Oh Boy!...

GGJr, yes, I subscribed to the Inner Circle for a short time. I also called and spoke at length with Gregory (?) in Brownsville TX, (apparantly C Lewis's star pupil.) And I have adopted many of the strategies he puts forth. They work for me. I can't wait to upgrade to showing on a 50" screen, projecting images!

When I took all the small prints off my walls, and nothing smaller than 16x20, and a couple 40x50s, along with 20x24s, and 24x30s, my wall portrait sales jumped about 600% per number of clients! A very good investment. Same thing with offering the canvas prints.

So, as for pricing, I did research a few years back, and got prices from other photographers in the area. And I compared their work with mine. From there I set my prices to be comparable with an average of those in the mid-high-end range. And for the past 2 years have been raising my prices 2x per year, a-la-Charles Lewis.

The "formula" usually refered to that I am aware of says you take the cost of your product, (prints), the pro-rated overhead per session. (rent, phone, electricity, insurance, etc), then figure out how much your time is worth, and if you have any helpers, then add a profit for the business. And be honest about how much time you realloy put into producing your photography: shooting, editing, post production, pre consulting, transporting to and from...

Hope that helps.

Aloha,
SPC II

StanCox:
Oh Boy!...

GGJr, yes, I subscribed to the Inner Circle for a short time. I also called and spoke at length with Gregory (?) in Brownsville TX, (apparantly C Lewis's star pupil.) And I have adopted many of the strategies he puts forth. They work for me. I can't wait to upgrade to showing on a 50" screen, projecting images!

When I took all the small prints off my walls, and nothing smaller than 16x20, and a couple 40x50s, along with 20x24s, and 24x30s, my wall portrait sales jumped about 600% per number of clients! A very good investment. Same thing with offering the canvas prints.

So, as for pricing, I did research a few years back, and got prices from other photographers in the area. And I compared their work with mine. From there I set my prices to be comparable with an average of those in the mid-high-end range. And for the past 2 years have been raising my prices 2x per year, a-la-Charles Lewis.

The "formula" usually refered to that I am aware of says you take the cost of your product, (prints), the pro-rated overhead per session. (rent, phone, electricity, insurance, etc), then figure out how much your time is worth, and if you have any helpers, then add a profit for the business. And be honest about how much time you realloy put into producing your photography: shooting, editing, post production, pre consulting, transporting to and from...

Hope that helps.

Aloha,
SPC II
I am familiar with that methodology. The part that still throws me is how do you pro-rate overhead if you don't have historical data to go on? How do I know how many sessions per month or year I will do until I do them and as I do more sessions the target will move. It seems to be a catch 22 for me.

Aloha GGJR!

Well, that's a tough one, so use the comparative analysis method, and find where your work places, and start there.

SPC II