I had a company that makes water and gas valve actuators call me yesterday to ask about shooting some of their products. They were in a real rush so we did them today. Never even had time to talked about price etc. The owner left the studio (without the files of course) happy and said to me 'Just let me know what I owe you and I'll write a check tomorrow when I pick up the CD'. This is a for use in there brochure. It is a product that they are hoping to sell on there own. Most of what they do is distrubute other companies' valves, etc.
I'm not really sure where this sits. Advertising or corporate PR? Any thoughts on a pricing structure/invoice terms/setup etc. for this anyone? Not exact prices of course.

Aloha Craig!

What I do is charge for my time including setup, breakdown, (if it's on location), travel time (if appropriate), and post production. Then I charge for each image I provide to the client. Then there's the use lisence. That is based on the quantity of brochures and range of distribution, and is per image. Or you can give them a "batch" lisence if you're feeling generous. I would say the brochure is definately an ad piece and sales tool, so they're going to be making (hopefully) lots of money from use of your images.

Aloha,
SPC II

Hi Craig,

Pricing after the fact is always a tricky and risky deal. Do you have any idea of what he planned to pay...or more importantly, does he have any idea of what the real value of what you did for him is?

Good luck and let us know what happens.

So this series of photos were of eight 'objects' total but some had multiple views created really by moving my camera angle around and some minor lighting changes. Everything was done with the same white background like the linked image.
If you charge for each image would you charge for each view of the same object or would you include a few views of that one object as part of one shot?
What would be a starting point for usage time for a company to use in brochures? One year? Two? What exactly does one years usage mean anyway? Does it mean that they can print as many copies that they can in one year? Mostly companies really don't know how many copies they are going to make or for how long they will want to use an image or for what they might use it for for that matter.
BTW. When dealing with a local company, even though they might sell internationally, they have absolutely no concept of usage and the way photography is supposed to be priced. Bringing up questions like, how long do you want to use the image, in what way, how large on the page, etc. creates anomosity right off the bat as they think you are trying to stick it up their ass. Usually they will say something like 'what do you want to know that for?, what business is it of yours what we want to use the photo for?'

I did fax them an invoice and of course he thought it was high so I did cut him a couple of hundred dollars break because I did not get them an estimate ahead of time to look at. Not totally me fault of course.

Somebody needs to conduct a photography pricing seminar where all the different scenarios can be discussed. Books are nice but they only touch on certain situations. Pricing situations always seem to come up that really don't fall into typical catagories.

Here is another question I would like to get input from photographers about. Do you let the client sit in on product photography sessions? When they can sit there and watch what you do and see how 'easy' something might look to photograph it can very quickly change there attitude about what you are worth. Especially when its a situation like this current shoot I am referring to where one object is put in and another taken out with pretty much the same light set up.
What about post production? Every let them see how you might retouch an image? Using the healing brush sure can make your job look like its too easy to do. Not worth what you charge for post prod.



http://slides.sitewelder.com/users/craigmurphy/images/craigmurphy190595.jpg

Great questions Craig...I don't have all the answers and I look forward to other replies. BUT...if this were a "swap em out" type shoot then I probably would not charge them to shoot simple variations--I might say $XX per shot including Y slight variations so they know that I have thought about it...I would charge them additional usage if they decided to use two views of the same product in their advertising. The issue of discussing usage with local clients is indeed sticky. I'll usually include "local" usage in my fees, but I make sure that it is listed on the invoice and open a discussion about different types of usage.

"One year" means one year. Technically if the company printed more brochures than they can use in a year then they have to pay additional fees for the continued use. Just thinking 'out loud,' but a better license in this case may be "Up to a single print run of XXX copies good for the life of that run"...??? John, how does this sound?

Remember--it is YOUR skill level that makes a job look "easy." It took a lot of work, studying and practice to become the professional that they are hiring. Same thing goes for post production.

Hello Gilbert,
One additional item that you might want to consider: since the client wants to use her kids and "a few other kids", you should add a bit more time into your budget. Working with kids, who are not models, can be more time consuming - especially when the parents are present.

David