Dear Everyone,

In my last post here, I was so worried about not being able to take decent portraits of a baby for a Christmas gift that I never even considered what it would mean if they came out very well! Thanks to your kind advice, the baby portraits were so well received that I now have two different people who are asking me for my rates. I have no idea what is appropriate to charge anyone for portraits that may or may not come out very well.

One request is from a woman who is expecting a child and who would like me to come to the hospital after the birth to take pictures of the newborn and another is from the mother of a four-month old girl. I know it takes me an hour or two to take the pictures and then quite a few hours more to sort through them and do postwork.
Keeping in mind that this is Belgium, I don't suppose anyone has any idea what I should be telling these people regarding fees and such? I feel way out of my league! And yet they like my work! 

It's all quite flattering. And while it is an honour to be entrusted with creating memories of special moment's in people's lives, it is a considerable responsibility and I feel no small amount of pressure not to mess things up.

As always, your advice will prove invaluable. Best wishes to you all.

Sincerely,
Stefanie

My congratulations to Mayliah who said,

portraits were so well received that I now have two different people
who are asking me for my rates. 

That is a difficult issue (one that I would like to face!). 

Here are some ways to approach this question ...

1. Can you search for nearby photographic studios and check their rates? 

2. I followed my own advice and usually didn't find fee schedules on the
   web sites.  OTOH, 2 of the sites I checked did not charge a sitting fee, but
   instead wanted $20 to $30 for an 8 X 10 image. 

3. Some of the sites that I surveyed were willing to do extensive reworking
   of the images -- one of the examples took out the facial lines and had me
   looking at someone who might have been 16 and have not a care in the world. 

I wonder, What they would charge to make the person look like the photo?

1. As often happens, I found something I wasn't looking for ... I found a web
   site with an astonishing (astonishingly good!, that is) opening flash sequence. 

I strongly suggest visiting, "Contemporary Images" just to see how good an
internet presence can be. 

Comments, please. 

1. BTW, if these photo sessions are going to be for friends, would you
   consider no fee except for stock and processing? 

I hope this helps -- let us know what you decide and how it works -- we'll all
learn something. 

--
Martin

Firstly well done  !!!

My  only advice is cover your costs.

Take the commisions because that is what you want to do - not to make money ,
 
If you do it for the right reasons everything else will fall into place, if it is meant to be. Don't get used, but if it is something you enjoy - do it for that.

ooooops I double clicked

I only rarely have offers like this, Stefanie.  However the ones I have received came from people who saw the freebies I did for friends and at a few local events.   The last time I seriously set out to shoot for someone else, candid wedding shots for a brother-in-law, I spent so much time being concerned with what to do and shooting preliminariy shots it almost took the joy out of the actual event.  Thankgoodness, when the actual event happened I did relax and enjoy. Leading up to it was a different story.   These shots were a wedding gift, no fee.

I can't begin to reommend any sort of fee structure, whether by the print, the disc or for time involved.  I can suggest be sure of your client as best you can before investing too much into the venture.  A sudden change of  CD deadline by a local band and loss of a band member blew a photo shoot for me, after much time getting the right location and working out the details with band members.  That was unfortunate and did temper my approach to doing the work.

Best wishes and very happy for your good results in the baby shots.       TomDArt. 

Aloha Mayliah,

Congrats on getting some good shots, and being in demand!  I found myself in your predicament this year and this is how I handled it.  Like you I had no structure to what I should charge a client.  After figuring out my time spent, gas, talking with clients before hand about the shots, expenses, etc. I decided that a $50 flat fee for a sitting was not too much to ask.  Sometimes you lose money on a flat fee, because the sitting takes over an hour or so to do, and they change clothes frequently, or want to move to many different areas to shoot.  But I chalk it up as good practice for the future.

During the shoot I may take 40-50 photo's making sure I have at least 5 or 6 of the same shot.  Once downloaded to puter, I will then narrow them down to 10-20 shots that are decent enough to print.  After postworking them you may have more or less to work with.

After I have selected and postworked all the images that I'm going to use, I burn them to a CD for the client in Hi Rez.  I then charge them $10.00 a picture for the images burnt to CD.  This way the client can print out as many pics and they want, and I don't have to print pic's they don't want.  Keeps your overhead down.  True, I lose money in reprints....but for now it's really not about the money for me, just covering costs and postwork time.  I have no problems selling CD's like this as they seem to like this arrangement.  This way they can go to any photo printing shop and get the ones printed they like.  If they would have a professional come in to do this type of shoot I'm sure they would pay at least 3 times as much and not have the originals.

I think you will find that this is really a minimal charge for clients.  After all this is once in a lifetime event, and who wouldn't love some great pictures of this blessed day?  Most of the time I break even on these type shoots, but I consider the experience invaluable.

I hope this helps with the thought process...Good luck with your shots, and I hope to see some results posted if possible!!

Happy New Year,
Dave~

This sounds like a good idea, especially for someone who is just starting out like me too.

Ahhh yes quite a problem and a little embarrassing.

I've been asked by friends and rellies to shoot weddings (got to be the most stressful work a photographer can get involved in), the odd birthday, graduation etc and the same question always comes up "What do you charge?" Well they know I'm not going to charge $4000 + so I just tell them my costs only will be fine. Usually they insist on paying more and some times these 'discussions' can get a little heated lol.

I usually just tell them that the experience is enough but if they insist then how about a nice bottle of wine. The last one I did I received a 1 litre bottle of Wild Turkey Bourbon, gotta be happy with that :-).

If anyone other than rellies and friends asked I'd do a ring around to get quotes from Pro's then work out something decent for both parties.

Hope this helps and Good Luck!

Regards
Peter