Efficient Portrait Sales

[private]

Well, my plan is to start with Stay at Home Moms (they will just be spending their "mad" money) at first and hopefully raise my prices the beginning of Dec (holiday season) - This is if I get myself in gear, like - NOW

[Mr Guy]

Oddly enough I just gave my kinda rambling and ranting answer to this question over there.

The short version: I wouldn't pay $500 for a CD of only edited cleaned up images, assuming a 2 hour sitting and 4 hours of post work.

I WOULD pay $83 (or more) dollars an hour for 6 hours of a photographers time with the expectation of getting a CD with both finished and "raw outtakes" afterward.

I absolutely would not pay for a sitting and then pay for the CD on top of it.

[private]

I agree with you to an extent. The places that a lot of these moms go to - Target, Picture people... have free sitting fees but their prices for the prints are way too high (maybe b/c I know that they do noty do much to the photos) but that is how they make their money.

So, for me, being Ms Small potato, I need to make sure that they show up, so I will collect $ up front BUT they will get some "free" photos out of the shoot. Now if they want more they can purchase a la cart or get the best 25 images on CD (plus the promised prints) for a fixed fee - they will be processed. And if they want "fancy" procesing, color selection, sepia..etc they will pay more per image that I will have to process.

I would never sell the "raw outtakes" - even in film, photographers did not sell their negatives - so why should I?

[Mr Guy]

Originally Posted by private

I agree with you to an extent. The places that a lot of these moms go to - Target, Picture people... have free sitting fees but their prices for the prints are way too high (maybe b/c I know that they do noty do much to the photos) but that is how they make their money.

So, for me, being Ms Small potato, I need to make sure that they show up, so I will collect $ up front BUT they will get some "free" photos out of the shoot. Now if they want more they can purchase a la cart or get the best 25 images on CD (plus the promised prints) for a fixed fee - they will be processed. And if they want "fancy" procesing, color selection, sepia..etc they will pay more per image that I will have to process.

I would never sell the "raw outtakes" - even in film, photographers did not sell their negatives - so why should I?

Yep, it's all a matter of what exact business you want to be in. I throw it out there because the market is changing, and it's good to be aware that some customers will have different desires.

The old model is based on film where photos need to be a certain style and quality to look good in frames.

Now, there's a large portion of consumers that would rather pay for your time and end up with a mix of both processed and unprocessed photos. Partially because many of them, like me, are perfectly happy doing their own processing. Partially because many of them, like me, are well educated in the capabilities of the medium and know good and well something that would look like crap on the wall will look quite good as a 80x80 forum avatar.

The comparison to film only goes so far; the average amateur can do a heck of a lot more with an unprocessed but well composed digital image these days. I don't want to be insulting, but there's a lot of people who get extremely indignant about their artistic vision for each picture here and are horrified by the concept anyone seeing anything they produce without them having pixel peeped every line in the image. That's fine, they've got a right to be that way. I'd just never even consider giving them my money, because I'm unwilling to pay for their artistic vision as printed out and framed.

I'm perfectly willing to pay a reasonable amount for someone's time and skill as a service and do what I want with both unprocessed and processed results. I'd be darn sure it said that in the contract, too!

I mostly wanted to throw out that there was a very different viewpoint out there, and growing in strength. A throw away shot with a great facial expression but bad exposure or composition may look GREAT on someone's facebook, at 80x100 pixels!

[shawngrimes]

I've recently struggled with very similar questions and here are the conclusions that I came to:

In an hour session you may get 100 keepers (well that's seems like a really high keeper percentage, mine is more on the realm of 30). It is your job as the photograph to represent your best possible work.

So of those keepers, I narrow it down even further so that I have the best version of each pose. If I do 20 different poses, I should have 20 different keepers.

This is generally where I would do the PP on the 20 best pose shots. Sometimes I will remove poses that just don't work or weren't that good. I only want the customer seeing the best possible pictures. This keeps them from feeling overwhelmed with selection and it also has the customer thinking of you on a higher level.

Lets say you have 20 poses, and 10 of them are the best pictures you've ever taken (say 5 stars). Another 5 are 4-stars (good, not great but better than average) and the last 5 are just average. If you show your client all 20, their impression of you will be brought down by those 4 and 3 star photos. But if they only see the 5 stars, they are much more confident in your capabilities.

As far as CDs go, I haven't started offering that option, don't think I would on regular portraits. However, I chose the photographer for my wedding mainly (after quality of his portfolio) on the fact that he would transfer the copyright and give me the raw images (I couldn't afford an album at the time but wanted to have pictures to work with in the future). That was a very much appreciated service but I think wedding photography is a totally different ballgame. People who want portraits only want to see themselves looking their absolute best.

[candleman]

hmm.. good points.
i guess you're right.. a customer would appreciate and feel more value out of 3 magnificent portraits than a cd of all the average shots you took you did..

[DanSir]

i dont know if this will help, but i can tell you what i like to do. First off, i am a Pet/Portrait photographer (who is inevitably overly personalble). when i am shooting a client and their dog, for example, i will take a lot of pictures and explore different angles. and yes i will more then likely get about 100-150 shots,...what i like to do then is talk with the client and while talking with them (usually about them or their pet and what they want out of this session), i would let my pictures download on the my computer. after which i ask them to pick out their 20-30 favorite shots. after which depending on the "package" they will pick which ones i will print.

my packages range from 2-5 prints as well as a CD, so the 20 odd pictures they picked (after which i only edit those ones). i will burn on a CD for them and print the ones they asked for.

yes i know it's a little clumbersome bringing a tripod,camera, lenses and computer, but i find it is worth it and it works for me.


DanSir

[candleman]

thanks Dansir..

i'd love tha ability to have the download to PC in front of them.
thats actuialy my plan (thats why i bought a camerabag with laptop compartment)

i dont have a laptop yet, its not in the budget or on my "absolute essentials" list.. so thats not possible for me. Its definatley on my list after i've acquired more appropriate gear (50mm prime & other lenses)

so you dont process your pictures at all by the sounds of things? i do lik the idea of burning them a cd then and there.. and you never have to deal withy it again, however i do like to tweak my pics a bit.

i appreciate the input, thanks .. and welcome to DPS!

[DanSir]

Originally Posted by candleman

thanks Dansir..

i'd love tha ability to have the download to PC in front of them.
thats actuialy my plan (thats why i bought a camerabag with laptop compartment)

i dont have a laptop yet, its not in the budget or on my "absolute essentials" list.. so thats not possible for me. Its definatley on my list after i've acquired more appropriate gear (50mm prime & other lenses)


so you dont process your pictures at all by the sounds of things? i do lik the idea of burning them a cd then and there.. and you never have to deal withy it again, however i do like to tweak my pics a bit.

i appreciate the input, thanks .. and welcome to DPS!

hey, thanks a lot for the welcome

ya i guess i process the pictures you could say...while i am talking with the people i'm doing the pictures for i find out exactly what they want (basic editing.. softer looking skin, acne removal that stuff). then i do the editing all myself. as far as prints go, i take them to a proper photography store to get printed. for the CD(s), i edit the 20-30 pictures they chose (and only those), make them under 500KB (used for web sites and what not) and burn only those on the CD.


you mentioned that a computer was not on your "essential list". i bought my computer around the same time as my camera. i did give on a few things like nice camera bag (that fits both camera and computer), higher end lenses (plan on getting those soon), mono-pod.

but in the end it worked out for me

DanSir