Photo shoot costs
If you have found yourself reading this article you are either a person looking to find out how much a photo shoot would cost or you are a photographer looking at the market and the value of the photography for your business. I am to answer both in this post on the costing and pricing of photo shoots. This does not aim to answer the price of a print or canvas but should give the reader some awareness of prices or how to price.
A photo shoot is more than a client turning up and the camera coming out for forty minutes or two hours for the duration of the shoot itself.
When pricing the photo shoot you should be fully aware that you are not just paying the wage of the photographer for their time during the actual photo shoot itself, there is more, a lot more to consider.
The basic understanding for the photo shoot is that there will be:
- A photographer
- A venue
- A camera
- Lighting
On this basis you can work out the first areas of the costing process.
To start with the essential part when you looked for a photographer you first came across them on a website or advertisement, these all cost money which is distributed between the clients as business costs, this is not on the list above nor is the telephone call you use to contact the photographer and the rates there, but also the computer and software to book in and send emails are also not listed.
The photographers time is not merely the photo shoot but also is managing the business and also making ready the studio and sets as well as the camera Prior to the photo shoot. This includes service and maintenance.
The venue can be a studio or other location and these have rental costs as well as associated maintenance costs, such as heating, lighting and insurance and there are government taxes on top.
The photographers camera is a constant cost, far from many peoples belief Digital cameras do not shoot endless images and the quality degrades on Professional cameras after a certain amount of photos have been taken. This means that the camera have to be replaced and they cost around the same as a new car. This together with Len’s add to a regular cost of the photographer who has to buy a camera annually or bi-annually
Additional photography kit that will add to the cost of a photo shoot is the lighting, not only do these lights costs on the initial purchase but also in main power and servicing.
After the photo shoot, photographers also have to carry out editing work on the photos that they have taken, depending on the shoot and client requirements this can add to the cost as the wage and costs of the photographer themselves.
Two hands
As a photographer has two hands there is only so much work that they can do in a period of a year, on the basis that the photographer will have a two week holiday, there are only 50 weeks within the year. After consideration for illness, meetings and family, this is narrowed down to around 40 weeks. Of course there is no guarantee that there will be work every week as there is a competitive market with shark photographers lurking, so we have to adjust this to remove a third of the workable weeks. Also with clients who have weddings, the shoot take around 3 weeks from start to finish.
This leaves around 26 weeks of photography work available for a photographer, or 26 clients.
Basic Cost
The basic photographer cost is based on the number of clients divided by the fixed business costs; these are the cost that the photographer has to pay regardless of if they have a client or not.
The living costs (wage) has also to me divided into the cost for the photographer and any staff they may have.
Photo shoot cost
The photo shoot cost works on the basis that they have to meet the basic costs by average over the year of photography with the clients, failure to do so mean that the photographer goes out of business.
The price of the photo shoot is based party on the use of the photographs which falls into two parts, enjoyment or gain.
Enjoyment is the family photos that you like to hang on the wall and the whole family can remember the enjoyable time they have and record history for their children’s children.
Gain is for more commercial use of the images, where a person or company may wish to use images to sell a product or person making money from the images.
These combined values are then incorporated in to the cost of each photo shoot based on the basic costs of the photography and ultimately the cost of each photo shoot.
To give a ball park figure for the cost of a photo shoot, the costs are averaged at around £500.00 per week for a professional photography business. This figure need to be divided into the total income over the twelve month period and from all the photography that the business does. This is often why there are premium costs added to print costs and other services that photographers offer clients and forcasting the actual costs and income is unreliable, unless you can see into the future that is.
None professional photo shoot costs
None professional photographer allow for photo shoots to be cheaper, with the absence of many business costs and possible income from other sources such as a full time job, the costs of living and earning a wage is diminished. For many photographers who operate in this manner the costs are very low and allow for lower shoot costs. Typically the cost for such an operation is simply the time, which is hourly waged at around £15 per hour, plus the costs of the camera and future upgrades and lastly any advertising costs that they may have.
This allows the non professional photographer to offer photo shoots on a hour by hour and cost per shoot basis, thus the average weekly income and cost division is irrelevant. I would guess that the cost would be around £30 per hour on average.
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