What is Digg?68 Comments
- tobikow, on 10/25/2007, -1/+52Too bad most schools only hire photographers from monopolistic companies like Lifetouch...
- DickBaker, on 10/22/2007, -0/+25milossr, your article caught my eye. I've been a professional photographer for 30 years, and have charged as much as $5000 a day (plus expenses, assistants, etc) for my work.
But there's no way I could do school portraits. Hell, it's been over twenty years since I shot a wedding for a friend, and that was a drag.
There's money, and there's enjoying what you do. Having both is key. - optimus_maximus, on 10/22/2007, -0/+23I'm a wedding photographer and here in LA it is common to make $300/hour (about my rates after my first year). The best in the field make over $1000/hour, often charging 10-20K for one day of work.
my rates after one year (started at $1000 and it keeps going up with demand and referrals):
http://www.gavinphotography.com/photography-packag ...
Photographers that charge 10K to start, just here in LA:
Joe Photo, Ira liptke, David Jay, Joe Buissink, Jim Kennedy, Carillo
and many more that I can't pull off the top of my head - gregfadein, on 10/21/2007, -0/+17According to http://www.westegg.com/inflation/, $160.62.
"$25 thanks to bu$h"
If Bush could cause that much deflation, nonupling the value of the dollar, not only would we all be very, very rich Americans, but I think I could even forgive him for Iraq. - Zenithan, on 10/21/2007, -0/+14$159.88, according to http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
- inactive, on 10/22/2007, -0/+14Yeah but the thing is school picture day isn't every day, just a few times a year. You may make the 8000 in a day then spend a few weeks sorting out the pictures, then you have to cover the equipment costs and paying your assistants and all that.
- Mononuclear, on 10/22/2007, -1/+13This fails to take into account all the other work you have to do. Just taking the pictures is not the entire job. There is no way they make $1,000 an hour if you count the total hours they work to get paid for the picture and just the act of taking them.
- gothicform, on 10/22/2007, -0/+12My best selling photograph ever has made me about £11,000 so far (average cost per license = £375). If your work is good, and I mean really good, you can make a fortune from a select few pieces alone. The idea of working all day every day snapping student portraits doing photography thats soul numbingly bad is just plain dumb compared to the idea you could actually become good and talented and build up a body of work that sells so well you don't have to get out of bed.
- inactive, on 10/25/2007, -0/+11haha yesterday at my girlfriends homecoming we were standing in front of the picture room (lifetouch) for about 20 minutes and they didnt get a single customer. Too expensive. The cheapest package was 20 bucks for some ***** keychains.
- joegibes, on 10/22/2007, -0/+9Plus, Lifetouch photographers are more like Camera Operators -- they just press the button.
- cyberflas, on 10/22/2007, -0/+6Not really. I recently got a lawyer bill and he charged me $250 for mailing a letter and $50 per phone call he made on my behalf. He did less than an hours work and charged me $2,000. Don't even bring up the retainer fee (a monthly charge that tells the world you have a lawyer.)
For future reference, please refrain from making comments about legal fees if you have no experience with them. - DickBaker, on 10/21/2007, -1/+7"When I joined the service in 1978, court reporters made an average of $50 per hour. How much would that be in today's dollars?"
Roughly $125. - jhshukla, on 10/22/2007, -0/+6but how often do they get that chance? once a year. alright, they may go to multiple schools. how many? 3-4? 10? what about the post processing effort, i.e. simply time taken to produce the deliverable? and keep in mind that I am totally ignoring material, software and rent costs.
Overall, it sounds like a very profitable business but not as outrageous as the title makes it sound. - cyberflas, on 10/22/2007, -0/+5You sir are not a physician and you are grossly uninformed.
- neutrascrub, on 10/22/2007, -0/+4IT'S OVER 9000!!!!!
- amneosis, on 10/21/2007, -0/+4Banking/ M&A lawyers can easily charge $1,000/hour without breaking a sweat.
- iChainsaw, on 10/21/2007, -0/+4over nine thousand yen.
