# First portrait shoot/



## photographyfanatic (May 10, 2009)

Hello all! I might my first potrait shoot coming up of a father and his 5 year old son. I will be shooting them at their home I am looking for some tip before I make it officail with them. I will be using a Canon EOS 40D, I have the Canon 135mm f3.5-5.6, the Canon 50mm f1.4, and the Canon 70-200mm f2.8.  Will these lenses be enough or should I get another one? After the shoot I will upload the proofs to Smugmug.  They will then just order directly from there.  How is the Smug mug print quality?  I am wondering if I should offer a photo cd of all the prints as an option to ordering indivdual prints. How would I price that? Like $500 for a cd of all images is what I am thinking. Too much? Too low? I am also thinking of charging $200 for the shoot. Any other tips would be great! Thanks


----------



## Johnboy2978 (May 11, 2009)

So you're going to charge $200 for the shoot and another $500 for a cd of hi quality images?  That sounds a little steep to me.  I wouldn't pay $700 for a simple portrait shoot w/ my family.


----------



## tsaraleksi (May 11, 2009)

Just from the tone of your post I would say that $700 is way out of line with your experience.


----------



## robertswoods (May 11, 2009)

Too much ... just my opinion


----------



## In His Image (May 11, 2009)

My opinion is too much...the going rate for amatuer photographers is anywhere from $50.-$130. for a 1-2 hour shoot.  Depending on how many frames your planning on getting, plays into it as well.  $300 in my opinion would be what I would charge for the shoot and CD by the sound of your equipment, which will be great for what your getting.


----------



## JaimeGibb (May 11, 2009)

If this is your first portrait sitting I would either do it for free or a very minimal fee (like no sitting fee and they can buy prints from you or something). You have no portfolio of work to accompany your steep price.


----------



## platano (May 11, 2009)

$700 ?????? no way. not for your first or 30th shooting. 

I rather go to Boudoir and Glamor Photography using Exotic Cars - Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley and post with 4 different exotic cars for 3 hours and get a good amount of quality pictures on CD for the same price.


----------



## photographyfanatic (May 11, 2009)

Do you guys really think that $200 for travel, 2hours of shooting, postprocessing, editing, and uploading is out of line? I really don't think so.


----------



## B Kennedy (May 11, 2009)

The $200 may not be bad depending on the amount of travel you have, but as far as the CD 500 seems excessively high.  Put yourself in your client's place, would you pay 700 for a family portrait, and not even get prints out of it?  For someone who has a very elaborate portfolio in portraits and is heavily booked as a portrait photographer(putting jobs down because they are that good) might go for 700.  I think that you won't even get the job if you told them that much, i would probably stick to no more than 300.  At best you make a little bit of cash and should you do a good job, you'll get the reference and your name out there.


----------



## MelodySoul (May 12, 2009)

I would say $200 including the CD at most considering this is your first shoot.


----------



## photographyfanatic (May 12, 2009)

Ok I totally agree that an additional $500 on top of the $200 is crazy!!! Not sure what I was smoking that morning! So what about $350 for shooting time, travel, postprocessing, editing, and then a cd of 15-20 images to print? Or should i just bag the cd all together and just charge like $150 - $200 and then let them order what they want off smugmug? 

Even though this would be my first official portrait shoot, I have been a photographer for 16 years. It is only now that I am approaching the professional side of things.


----------



## Imaginis (May 12, 2009)

photographyfanatic said:


> Ok I totally agree that an additional $500 on top of the $200 is crazy!!! Not sure what I was smoking that morning! So what about $350 for shooting time, travel, postprocessing, editing, and then a cd of 15-20 images to print? Or should i just bag the cd all together and just charge like $150 - $200 and then let them order what they want off smugmug?
> 
> Even though this would be my first official portrait shoot, I have been a photographer for 16 years. It is only now that I am approaching the professional side of things.



Find out what your client is willing to pay. If he likes your work and he is willing to pay you $700, go for it. There is no reason to sell yourself short if a client is willing to pay a higher amount because he likes what you have done so far.


----------



## Chairman7w (May 14, 2009)

Let us know how it goes, I'm eager to see the pics!


----------



## Jim Gratiot (May 14, 2009)

Imaginis said:


> Find out what your client is willing to pay. If he likes your work and he is willing to pay you $700, go for it. There is no reason to sell yourself short if a client is willing to pay a higher amount because he likes what you have done so far.


 
Gotta agree, for the most part.  If you can deliver quality photographs that _the client is happy with_, why not charge $700?  Experience per se isn't an issue... but you _do_ need to deliver quality pictures.

