Number of photos to give clients??

I like the 20/hour rate. I started thinking about all my past shoots and how many photos I've given clients, and it averages out to about 20/hour.

[CaptainNH]

Thanks for the prompt everyone, this is something that I really ought to tighten up in my standard contract. It's never been a problem to date, but it will be one day.

The number of shots I deliver depends greatly on the subject.

For standard portrait sittings, I'd probably average around 20 shots to the client from a 45min shoot. For a single person studio shoot, my keeper rate is often quite high - I might only take 50 shots as a result of a tried and tested lighting setup).

With newborns, I take far more shots, often over 90mins - the permutations of mum, dad, new kid and older siblings mean I might get 50 to the client from 200 or so.

Weddings are a completely different matter - I try to never quote numbers of shots to wedding clients, but I do take enough to make sure that there are enough shots to be able to tell the story of the day, (plus the group formals if the clients wants them).

Like hibou, I have tried to steer away from packages - with a fixed rate for my time and a shopping list for the prints and albums and discounts for multiple purchases.

Having tried that, I kept finding that clients still expected some form of package for weddings. There's enough fat in my shooting fees to be able to give a little away if people ask. Of course, they don't always ask

[Alexandra]

All my sessions are booked at two hours, separately billed from the prints... In two hours are included the wardrobe, small chit chat with the client to figure out as much as i can about them and the photoshoot itself. In the packages i offer them 40 prints, but thy can choose those 40 out of 80 after i sorted through them. The reason i do that it because it happened in the past when i thought that the client look stunning in a certain portrait and they totally hated themselves. Also because i offer the option of heavy retouching (anything from slimming down, increasing bust size, lips etc or increasing dress size) the client has the option to choose their pics and let me know exactly what "improvements" they would like to their body.

On top of the packages i also offer the option of purchasing individual prints in various sizes. For individual prints i have two different prices: extra prints on top of the packages, or if the client tells me that are not interested in a package just prints, i have a separate set of prices to ensure that i wont come at a loss if they decide to get only 10 prints...

I believe in being flexible and giving options as long as i still make a profit. Generally i like to put myself in the client's shoes as long as my own interests are protected.

Alexandra

[Alexandra]

Ahh... And if the client wants the photos on a cd... Thats a different story entirely. There are two options: one price for a cd with web ready images, small rez... Or if they want it at full rez, i calculated in such a way to cover my photoshoot, post work....and the cost of prints calculated individually at the biggest size... which brings a cd at slightly over 2k... So im happy either way... And they get a warning that my monitor is calibrated with my printers, so if they print it at Big W... might not get the best result... Option is there...