The business side of photography
This past week, I turned down three jobs. :-(
Two jobs were turned down because their dates, six weeks from now, conflict with days that I’m holding for tentative assignments from another client. Two definite jobs turned down in favour of two possible jobs. What was that saying about “a bird in hand” ?
Perhaps photographers shouldn’t accept tentative jobs too far in the future, at least not without a deposit.
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Toronto’s public transit system, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), suffered a few front-page scandals over the past several weeks. And yes, there’s another front-page scandal today.
The current scandal is not that a married TTC executive, who was living a double life, got his “long-time female companion” a $50,000 contract with a TTC design consultant.
The real scandal is that the woman, described as being “an amateur photographer”, was paid “at least” $50,000 over ten months to take pictures at public meetings and of roads where new streetcar tracks might be built.
$50,000.00 for pictures of meetings and roads.
$50,000.00 for an amateur photographer.
Attention TTC: Since the woman has been, uh, “released” from her contract, I’m available for your photography needs. Not only do I charge less than $50,000, but here’s a bonus I’ll throw in: I guarantee I won’t end up in a front-page scandal.
Most press releases don’t get published.
This is partly due to the sheer volume of incoming press releases and partly because of the lack of news value contained in the releases.
But the chance of a press release being published is greater today than ever before. All newspapers, magazines and various news web sites, need and want content, especially free handout material. Demand is high and the supply is much higher. So what’s the problem?
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For income tax purposes, the Canadian federal government uses a set of Industry Codes to categorize all jobs.
Not sure if this means anything but the government puts “Photography” in the same category as “Janitorial Services” and “Miscellaneous Building or Dwelling Services.”
Apparently the job of photography is not a profession but “Online Advice” is. Photography is not a business service but “Chimney Cleaner” is. A photographer isn’t even similar to “Authors” or “Artists.”
However it’s nice to see that the government is keeping up with the times. It has new industry codes for the jobs of “Online Escorts” and “Online Psychic.”
Fresh off the press (okay, fresh off my computer) is the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition. The electronic version was released in December 2009 and the print version should be released within a few weeks.
[Edit: Unfortunately, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics web page content changes with time so there are few static pages with archived data.]
Although it’s been described as “up-to-date and reliable”, it seems rather simplistic and behind-the-times in its descriptions. For example, it explains that “photographers take pictures of people, places, or things.”
It also mentions that photographers use film to create a picture but digital technology is being used more and more. It goes on to say that some photographers even use computers!
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A very long post for photographers learning to negotiate photography fees.
“Money can’t buy happiness but it can buy a better quality of misery.” – anonymous
Three important points to remember when pricing photography:
1. Never give a price over the phone. When someone calls and asks, “How much do you charge to shoot this?” don’t give a price over the phone. You need time to get more information, figure out all the details and then determine the proper price.
Just the words alone, Annual Report, sound impressive and big league.
Most corporations are required by law to publish an annual report, and many reports are available online. But what about a small business that doesn’t have any investors or shareholders and isn’t required to do a yearly summary?
Annual reports are not just for the big corporations anymore.
It makes perfect marketing sense for the smaller business to get into the game.
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