Pricing Photography Los Angeles

1- How many images you need total?

2- Can you breakdown pieces per category?

e.g. We need to photograph 80 fine jewelry pieces, 40 rings, 20 pendants and 10 earrings.

3- Please tell us realistically which of this 4 quality categories define you best?

    a. Cheapest deal in town.

    b. Economic but decent.

    c. Good.

    d. The very best.

4- Do you need GROUP shots? (to quote group shots we need to gather several details, setups, # of pieces, etc).

5- a) What kind of jewelry... fine, fashion? - b) Precious stones or no stones? - c) Silver, Gold, White Gold, Platinum?

6- Will you be using the image/s for magazine advertising?

7- Will you require to shoot at your location or our studio will be fine? If is not absolutely necessary to shot at your location our studio will be easier, cheaper and preferred, shooting on location usually carries and additional cost for all time and work necessary to move equipment, lighting, etc, to arrange a temporary shooting set on location.

1- How many images you need total?

2- What do you need to photograph... furniture, clothing, cosmetics? Can you breakdown items per category?

e.g. We need to shoot 75 cosmetic products; 50 lipsticks, 15 eye shadows and 10 lotions.

3- Please tell us realistically which of this 4 quality categories define you best?

    a. Cheapest deal in town.

    b. Economic but decent.

    c. Good.

    d. The very best.

4- Do you need PURE 255 White (whitest white on the swatch) background or light grey with shadows will be OK?

5- Do you need GROUP shots?   To quote group shots we need to gather several details, setups, # of pieces, etc.

6- Will you be using the image/s for magazine advertising?

7- Will you require to shoot at your location or our studio is fine? With the exception of furniture which we prefer to shot on location, our studio will be easier and cheaper, shooting on location usually carries and additional cost for all time and work needed to move and set up a temporary shooting set on location.

1- How many images you need total, including vignettes and additional views of rooms?

2- Do you need to photograph interiors, exteriors or both?

3- For interior photography: how many total rooms you need to shoot including kitchens and baths?

4- For exterior photography: do you need twilight shots with a nice lighting effect and wet concrete? How many?

5- Please tell us realistically which of this 4 quality categories define you best?

    a. Cheapest deal in town.

    b. Economic but decent.

    c. Good.

    d. The very best.

6- How many locations?

7- Where is/are the location/s?

The Day Rate Explained  (for product photography)

The concept of the day rate (or creative fee) was in vogue back in the seventies and used exclusively for High End Advertising only, never for production product photography! (e.g. 350 shots for a catalog). Back then photographers shooting High End Advertising Images used on magazines and billboards (usually one image delivered in the form of 4x5 or 8x10 transparency film) adopted the creative fee or day rate as a form of quoting and billing a project to an advertising agency without putting much emphasis on the hours needed to produce the image either 4, 8 or 10 hours the creative fee was a way to charge for the creation of a “unique image”, expenses and reputation of the photographer to produce a job but not really counting hours and minutes.

Mistakenly nowadays confused clients by inexperienced photographers are using the "day rate" for Production Product Photography when by shooting digitally we spend twice the time behind the computer than behind the camera, color correcting, optimizing images for printing and files for the web, the concept of the day rate makes absolutely no sense... more products, more images, different resolutions for  different usage equals a lot more production time.

Large quantity (production) photography it's NOT creating a unique advertising image it is large quantity production photography work. In the old seventies no post production was needed...  photographers used to send the film to a Photo Lab for processing and then send it to the client... That was it, we are NOT delivering a FEW SHOTS on FILM to the client anymore!  Today's process it is very different.

Another bad ingredient that adds to the mix it's the fact that clients working with photographers "under the day rate" for production photography very often tend to "RUSH" the photographer... thinking that every minute the we take to measure light, adjust, focus, re-arrange the setup, etc, it's a wasting of  time that cost them money!!

This rushing approach always produced bad results and leaves the product photographer with the obligated last recourse and time consuming task of "FIXING" poor photographs in post editing with the consequent long hours of computer work that of course nobody wants to pay for... after all it is the digital photographer's job and reponsability!!

This are some of the reasons why production product photography should be quoted per image and not as a day rate.

Back in the film days photographers only needed a camera a few lenses and some lighting, that good old equipment had a price tag of  70% less of today's high tech tools and a working life of 10 to 15 years.

Twenty five  years ago we use to “calibrate our shots” with a Kodak Grey Card... the cost was just a few dollars!

Today we need color calibration targets that run from $75 to $270 we need colorimeters for our monitors which cost about $350 and the calibration software around $300 to $600 we also need the editing software about $800.00 and of course we need a computers, monitors and laptops.

Actually really good ones if we want to see colors accurately, around $2500 for pro computer, $400 to $800 for a Pro monitor, laptop for location work about $1600... (tax is not included)... Boy the old Kodak Grey Card system looks a lot cheaper at least on my bank account!

Today we also need cameras, lenses and lighting but the new high tech toys of today are very pricey compared with the old staff (from $8,000 to $50,000), besides we also need pen tablets for editing, several hard drives for storage, a never ending list of accessories, gadgets and fancy cables , continuous professional training just to keep up with technology, sophisticated wireless systems, etc.

And the GOOD NEWS?... is that technology moves really fast and all this complex and expensive technical paraphernalia becomes obsolete and had to be replaced more or less every 3 years.

It seems impossible to believe that some people make the mistake of thinking that digital photography it is cheaper because we don’t pay for film and processing!

Who invented that story???   Maybe the manufacturers of digital cameras!

That was a good joke 10 years ago... not anymore! 

I'm sorry to say NO, digital it’s not cheaper than film.