add a profit on the equipment of 10-15% (otherwise you might as well put the money for your equipment in the bank and earn a living without having to work)
• Add all of this up and now you know what you need to make.
• Figure out how many jobs you will be able to do each year. Allow for time to do administrative tasks (upgrade computer, buy supplies, test equipment etc). Allow for marketing time (minimum one day a week, two when you first start out). Most photographers greatly underestimate how difficult and time consuming it is to get work and overestimate how many jobs they will be able to do each year.
• How are you going to get this work? Is your marketing budget large enough?
• Add all of your expenses up and divide by the number of jobs and that tells you how much you need to charge. Now you can do a reality check and see if your target market will pay that much. Most photographers use a strategy that they want to start low "to get the business" and raise their prices later. This is often a losing strategy as the people who will pay a little for a service are the not the same that will pay a lot. You need to target the correct market in the beginning and make it work. If you target a low end market you have to drive your expenses down and bring in a volume. If you target a higher end, you must provide a memorable service.

Example, you need $100,000 per year to live your lifestyle, photo expenses, profit, etc. You want to take 2 weeks off so you have 50 weeks a year available to work. You need 1 day for marketing and 1 day for administrative each week. So you have 3 x 50 = 150 days of work each year. You can do 2 jobs per day (talk to client, set up, shoot, process, order slides, deliver etc)... actually this is tough to do and it is tough to fill all of the spaces. Still we will use that .... so you have 300 jobs per year and divide that into $100,000 = $333 per job that you have to earn. To that you have to add direct costs for the job (supplies you use, deliverables etc).
If you've come this far, great! The vast majority of photographers will say, "this is too much work, I just want to know what to charge" and won't do it. The majority of photographers will fail in the first year or two because they don't do this kind of analysis. Really you have to do it to figure out what you can charge and make a living. It will be different for everyone based on your lifestyle needs and wants and where you live. Someone in Wyoming will have a different CODB (Cost of Doing Business) than someone who lives in New York City.
Good luck!