The industry as a whole has changed dramatically in a short period of time, thanks to the advance of digital technology. There have been a lot of great things to come from this new technology, and I'm sure the industry as a whole will benefit in many ways from improving ways to see, correct and display images, and efficiently manage the entire process of a photographer. But, this has also opened the door for what is now an onslaught of aspiring photographers to try their hand at this profession, lured by the promise of loving what you do and making money with it, and I'm seeing some alarming trends as a result.
The problem simply lies in the fact that there is a genuine misunderstanding of what it takes to operate a photography business, and a complete lack of understanding of the basic principles of the financial complexities involved in owning your own business. So I'll try to share a little bit of basic information that might help.
First of all, if you are an aspiring photographer you should join the PPA (Professional Photographers of America). The PPA is the best source of information on all of the aspects of photography, and because of a changing industry now spends an enormous amount of time trying to share information with upcoming photographers about the cost of business and the prices that they should charge. So many have been lured to this business thinking that there is easy money to be made, or charging prices that simply don't even pay the bills because they lack the information necessary to be successful and the PPA is a great source of the knowledge required.
But if I'm to give some cliff notes to you, or give you one piece of information more important than the rest, then remember this number: 30%. Why this number? Because, as many of you might be shocked to learn, this is the profit margin that most successful photographers find themselves at after all the bills have been paid. Note that I said successful, and not the average photographer. This is because most of the upcoming, on the side, or even full time photographers out there fall way below that mark because they don't truly understand the cost of their business and do not charge enough as a result. Where does the expense come from? Camera gear, backup gear, cards, batteries, lighting, transmitters, tripods and light stands, computers, software, employees, taxes, insurance for equipment, liability insurance, professional studio, reliable transportation, advertising, websites, health insurance, business phone lines, high speed internet access, cost of any products sold, cost of online hosting, cost of outsourcing any work, external hard drives for storage, printers, display albums, display prints, and many many other things that I'm probably forgetting at the moment. After it's all said and done, I'm generally as a rule of thumb pretty happy if I've managed to keep my expenses below $100,000 a year. If that number doesn't make sense to you, if you're doing the math in your head and thinking "My camera wasn't that expensive, and my laptop that my parents gave me for college was free" then I hate to say it, but you're doing it wrong. I'm not trying to be ugly, but a Canon Rebel with a kit lens and $5 plastic diffuser on your on-camera flash with pictures edited on your laptop does not qualify you to call yourself a professional photographer or charge people for your services. To be a professional it definitely requires that you have professional quality equipment, reliable and very powerful computers that are properly calibrated to display your images in a way that is consistent with how they will print to process what will likely become many gigabytes of images.
So you have the proper equipment, and now you don't know what to charge? Well, we now go back to that magic number above of 30%. I now see so many photographers advertising themselves on Facebook at absolutely ridiculous prices, and I don't think they truly understand how badly they are not only hurting the industry as a whole but also themselves. Let's just assume for a second that the $100 shoot that you're advertising that includes the disk is indeed profitable (and I'll explain in a minute why that's a farce). Well all you have to do is shoot for an hour right, so according to my math you've made $30/hr right? Wrong, wrong, wrong. First of all, you had to charge all of your batteries, format your CF cards, assemble all of your gear, and travel out to the shoot site. And you likely got there a bit early to get set up for the shoot and to make sure you weren't late if there was any traffic problems. Then you did the actual shoot, but also had to explain to your customers how they'll get the images after you've edited them. And you had to spend some more time afterwards thanking them for letting you shoot and making sure that they're happy with the way it went. Now you've got to drive back to your home, and if you had enough sense to shoot when the lighting was best you're probably now sitting in evening work traffic. But when you get home you still have to upload all of the pictures to your computer and put your gear up. And, unless you're a seasoned photographer who knows how to professionally light your subjects and expose your images properly now comes the real time involved, because now you're going to spend endless hours in photoshop doing all kinds of effects to your pictures to make them look like more than ordinary snapshots (this is entirely another subject that I might discuss further down the road, but all should know that all of the images on my website look the way that they do not because of Photoshop and in fact see hardly any time at all in that program, but because of a working knowledge of lighting). But you're not done after you tweak them out in photoshop, because you still have to upload them to your hosting site or burn them onto a disk for your client. And this does not take into account the time you took afterwards to post them on Facebook so that everyone else could see them, or any other time you might spend trying to advertise yourself. And also does not include any time you've spent afterwards calculating the sales taxes that you owe (you are registered with your city and state and pay your taxes I hope). Or any time needed to balance your books and record your income (and eventually pay taxes on your profits I hope as well). And after all of that is said and done, do you want to take that $30 and figure out how much you made an hour? Probably not.
But, here is the kicker - 30% is not an accurate number at all, because basic economics dictates that the lower your volume of business the more you have to charge. There is no arguing around that fact. Why? Because your professional gear didn't cost any less than mine did because you're shooting less. Let's assume that you did this correctly and went out and bought a 5DmkII, a couple of professional L series lenses (sorry Nikon users, I'm only speaking from my Canon experience), professional lighting, an IMac with a legal non-pirated version of Photoshop, callibration equipment, etc. And as a guess let's say that cost you $15,000 just to get started (again, you're doing it wrong if you fall way below this mark). This means that at $100 for your shoot, not taking into account all of the long list of other expenses that you will have, you'll have to do 150 separate portrait shoots before you even pay off your equipment. That is a lot of shooting. If you're just doing this on the side in all likelihood it will take you years and years before you even pay back your equipment, let alone make any profit at all. Well then I'll just go up on my price after I get a portfolio together, right? Well, you've likely just established a client base of people looking for bargains rather than really appreciating your talents, and you've also in the meantime convinced 800 different people on Facebook that decent photography only cost 100 bucks, probably making the working professionals in the area look in their minds overpriced. Believe me, we're not.
I'm not trying to be discouraging to newcomers, and please know that none of this is written because I have a problem with competition because I absolutely do not. I have many friends in this business, and when I'm booked for a job I always refer clients to my peers in my area - and trust me, that ends up being quite a bit of business that I refer out, particularly in the wedding field. I'm also a member of our local photographers guild, and participate in state and national PPA events as well. Photography is an extremely challenging endeavor, and if it's a passion for you then by all means pursue it. But educate yourself and go through the proper channels. And know that photography really doesn't make a very good side business at all - you really have to have some level of volume to offset the costs, or you need to charge significantly more than you likely think you do to be profitable. If money isn't a concern for you, and you just want to do this because you like doing it, then pursue this as a artistic endeavor and photograph charitable things, or landscapes, or anything inspirational to you (and believe me I love looking at other artistic works of any kind). I love that more and more people are interested in photography and have a real appreciation for it's purpose, and a desire to create their own images to display. But don't put professional in front of your name and use low grade equipment, know nothing about the complexities of business, and charge prices that you simply can't be profitable at - there's not much professional about that at all.
If you have questions or want to learn more about the business side of photography feel free to drop me an email at genovesephotography@mac.com and I'll help however I can.
