Charging for a fahion shooting

[Vladimir Krzalic]

Hi to All!

I've been given the opportunity to shoot for a relook book of a street fashion brand.
It will be arround 80 photos, more or less in a same "look" like those:









Now... how much should i charge for this?
From what I know, it should be completed in 2-3 days, given the conditions and that i can't shoot whole day as i would need low sun, so maybe 3-3.5 hrs/day for lightning conditions to be good.
I will color correct all photos and do some post processing to average the whole series.
I will use at least one assistant for additional lightning and holding the reflectors etc..
In my surroundings, for example, fashion book for new models are charged arround $200.
My shooting is similar, though it will require more location changes and working with more than one model, but as a starting point in estimation, it should do.
I have not jet created name in this type of photography, though I'm not begginer and i'm pretty much confident that I can do this, but at what price?
Something like $1000? Will it hold?

Do you have some ideas or recommendations?

Thanks!

[wri7913]

Use both morning and evening light if possible. Inform your models you won't be shooting midday if that's what you are planning. They should be prepared for split shift job or assignment.

What is the intended use of the images? That would be my first question to the person assigning the job.

Typical day rate for assistant is about $120 - $150 depending where you are working.

What is your cost of doing business? This includes all the insurance to protect your equipment as well as indemity (sp?) insurance to protect against anything that might happen to a model or someone working for you those days.

What expenses will you have for this assignment? Gas, food for models, makeup artists if you need them, wardrobe people if they are not provided, etc. Some things to think about.

What have you determined your creative fee?

One system that is proposed is to calculate the creative fee based on your overhead. You use a spreadsheet to calculate your break-even point; how much it costs you to just pay all of your bills each year. This is your Cost of Doing Business (CDB). You divide that number by the number of days you expect to work, and the resulting number is your “creative fee”.

This means that if your yearly expenses total $100,000 and you expect to have 100 shooting days during the year, you charge $1,000 per day as a creative fee.

The way you make money using this system is to charge usage.

Make sure you have model releases of all the people you are taking pictures of. Do this even if the agency that assigned you the job is doing this as well. Find out if you are going to be able to use these images for stock as a potential source of residual income from this one shoot.

[Vladimir Krzalic]

Thanks wri7913.

I have forgotten to state those items you've mentioned above.

All expenses for catering, models and everything else except for sole photographing are being paid by the contractor, so i would have no expenses in that part.
As i'm still at the beginning, with no previous experience in professional work (until now, all that i've done was photographing for my soul but it seems that these folks liked my pictures), so the most difficult part would be determining the creative fee.
I still don't know who would be handling the creative side (if I am to be a creative director or just a photographer working based on someone's idea and sketches).
Still don't have CDB as i'm no pro yet and the photograpy is still my side job, so for this part i can only do the calculations according to equipment that i would be using and compensating for the cost of camera, lenses, lights and other gear. Let's say that i own about $2K in gear, so my costs of doing photography are rather low. I would not like to offend any professional photographers here and do this for peanuts, but as well, I'm in no position to charge for my work as a pro as i don't have the expenses of a pro... so somewhere in the middle i suppose?

I will try to ask the client what is his budget for the shooting and go from there, as this can be done with digital PhaseOne and 50K in lightning, but also with entry level dSLR and only reflectors as a source of additional lightning. This can largely influence on the cost of the shooting itself, so asking the customer for his budget seems to be a good idea. What do you think?

[GadgetRick]

Originally Posted by Vladimir Krzalic

I will try to ask the client what is his budget for the shooting and go from there, as this can be done with digital PhaseOne and 50K in lightning, but also with entry level dSLR and only reflectors as a source of additional lightning. This can largely influence on the cost of the shooting itself, so asking the customer for his budget seems to be a good idea. What do you think?

ALWAYS start by asking what their budget is. If you can figure that out, you have a starting point.