- gothicform, on 10/22/2007, -0/+4I find that what you need to do is take a good photograph and then put it on your popular website. License it under the creative commons 2.5 non commercial license and then actually encourage other people in the licensing terms to hotlink to you directly, don't worry about bandwidth theft. If your work is good then hundreds of personal websites will hotlink to you over time driving your work to the very top of Google images but will only work if your images are absolutely top spec. I get about 45,000 visitors a month from google images alone. Honest companies searching for specific things will find the photographs and then approach you offering you money for the rights for them to use it in things ranging from say exhibition display pieces and magazines to their own websites. Also digitally watermark said images and pay someone to spider the web looking for them and then send bills to every company stupid enough to not have a license - at any one time I have about a dozen of these going on. All you have to do is be good enough for people to want to use your photography and they will, some will be honest about it and pay up, and others will be dishonest and get sued but either way you win.
- reddikilowatt, on 10/22/2007, -0/+4@dfick
Look around you. There are hundreds of pictures in your home. You may or may not notice them, but there they are. Industrial photography is a huge business, but it's not glamorous. And, yes, there aren't enough good photographers out there. Just like there aren't enough good musicians (although that is quickly becoming moot, with the industry just recycling old stuff all the time), artists, or writers. Just lots and lots of bad amateurs, and a few average ones who are able to make money at it.
And remember that you will likely go to work for someone else. Take that $50-60 and double it with benefits and insurance costs, workspace, etc. - Mononuclear, on 10/22/2007, -1/+4Your $300 an hour is just what you charge while you shoot pictures.. Then all the processing and other work you do for free. Totaling all your work it ends up being much less than $300 an hour.
- catalysis, on 10/21/2007, -1/+4I'm pretty sure you need connections to get a gig doing school pictures. Like relative or business associate of a school board member or the principal, etc.. It's kind of like a government contract job.
- codered1322, on 10/22/2007, -0/+3You can make a lot photographing weddings. A lot of people now hire someone to go around and take candid photos at their weddings.
- damnasteroids, on 10/22/2007, -0/+3yeah, and be as much of a photographer as the guy who runs the robotic paint sprayer on an auto assembly line is a painter.
- dupswapdrop, on 10/22/2007, -1/+4I have young children and I am hammered every day by the school to buy photos and other fund raising stuff. Just say no.
- optimus_maximus, on 10/22/2007, -0/+3True, true. But my post takes one day max (digital is awesome), especially since there is NO print work at all. Including half a day for other stuff (like selling, etc.) and I make more than I would with my CSE degree from UCLA. And within a few years as referrals and reputation kick in it increase to the 4-5K region.
I also know photogs that charge insanely for their albums, which I will hit up later when I have more time. Just a couple weeks ago one was telling me how she sold one for $6000 (that's one book) and I need to start doing that. - HenvY, on 10/22/2007, -0/+3What is the photograph? Where do you sell it?
- theforrester, on 10/21/2007, -3/+6So is that what souls are going for now?
- wilf_brim, on 10/21/2007, -1/+4Somewhat inaccurate. This assumes a 70% sales rate. That seems like a very, very high acceptance rate. I would think that half that would be more appropriate. And
- RTCA, on 10/22/2007, -0/+3When I joined the service in 1978, court reporters made an average of $50 per hour. How much would that be in today's dollars?
- saralk, on 10/21/2007, -1/+4And what? AND WHAT???
- cyberflas, on 10/21/2007, -0/+3Why were you standing in front of a picture room for 20 minutes if you were at a dance...
- thtroyer, on 10/22/2007, -0/+2Do you understand how inflation works?
- djpants428, on 10/21/2007, -1/+3You've never met midwest parents, apparently...
- reddikilowatt, on 10/22/2007, -0/+2Video depositions are still a great way to make money as a freelance videographer. You have to take a somewhat inexpensive course and take a test, but there is a market for the service, and you can charge $50+/hr and expenses. It can make for a nice incremental revenue source while you are getting started. The best videographers put together "day in the life" videos that show how someone's life has changed since an accident or injury that is not covered by insurance. They make money shooting and in post, and get to tell a story, instead of just pointing a camera in a windowless conference room. I was all ready to take the plunge in the early 90's (and do wedding videos as well), but then I got a better regular job.
