For Photographers

For Photographers
3
Feb 2012

Pricing editorial photography

When it comes to pricing their work, photographers need all the help they can get. fotoQuote and Blinkbid are two common software tools used.

An overlooked tool for editorial photographers is Editorial Photography Estimator. The free version is still available but not the commercial version which included data for advertising photography. A new edition of the commercial version was supposed to have been released in 2011.

It’s very important to remember that Editorial Photography Estimator (EPE) is from 2001 and its numbers are out-of-date. However, the underlying concepts are still valid. Editorial fees, for both assignment and stock, are based upon the circulation of the publication and that publication’s ad rate for a full-page colour ad.

EPE lists hundreds of US magazines, some of which are no longer in business. Nevertheless, a photographer can update or create a new entry for any magazine they want, as long as they know that publication’s circulation and ad rate, both of which can usually be found online.

With all pricing software, never follow the numbers blindly. Software cannot account for a photographer’s location, overhead, expertise, talent, business plans, etc.

The EPE web site has a link to the documentation for the discontinued commercial version. This explains the logic behind both versions of the software. Some quotes:

It was obvious very quickly after creating this software, that photographers are insanely underpaid.

The Estimator does not grant any discounts for multiple image use. While some publishers might try to get such a discount, such a system is not appropriate for editorial work nor has it been traditional to give discounts for multiple images.

To help with negotiating a fair editorial photo fee, EPE software also displays the photography cost per magazine copy. For example, if a $1,400 fee for editorial photography seems too high, when you consider that the magazine circulation is 200,000 copies, that fee works out to be only 0.7¢ per copy.

Editorial Photography Estimator is worthwhile if only for informational purposes.

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For Photographers
31
Jan 2012

How to insult a photographer

One of the more popular ways to insult a photographer is to look at their pictures and say, “Nice pictures! You must have a good camera.”

Here are a few gentle ways to insult a fellow photographer:

He’s a few pictures short of a slideshow.
She’s obviously not working with a full frame.
His zoom doesn’t extend all the way.
Her flash isn’t firing on full power.
Her shutter speed is a bit slow.
His aperture isn’t exactly wide open.
She’s dragging her shutter.
He’s been spending way too much time in a darkroom.
He’s working with a shallow depth of field.
She’s not exactly high definition.
“Low resolution” is his middle name.
His lens cap is on.
Her memory card is empty.
She’s not exactly the sharpest lens in the bag.
He’s not exactly the fastest lens in the bag.
His camera is clicking but nothing gets recorded.
Her camera is firing but the film isn’t advancing.
He’s a couple of stops short of a good exposure.
She still uses film.

Any more to add?

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For Photographers
30
Jan 2012

Higher prices make customers happy

The key to helping your customers better enjoy your photographs is to raise your prices.

A 2007 USA study, with the catchy title of “Marketing actions can modulate neural representations of experienced pleasantness”, showed that marketing actions, such as changing the price of a product, can affect consumer enjoyment of that product.

The study used functional MRI to observe the brain activity of test subjects while they sampled differently-priced wines. The subjects were told the five different wines were valued at $5, $10, $35, $45 and $90. But unknown to them, there were really only three different wines: the $5 and $45 wines were the same; the $10 and $90 wines were the same.

Bottom line: the more expensive the wine, the more the test subjects enjoyed it. When the $90 wine was labeled as $90, the subjects liked it. But when it was labeled as being $10, they no longer enjoyed it. Subjects didn’t enjoy the $5 wine but when it was labeled as being $45 then they did.

To make sure the test subjects were being truthful about which wines they enjoyed, functional MRI was used to monitor brain activity. Levels of enjoyment can be seen by increased activity in certain parts of the brain.

What this seems to show is that consumers take (emotional) cues from the marketing surrounding a product. In this case, higher prices led to higher levels of enjoyment.

Many businesses already know this. But photographers need to learn that lowering prices in an attempt to get more business will backfire in the long run. Photo buyers will always associate cheap prices with low quality and no one enjoys that.

When a photographer discounts their prices, they’re only discounting themselves.

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For Photographers
15
Jan 2012

No cheque in the mail

From time to time, newer professional photographers ask what they should do when a client is late to pay. The answer is easy: remind them to pay.

Okay, maybe it’s not quite that simple.

When a client hasn’t paid within whatever time period the photographer has set, (and the photographer is free to set any time period they want), often the reason is that the client has lost or misplaced the invoice or has simply forgotten to pay it. Yes, it would be nice if we could “forget” to pay the phone bill, credit card bill, cable bill …

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For Photographers
9
Jan 2012

Photographically Speaking

From A to Z, here’s some photographers’ jargon that you probably won’t ever want to use:

Aggressive pixels – A picture shot extremely tight. For example: when all others are using a 70-200mm lens, the photographer using a 400mm is said to be shooting aggressive pixels.

American Idol Effect – A reference to picture sites like Flickr.

Autotard – A photographer who always has their camera on the “Auto” setting.

Available darkness – Working in a very dark location without flash. “The location was so dark, the pictures had to be shot using available darkness.”

Baby zoomer – A wide-angle zoom lens.

Bacon assignment – A job that pays much more than it’s worth.

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Lines of SightThe business side of photography