The general mindset of this thread (no way you should charge that much) is in part why there are so many poor photographers out there.


----------



## Johnboy2978 (May 15, 2009)

Jim Gratiot said:


> Gotta agree, for the most part.  If you can deliver quality photographs that _the client is happy with_, why not charge $700?  Experience per se isn't an issue... but you _do_ need to deliver quality pictures.
> 
> The general mindset of this thread (no way you should charge that much) is in part why there are so many poor photographers out there.



I gotta think that you are smoking the same Kronic as the OP.  Who is going to pay $700 for a simple family portrait.  A lot of people feel that you are overcharging them when you quote that price for a wedding that you spend all day/night at and then spend another 2 weeks+ editing the images.  You are talking maybe 1.5 hours of actual shooting time here and I can't imagine that the quality is going to be so phenominal that anyone is going to consider $700 thinking they got a deal.

Where do you people live?  I'm moving there and opening up a portrait studio tomorrow.


----------



## newrmdmike (May 15, 2009)

i worked charging 150 for a 2 hour shoot, and endup making around 500 on decent senior portrait jobs . . . i would never sell the actual file or neg, so i could see charging more for that.

i attended a jerry ghionis seminar where he discussed sales being slow, he raised his prices 50% and got more business.  people will pay ALOT for photos, regardless of how good the photos may or may not be.  

from a (cutthroat?) business perspective what ever price to work ratio makes the most profit is the model you should follow.

i would however expect a nice presentation, high level of professionalism, high quality prints, high quality studio and or presentation area.  People don't always know what to look for, but if your clients are paying 700 dollars you had better be able to present yourself in a manner befitting a photographer charging that for portraits.

as well as present your work in a way that makes them feel like its completely original, have a spot on personality that doesn't take off days, and be generally cool.
Jerry Ghionis

go for it if you know you can nail it, otherwise can you afford the negative review?


----------



## JE Kay (May 16, 2009)

While I see nothing wrong with the price, it's what you're pricing that is weird. The CD is meaningless, you're not shooting a CD full of images, you're shooting a portrait. How many shots you take is your problem and not something you ask the client to pay for, and quite frankly if you need to shoot a whole cd full of images for a portrait, well there's something wrong. That's a lot of wear and tear and time. I charge 600 for single formal sitting portraits and it's done in about an hour. 

The other problem is that for 700 bills for a portrait sitting, shooting with a 40D is ridiculous. If you want to charge professional formal portrait rates, then shoot with an RZ or Blad. A cropped DSLR is not a portrait camera, that's just not going to get taken seriously.

Now if you were charging say 200 for the whole thing, and they were friends of yours and it was an informal type of thing? For sure a 40D would be fine. 

_Again, nothing wrong with your price, it's just what you're offering for it._


----------



## Jim Gratiot (May 16, 2009)

Johnboy2978 said:


> I gotta think that you are smoking the same Kronic as the OP. Who is going to pay $700 for a simple family portrait. A lot of people feel that you are overcharging them when you quote that price for a wedding that you spend all day/night at and then spend another 2 weeks+ editing the images. You are talking maybe 1.5 hours of actual shooting time here and I can't imagine that the quality is going to be so phenominal that anyone is going to consider $700 thinking they got a deal.
> 
> Where do you people live? I'm moving there and opening up a portrait studio tomorrow.


 
First off, I'm not saying that in this case $700 is necessarily appropriate. I'm talking theory here.

If certain people feel that you're overcharging them... _then those aren't the clients you should be going after. _If you truly want to make money, then go after the clients who won't flinch at $700 for a family portrait. And those clients do exist.

I also find a fundamental flaw in the thinking that the actual number of hours you spend shooting has anything to do with the final price. 

When I pay a photographer to shoot a family portrait, I'm _not_ paying for a certain number of hours. I'm paying for a photograph that I can cherish for the rest of my life. If I'm ultimately happy with the final product, I don't care how many hours it took.

It's all about value. I'll use a hypothetical example from the personal coaching arena:

Coach A charges $500 for a 5-minute meeting, while Coach B charges $75 for a 3-hour session.

Using your logic, you'd take Coach B simply because he is charging a more "reasonable" rate per hour.

But suppose that:

If I used Coach A's advice, I would make an additional $25,000 per year.

But if I used Coach B's advice, I would make an additional $100 per year.

In this admitedly ridiculous example, Coach A is simply providing a better value to me. And the fact that he only took 5 minutes to get his point across means absolutely nothing to me.

My 2 cents,
Jim


----------