- X9001, on 10/22/2007, -0/+2Just take photos of naked women
- reddikilowatt, on 10/22/2007, -0/+2I used to work for a guy who bought a catalog of negatives from the early 1920's. When he needed a few bucks, he'd call his agent and get a few prints made. Walt Disney Corp bought a bunch of them for a project they were working on at WDW in Orlando. I think it was for a restaurant in Celebration.
- emjaymj, on 10/21/2007, -0/+2Cuz the coolest of the cool wait until there's only a half hour left to start dancing
- PorcupineTree, on 10/22/2007, -0/+2Even if this is true, I'd never become a photographer to simply line people up and take virtually the same shot a thousand times over. Photography, for me, is an art form, not a production line.
- DoobieWheel, on 10/28/2007, -0/+2dont baton me bro!
- AxeSwinger, on 10/21/2007, -1/+3Or my wife. Once she found out that they throw away the prints you don't buy she cant stand the idea of our son's photos going into the trash....marketing gotta love it.
- thecompkid, on 10/22/2007, -0/+2Well, you see, the phrase "per phone call" infers that more than one phone call was made.
Lacking on those English classes too, eh? - hollowex, on 10/21/2007, -0/+2Good eye
- diktator279, on 10/22/2007, -0/+1Kill yourself.
- TajesMahoney, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1this is a bad fluff piece for a seminar.
- inactive, on 10/23/2007, -0/+1I enjoyed reading all the comments more than the article itself. And I agree with most - it has to be hard just to get in to the schools.
- Ascus, on 10/22/2007, -0/+1Most School contracts are made with a good portion going back to the school. The photographer is usually a technically competent staff photographer, and the company with the contract makes most the money. And Usually it has to be a large photo studio to be able to handle the entire district, where the contract is signed.
- fotoman, on 10/22/2007, -0/+120 minutes to clean up a picture? For what?
You're setting your exposure once and leaving it along ALL DAY LONG. You're white balance is setup ONCE and you leave it alone. Why would you be spending 20 minutes on 1 photo?
Hell, for one client I have, I spend about 2-3 minutes cleaning up each image: color correction, cropping, dodging, burning, spot removal, and resizing. If I spent 20 minutes per photo, it would take days to get a gallery up. I'm annoyed I have to spend 2-3 minutes per photo as it is.
For most of these operations, the workflow is NOT the same as joe camera guy submitting to flickr. There are custom workflow apps that allow you to quickly make minor color corrections, then just select what sizes/packages were ordered and then 'go'. It builds the packages for you, then send those to your lab, or better yet, puts the photo in a package directory and then the lab does all the work.
I know, I've written a workflow application similar to this, but for action sports and weddings. We process about 300 photos in 8 minutes (from card to galleries), and 300 photos in 4 minutes (from card to galleries in batch mode). I've currently working on a new module for Team and Individual/School photos. Pull the photo up, shows the crop lines for the various file formats, does some quick color corrections, then builds the packages.
Taking the photos is not the hard part of these jobs, as others have mentioned, it's GETTING the gig that's the most difficult, then it's all logistics from there. - reddikilowatt, on 10/21/2007, -0/+1I figured the same thing when I was looking to do wedding video. I would have to price so high because I could only do 52 events/year that I would need to find a way to augment my income. This was in the early/mid 90s and there was an arms race at the time due to non-linear editors starting to get good enough and the big changes that were happening (surplus broadcast stuff was worthless compared to the new stuff that was just about affordable). In the end, I passed and work for a giant faceless corporation now. The sad thing is, now I can buy a camera phone (nokia N95) that is more capable than most of the pro-sumer stuff I was looking at then.
- orangysb, on 10/22/2007, -0/+1well someone's gotta do the job, so if being a photographer is gonna net you more than being a "painter", why not?
- Ascus, on 10/22/2007, -0/+1If you're asking, it will be bad for you. You can make very good money at stock photography, but most spend more on thier equipment than they ever will make.
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