Since I’m on this “cheap” rant:
A while ago, a local Toronto business e-mailed and asked for a quote to shoot some public relations photos to be used mostly as media handouts. I quoted about $2,600 (photography spread over two days, assistant, post-processing, expenses, taxes) and didn’t hear back from that business. “Oh well,” I thought.
Perhaps a month later, the same company called and asked when I might be available. On the day of the shoot, I met with the owner who said he had previously hired another photographer for $800, but the pictures were lousy. Not only did he not like the photos, but his PR agency refused to handle them. The business owner showed me the pictures: the photos were technically excellent, but they were useless for the intended purpose.
I completed the assignment and a week later, delivered a CD of photos.
A few weeks later, I got an e-mail from the business owner’s PR agency: as media handouts, every daily newspaper in Toronto used the picture(s) (the Toronto Star was 1/4 page colour), the largest weekly paper picked it up, a large city magazine ran a photo and some trade magazines used photos. The business owner was thrilled with the response.
His $2,600 investment paid for itself many times over. On the other hand, his $800 “lottery ticket” was nothing more than an expensive lesson.
What did he learn?
He called me last week to shoot another of his businesses. He didn’t question my quote. A few days after delivering the photos, he e-mailed to say that his ad agency mentioned that the photos were “fantastic” and “better than expected”.
There are many good photographers out there, but none are cheap. There are many cheap photographers out there, but how do you know if any are good?
Sure thing or lottery ticket?
Tags: hiring a photographer, pricing
