Commercial Photography
So what exactly is commercial photography?
Well, it’s generally agreed that professional photography categories are defined by the usage of the images, so for me there are 3 types, commercial, editorial and retail.
Very few internet searches will reveal retail photographers as they generally list themselves as commercial, but it’s not correct. Retail photography is where the images are intended for the public, the high-street client. This would include wedding photography, family portraits, annual school photographs and also prints, whether these are landscapes, seascapes or fine art.
Editorial photography is where the image use is intended for newspapers and magazines. These images may be created by the publication’s own staff photographers, photo agencies like Getty, Reuters and Associated Press, or by freelance photographers either working on assignment or shooting “on spec”. Shooting “on spec” means you don’t get paid unless someone publishes the image.
The rest, and I mean everything else, is commercial photography.
This ranges from a half million dollar advertising campaign using super models to promote beauty products, to a head & shoulders image of one person to be used on a website or as a social media avatar.
So with such a diverse and wide-ranging set of possibilities, how is it possible to decide what fees to charge?
The first thing to avoid is the concept of charging by time. That can prove to be unfair to the client, but almost certainly will prove to be unfair to the photographer, the creator of the images.
Let me give an example:
A client would like some images of their products created in a studio or at their location, let’s say 10 products. The photographer estimates it would take one day to set-up lighting in the best possible way and create the images. The photographer needs to earn a given amount to live, let’s use some ridiculous figures here, so quotes the client 100 for the day. That 100 can be whatever currency you happen to work in.
On the day of the shoot things go well and due the photographer being very experienced and having spent a small fortune on the correct equipment, the images are created in half a day.
Two things might happen in this circumstance:
1. The client feels they haven’t got their money’s worth. After all the photographer said it would take a day and it’s been completed in half a day, so it’s only correct the photographer receives half the quoted fee.
2. The client thinks that as they have the photographer for the day, there are another 10 products that could do with shooting, so let’s do those as well.
The original quote was 100 for 10 products, so 10 each. In scenario 1 above if the photographer accepted the revised half-day fee, they would receive 50, or 5 for each product. In scenario 2 above the client has received 20 images for the original fee of 100, again 5 each. All of a sudden the client has twice as much value from the same day than was originally quoted. A bargain for the client then, but not too fair on the photographer. He can’t suddenly find another client to fill the rest of the day or revise his fee to reflect the client getting twice the value. If the client was happy to pay the original 10 per item then the photographer could have avoided receiving half the fee or producing twice as much by completely avoiding the red herring of time. Time is immaterial to the client. What they want is images to use
If the photographer had quoted 100 to produce up to 10 images and had produced them, then both parties would be happy.
If a client wishes to pay a photographer for their time then they are treating them as an employee. In that case they also need to provide all the equipment necessary for the employee to carry out their job. That equipment will vary by shoot but in my case it would mean anything from the 10s of thousands worth of cameras, lighting, computers and software that I have in order to carry out a variety of different shoots. Oh I also need a vehicle to put it all into as well. Not quite such an attractive proposition after all then.
This then is the reason I work for free. Yes you read that correctly. Every shoot I carry out is done for free.
My clients don’t have to provide any equipment, or pay me to turn up, create images, carry out the post-production or deliver them images to use.
What my clients do is licence the quantity of images they want to use, for a given time period, for a given use
So how do I set the fees for a vast range of different usage of images?
Well part of the equation is there is obviously a minimum amount to cover my cost of doing business, but would the fee be the same for a high-value advertising campaign and a head & shoulders image of a sole trader for a website? No.
Part of the equation is also the value to the client of the images produced. Let’s continue with the example of 100 for a day to cover costs. If a high-profile beauty product company were launching an advertising campaign included magazine advertising, billboard, ambient (railway stations etc) and point of sale, spending 20,000 a day for a super model and 500,000 on the campaign, would they expect the photographer to accept 100 for the day needed to create those images? No. In that instance the photographer might licence those images for a percentage of the media spend.
In most other cases it’s a combination of the day-rate for the photographer to stay in business and the value to the client, and also needs to take in the period the images are to be used, and the territories (countries or geographical areas) that the images will be used in.
Because the possible uses of images are so vast, it is extremely handy that an organisation like the Association of Photogrpahers devised a system that makes it clear and fair to both parties.
The way I use that system is explained on the Commercial Photography Pricing page of the blog.
