Photography

[affmage source="Overstock" results="30"]Photography Rates Portraits[/affmage]
Photography Rates Portraits
photographers help please i need some advice?

okay i’m starting a business in photography i know the basics but i would like to know some secrets from real photographers ! could u fill me in some some stuff that i dont know yet. i specialize in portraits and baby photos. my prices are between 20 and 60 dollars depending on what type of session and the development prices are between 20 and 60 dollars. i dont think yahoo allows me to put a link in but my addy is
b a i l e yphotography41.w e e b l y. c o m

without spacings sorry just dont what my question deleted. could you also rate my photography so far. thank u! i shoot with a canon xsi. try my best to use natural lights. and poses. thank u!
Thank u david very well said. i never thought of that! my questions keep getting deleted thats why i keep asking the same one over and over and i can’t figure out why they are getting deleted i thought it was because of the link

You say you “know the basics”. The basics of what, running a business or of taking photos? I will not dwell too long on the business aspect, because I was never that great shakes as a business person myself. I will say that the majority of photography businesses that fail is because of poor business practices and just plain lack of knowledge and skill at running a business of any sort. Do you have a business license? Are you working with a CPA for your bookkeeping and taxes? How do you have your business structured? Unless you take precautions, a lawsuit by any customer over most anything could have dire consequences to your personal finances. You must separate your business and personal assets such as with a LLC business structure. Do you have contracts and model releases in place? Do you have proper liability insurance? Do you understand the differences in marketing and advertising?

So again, just taking photos is a minor part of a successful business.

Now, as to your photos themselves. Some of them are quite nice and show some real creative ideas and compositions, very professional looking.

However, there are also many photos that look very unprofessional with problems. These problems include:

“Dead eyes”, i.e. photos where some fill flash should have been used to put some catch lights in the eyes of your subjects.

There is a photo where you took a close up of the child’s head with obviously the wide angle portion of your lens. The head is terribly over-sized and deformed which is normal when you do this. The color balance is also not right, the overall cast is too blue.

Many of the black and white photos in the child section look too flat and grey. It appears all you did was go to greyscale or desaturate the color. They are simply very dull and unflattering. You need to learn some much better techniques to convert to black and white, such as by using channel mixer and curves, and / or using some dedicated conversion programs made for this purpose.

There are some overexposure issues here and there.

STOP tilting the camera! The angled horizons are not “artistic” and photos such as that look terrible on a wall. They make people feel they need to be holding on to something to avoid falling over. Kids are bad about the tilting the camera thing, no pro should fall into that trap.

Some composition issues here and there with trying to put your subject in the center of your frame. Seek to place your subject off center and make the entire frame of the photo have purpose, not just dead space on either side of the subject.

In the “landscape” area, delete the shot from the plane window. This shows no creative or photo skill on your part. You were just sitting in a plane seat. Anyone with any camera could have taken the same shot, and have, probably about a million times over.

The other greenish photo in “landscapes” has TERRIBLE overexposure in the upper portion.

In the “personal” section, the boots and flower are very nice. I really like them, …. but that photo of the candy on the teeth is HORRID. Please dump that. Uggh. That ruins the other photos.

Sorry, but the WORSE gallery has to be the “Edits”. The purpose of an edit to a photo is to make it look BETTER. Your edits make all the photos look WORSE. It appears all you are doing it bumping up the brightness to the point of blowing out highlight detail in some shots. The man fishing is an example of this. The sky is ruined by your edit. Also in the photos of the two girls, their faces are overexposed by your edits. Just blasting up the brightness is NOT proper editing. Also, the all too painfully obvious vignettes you are doing is just not adding anything to the photos. I see no difference at all in the “edit” of the photos of the child on the young mans shoulders, other than your name at the bottom of the photo on the edit? Also, if you want to show before and after photos, you should combine them into a single photo containing the two photos, not by forcing people to open the before, then closing that and opening the after photo. Just the fact that the photos are not arranged as such screams that your editing skill is very limited. You may actually be much more skilled at editing, but this gallery most definitely does NOT show it.

Unfortunately, your website does not allow linking directly to your photos to show specific examples on which to comment.

Obviously I have actually taken the time to really look at your site and photos. In most cases I would not bother because many people on here are not worth the effort. I feel, however, that you seriously want to do this well and you have made a real start toward that end. Again, you DO have some nice shots and you show some real promise. The problems that are there are really only those of anyone learning the craft and typically go away with time and experience.

However, you asked for advice, and I gave it. I do hope you will take it in the spirit of actually tryi

Photography Rates Portraits

Beginner rates for portrait photography?

If I were to charge by the hour and not per print, what would be a suitable rate to charge? This price would include all photos fully edited on a disk and 5 printed and framed. Lets just say my shots were up to professional standard as well, although I’m not saying they are/aren’t. There would be other options as well, such as no printing, framing, etc, but I’m just talking about this one for now.

read these two articles
one about selling on disc the other about not selling disc

http://www.prophotonut.com/2008/11/09/offering-wedding-pictures-on-disc-strategies-explained/

http://www.prophotonut.com/2008/11/21/why-you-should-not-sell-photographs-on-disc/

They are about weddings mainly but the same principle applies.

Erik Christian Photography Portfolio: Portraits





How do I charge for this type of photography session?

I have been approached by a director for a leading cosmetics company who is interested in having me photograph an event where clients will be receiving makeovers and I will be taking the before and after photos. I’m just starting out and have never done anything like this so I don’t know how to charge them. I was thinking that I would charge either a sitting fee per person or an hourly rate while offering portrait packages to the ladies receiving the makeovers. Would it be fair to offer a percentage of the portrait package sales back to the director since I would have never made the sales if it weren’t for her? If so, what percentage? Does anyone have a better idea?

Thanks in advance!!

Charge by the hour. Don’t offer portrait packages. Don’t solicit for other work while you’re working. Simply hand out a business card. If they like your work they’ll call you. Charge $125 per hour. That’s pretty much what it’s worth. Don’t charge that if you’re just sitting there and chatting with someone. You should be working the entire time. That’s what I’ve charged for commercial and people love it. Ask if you can deliver the prints on a CD or DVD. If you have to deliver high resolution 8X10s then the charge would be additional per print.
Hope that helps.

Headshot (portrait) – The 10 minute head shot