COSTING A PHOTO SHOOT OR ASSIGNMENT

By Loftus Viljoen and Q.Q. Africa Photography

Cameras, lenses, lighting equipment and flashes, laptops and software and a motor vehicle are all part of the tools a photographer use to produce his photos and, of course he needs an office/studio. Notwithstanding popular belief that it does not cost a photographer anything to take a photo all the aforementioned items are expenses and are very expensive.

Newcomers to the photography scene always asks the question what he or she must charge for photos or a shoot and I hope what I am saying below will help them with a determination of what they should charge. It is of no use to check out other photographers prices and decide to charge less – that is the quickest way to exit the photography market. 

Determine your fixed costs. What are they?

    Your office/studio/study – you do not get it for free [and even if you get it free now – are you going to get it free forever? No, I don’t think so]. You should work out the real costs of having that studio/office/study and to easiest way to check it out is to see what it would cost you to rent it. Let us say your space is 50 sq metres and that cost you R2400.00 per month or R120.00 per day [you will be working normal 5 day week and that is 20 days per month].  Add to this an electricity bill for R1000.00 or R50.00 per day [once again 20 working days per month]. So this gives us R170.00 per day without a single photo shot. 

·         The next item is your car: You can use the AA costings or you can go and check out a car rental for the day. Don’t be short-sighted you are going to need transport for the month whether you use the car that day or not. For your car and fuel you can add at least R200.00 per day. 

·         What about a cell phone?  Generally speaking a business cell phone with business package is going to cost you an average of R50.00 per day. 

·         Website and marketing is going to cost you at least R100.00 per day. Advertising can be very expensive with a small advert in only one glossy magazine can set you back R10,000.00 per month. 

·         Camera/lenses and lighting equipment, laptop and software: For start up you are going to need at least R200,000.00 worth of equipment - a good professional camera will set you back at least R50,000 without lenses and you will need a backup camera of the same quality as well. The amount of R200,000.00 may be conservative! This amount capitalized over 36 months means you will pay about R2,100.00 per month or R105.00 per day. If you  rent these items from rental companies as and when you need them your costs will be very high for each shoot. [Make sure that you buy a professional camera that will allow you to take at least 200,000 shutter actuations - normally a non-pro camera has a shutter lifetime of 50,000 actuations.  You will probably have to replace or upgrade your camera in 18-36 months which means that you will still be owing on your old camera by the time you need to replace it.]

·         SO FAR without firing a shot your daily fixed expenses are R625,00 per day and if you haven’t had shoot on the one day the costs should be added which brings you to R3075.00 per week or R12,300.00 per month. O, I forgot, what about insurance to cover your fledgling business?

You are not going to work for free or work just to recover your expenses, you want to live as well and therefore you need a “salary” and for this purposes we say you want to earn R100.00 per hour [yes as low as that] for yourself which means it is R800.00 per day [on normal 8 hours working day] or R2000.00 per week or R8000.00 per month.  And if you want to employ an assistant let us say for 50% of your “salary” this figure goes up to R1200.00 per day or R12,000.00 per month.

To To reach your objective or goal as set out above your “worth” is roughly R230,00 per hour. A photo shoot of say 200 photos is going to take your 200 minutes or close to 4 hours which means half of your day is gone [plus add travelling time of another 1 hour] which means you have spent  at least 5 hours on this shoot so far.  Editing 200 photos at 5 minutes per photo gives you another 1000 minutes or roughly  another 17 hours. Add to the time another 2 hours to consult with the customer before and after the shoot and in the selection process and this gives us a total of 24 hours or 3 days you have spent of this assignment and this works out at R1825,00 per day [on this module] x 3 days = R5,475.00 plus the actual costs of printing.  It works out about R25.00-R30.00 per jumbo photo.  So when you see photography packages starting at  R6,000.00 you know it is a basic price to cover that photographer’s costs.

At some stage or another you will have to replace your car, your camera or equipment and in your planning you need to "save" money to replace that. 

The above is only a guideline to new photographers - do your homework and work out your costs and expenses you need to recover it or stay out of the photography business.

Time cost a lot of money, don’t under-estimate your worth or the time you are going to spend on an assignment and don’t undercut another photographer’s price as it will come and haunt you.

Join a photography group where you can discuss ideas and where you could show your work to fellow photographers. Photographers are keen to ref customers to another photographer or post an available shoot on Facebook, but if you are an undercutter and produce sub-standard work you will not get your peers' approval.

 ©2012 Loftus Viljoen