What Do I Charge for a Portrait Session?

[Tobias Key]

Don't worry about the local market. If you were opening a restaurant, would you research local fast food prices? Turn up any rock, and a DSLR shooter will crawl out offering to shoot a wedding for $150 or do a portrait session for $50. No research needed.

Look, you can't compete on price. You have to emphasize the unique experience and quality of an 8x10 portrait session, and charge accordingly. Listen to Frank.

With all due respect this is not good advice, you always need to do your market research, and local prices across the US actually do vary quite a bit. You need to find out what your competitors are charging (and by this I mean experienced high end photographers in the portrait market, not wankers who bought a Rebel 3 days ago) - otherwise you might find you are actually under cutting people with lower costs than you. You may decide that what you offer is worth twice or three times what a high end digital photographer charges but that figure will be very different depending on where you live. Prospective clients might have visited a few websites before coming to you - as a photographer you have to understand the market and explain why you're the best option. You simply cannot do this in a vacuum, Frank's $2000 figure might be on the money, might be too expensive or too cheap for the client base you have available to you. Every large company in the US does extensive market research. Why would anyone think that a photography business is any different?

[Tobias Key]

Here's another useful link, Cheryl Jacobs Nicholai shoots 645 film but is very well respected and established, and at least has film costs of some description to deal with.

http://www.cheryljacobsportraits.com/

This guy also shoots 645 Leo Patrone

[Frank Petronio]

He is correct too, I am sure someone like Riccis charges quite a bit more between his excellent reputation and upscale locations - West Palm is going to pay a lot more than Buffalo.

Notice that most successful and famous photographers shoot a lot for free too - of their choice of subjects.

The downside is if the client is only looking for an average market-priced portrait. An 8x10 shooter can not compete with the more prevalent digital photographers. And that digital photographer, who works at this everyday, may be pretty darned good, camera snobbery aside. You have to sell people on the fact that you use film in the grand tradition and all that, it's just as much marketing as any other factor. The digital photographer might be really good at capturing more spontaneity, so people should understand, you're not going to shoot very quickly, etc.

In some more "rustic" markets I can hear them saying, "That was such a crappy photographer he had to use a fifty-year old camera, poor guy". Haha

[Old-N-Feeble]

ONE... BILLION... DOLLARS!!

Dr. Evil

[goamules]

If it's someone that just knows you're a photographer and thinks they'll get a cut-rate deal, but doesn't know the difference between 8x10 and DSLR, you might as well just ask them to buy you a dinner. If they want something unique and have the money to back it, I would say explain the difference in what you are doing compared to the competition, then triple an "average" portrait rate. And I'd do a sitting fee, plus a fee per print.

I went to a wedding last weekend, the couple had originally asked me to take the shots 6 months ago. But I never heard back, and only got the invite to attend (but not shoot) a few days ago. I found out they had a "great photographer" coming, I but brought my Leica and a m4/3 anyway, just to get some shots for myself. The photog had a DSLR and seemed to be missing all the great shots. Even when the couple kissed in the ceremony I noticed the photog was spacing out, then suddenly realized she was about to miss an important shot and zipped in there to try to catch it. Meanwhile, I was walking around getting some fantastic shots she didn't even seem aware of. It's like all she could think of was getting people sitting at their tables and cluster's of people. Basically, snapshots.

So again, sell what you can do, show some examples, ask if that's what they'd like. Then give the price.

[Jay DeFehr]

This is a very interesting subject, and I mostly agree with Frank, depending on your goals. If your goal is to run a commercial portrait studio, then Tobias makes some very good points, but if you're looking at this as a sideline, at most, then heed Frank's advice, to the letter. If someone wants to appropriate my schedule, they'll have to pay for the privilege, because I like to do what I want to do, when I want to do it -- those are very big perks of being an amateur. If you want to go pro, do your market research, draw up a business plan and all those other professional things professionals do. A photography business is a business first, or it won't be one for long.

I don't think equipment or process count for much, for most of the people, most of the time -- meaning, there are exceptions, but I don't think there are enough of them to base a business on them. That being said, an 11x14 - 16x20 print from an 8x10 negative should be a beautiful thing, and that does matter, to almost everyone, almost all the time. But here's where it gets sticky -- the more you look at things objectively, and economically (business-like), the less likely it is you'll choose 8x10 capture for those print sizes, unless......

The unless refers to the many potential factors that might mitigate in favor of 8x10, despite the objective factors that mitigate against. Maybe you feel most comfortable shooting 8x10, and moving to another format would constitute such a disruption in your work flow as to cancel out any gains you might make in shooting a smaller format, or maybe you believe the big camera really is the main attraction, and shooting something else would diminish the appeal of your work to potential clients, etc.

I doubt many people are really willing to pay a premium for the privilege of sitting in front of a big camera. Some people might choose the big camera over a more pedestrian one, all things being equal, but that's a much different proposition. I've seen a million posts and threads dedicated to the allure and built-in value of large format and "hand made" prints, but I don't see many people cashing in on that supposed allure.

[Drew Wiley]

When I used to do that kind of thing more frequently, I never charged for the studio session. I charged per print, just like any other fine print I sold, whether matted and framed or in a portfolio album or whatever. That's why they wanted me to do it. And everything was either natural light or old-school hot lights. I didn't even try to acquire a
name as a portraitist, but as a printmaker. There were even cases where exhibitions of landscape prints landed me portrait commissions! So there was never a question about me
versus the local portrait studios, who did a very good job in their own genre, but it wasn't
anything which interested me. Ironically, some folks in that business have asked me for
coaching. I don't know squat about this or that kind of lighting. I have enough basic fresnel
and Lowell lights, scrims, diffusers, etc - but it's the darkroom work that gave me the
upper hand.

[Drew Wiley]

Jay - I'd both agree and disagree with you. I really liked the combination of 8x10 film and
a 14" dagor for portrait etc work, and the big film is a joy to retouch. But I always kept the
Nikon handy too, ordinarily with an 85/1.4 wide open, and sometimes the 6x7. Print size wasn't the priority. I'm no expert at the game, so if the client wasn't comfortable with the pace (or lack thereof) of the 8X10, I could just snapshoot with the smaller cameras. It
was sometimes good side income for me. I'd hate to make a living at the game.

[Bob Hubert]

Hey Guys

This information is great. Let me add some more information on my situation. I am half way through a project where I am taking 50 portraits of people who live and work in my town. The sitters must be recommended by someone else in town and I control the final portrait. The project will be exhibited in three stages ending with a show of the final 50 at one of our local art museums. You can see more about the project at my web site www.studio-cameras.com.

During the project, I have received numerous requests to do additional portraits from people who have sent he exhibit. I do not have the time do invite everyone in for a free ride, but I would not mind taking the opportunity to establish a little bit of a reputation in the commercial world. I live in a reasonably affluent area. I just did not want to come off as a goofball being to cheap or an ass by being too expensive. All of this advice has been great and a subject that I think needs some discussion!

Bob

[jp]

Sounds like the project could be potentially good for publicity and reputation. You could tell folks this is an X dollar shoot, but because it's incidental to this important project, I'll make a nice print for Y (where Y<X).

(I'm mostly an amateur) But in today's age where printed copies are outnumbered by facebook and cellphone and computer screen background copies, I'd want the sitting to be a majority of the income for a normal non-commercial portrait. Prints are no longer necessary to family. People are going to get a print because they want a print.