[ Photography ] what would you charge ?

[Michael Jackson]

I'm currently a full time graphic designer for a awesome company for the last couple of months been in to photography pretty heavy mostly free lancing but business and clients are picking up so I'm a bit confused on what to set my rates at I've heard many suggestions and opinions on this matter but wanted to ask you guys if you was charging for the following ..

Parties
Photo shoots
Short Films
Portraits

Things like this what should my target price be ? Should I charge in frames or hourly rates I'm aware of packaging deals but it's the small projects that get me any productive advice would be appreciated thank you in advance.

[631]

It's pretty much up to what you like. I prefer to have an hourly rate with a small number of prints (maybe as low as 2 or 3 shots) included in the base price. Of course, there will be an additional number of prints available at an additional cost if they wish to purchase them. That is where you can make some high profit. On the hourly rate, it is set for a certain amount of time (like 2 hours, or whatever they expect the event to last). If they run long, that may be affecting my schedule for something else, and the price per hour goes way up after the time agreed upon beforehand. All this will help eliminate the waiting around while they go round up Aunt Martha's family so they can get photos of all of them "since you're here already" like you have nothing else you might want to do than wait around to get them some cheap or even free portraits.

On things like industrial shoots (like for product marketing) I vary it quite a bit from what I charge for portraits, partially because of the demands and environmental conditions, but mostly because the images will be used by them to make a profit. They are also usually more demanding about some technical aspects of the photos. You have to tailor your pricing to the type of customer.

[john]

I'm a photographer, i've just designed my own business card (this afternoon)...and all my mates and family think it's really cool...the phone has started ringing already - not for my photography services...i'm being asked to design signs for businesses and all the local kids want something really 'cool' for their facebook page...how much should I charge...

I was thinking that I could start doing cards for parties, like invitations and thank you cards, do you think I should charge per card or per hour...it would be great if you could give me some advice.

Sounds a bit off doesn't it..?