Another 'What Would You Charge?"

[Dylan Wiggins]

Fotoquote is great...if you are working for large corporations mass producing your work ;)

I did a shoot for a friend of a friend so he has something to remember his car by after he sells it. It was 2 hours of my time, very informal, no expenditures made during the shoot. He says he really likes the pics and he wants a CD with all the originals on it. I think it came down to 130 pics, 20 were good, 2 or 3 were real keepers. I understand why he wants all he can get, and I don't want to deprive him of that. Also, I don't think he is going to take the originals and use them to make money.

The 1000px wide web quality versions are up for the taking and so he can see how it looked. We never discussed payment at all until he brought it up asking about getting a CD.

What would you ask for a fee? $50? $500? A new lens?

[John Thawley]

Well:

DO NOT give him a 130 images.

DO NOT give him hi-res originals.

DO NOT be a sap. I don't care if he wants to remember his car or not. This is work. If it's your hobby, then let him pick what he want's printed and upload them to Costco. He can pay you for the prints and buy you dinner.

If you're going to pretend to charge him, then charge him. Charge him for the shoot (your time). Let him tell you what he wants in prints. Give him a slide show of 20 keepers on CD.

$350-$500 plus print cost would be a friendly price.

[John Jovic]

When you are dealing with a professional buyer eg editor, marketing person or similar, they have a ball park figure of what the images are worth so it's quite easy to get a decent or fair rate. Asking the same or similar fee from someone who may already have a deflated value of what an image is worth can be another matter, because after all he's also got a digital camera and can take some pictures of his car himself.

It's a shame you didn't talk money with the owner before you took the pics because doing it after the fact will always be harder.

JJ

[Jacob Leveton]

My guess is that if you tell him $100, he's going to pull the "Aww, come on man, i thought we were friends?"

and you have to deal with that accordingly.

sadly, this could ruin a friendship :(

Images are worth what people are willing to pay for them.

[Mike Ditz]

I did a shoot for a friend of a friend ...

If you did a shoot for a friend, consider is a favor. If you did a shoot for your friend's magazine or friend's tuner shop consider it a job and bill accordingly.
To charge a friend $500 for such a 'job' is going to strain the best of friendships considering he's asking you for the CD (I don't think he expects to pay you anything)
Remember the Godfather? In your best Don Corleone voice remind him that it's a favor and someday you will ask him for a favor ...what does he do for a living or hobby, something you 'trade' with him?

[Daniel Buck]

I know some will disagree, but for friends, I shoot for free. Or as Mike mentioned, swap a favor on the table, and get the favors done with then and there, so you don't have anything lingering. :-)

however, "friend of a friend", I'd charge a few hundred if it's something informal like that, and I'd let them know that they are getting that price because your friend that they knew asked for a favor. Don't sound harsh with it, but don't leave it open so that next time they want pictures they think the price will be the same.

take my comments with a grain of salt though, I don't shoot for a living, I shoot for fun. My day job puts food on the table, not my photography.

[Todd Corzett]

I keep friends and business as far apart as possible.

Unless you talked $$$ before hand, chalk this one up for experience. Charge him for expenses (CD, prints, etc.) and a six-pack of your favorite beverage. Let him know the images are for PERSONAL USE ONLY, and that if he wants to use the images commercially (i.e. a sponsor, event ad, magazine, etc.) then he needs to pay accordingly (rates based on fotoquote). Like JT said, don’t give him the full-resolution images (make the prints yourself). If he wants images for his website (non-commercial of course) give him the low resolution images... and only the keepers (remember, your reputation may be effected by the quality of the images that are used by him).

In the future, talk $$$ (friends or not) before the shoot. Make sure everyone is on the same page (better yet, get it in writing)... that way there are no surprises after the shoot when it's time to settle-up.

-Todd...