As someone who is TOTALLY new to the idea of using photography to make money, what is reasonable to ask in terms of cost? I assume if you're shooting digital, it must make it so much cheaper due to the lack of film.

Do any of you have any advice for people starting up....both in their aquisition of equipment and in starting to make money off of the process? Anything you would do differently if you were starting over?

~chris

Yea Digital! :-) I don't think anything has ever increased profit margins for photographers more than digital cameras and computers! Shooting digitally certainly does allow us to offer more for less and I chose pretty early on, even back in my film days, to charge people for my time rather than for the products that are of course easier to put a price on. The value that you put on your time is something that will change almost monthly depending on all sorts of factors ranging from your busyness and improving skill to who the client is and what they can afford to pay. I know photographers who won't even show up for anything for less than $300 and others who are doing complete shoots for $50 - $75. For me personally I've chosen that if I can't justify charging somebody over $100 for shooting something then it's not worth charging them at all. Of course when I was in college I was under a completely different financial umbrella so I'm not suggesting at all that you shoot everything for free but sometimes the marketing value is worth far more than the few dollars you could squeeze out of your clients.

I agree with David. One additional point I would consider would be to keep in mind the high-end buy in cost you make just by going digital. If you compare film body to digital body, even with steal's like Canon's 10D, you're still paying double what you would for a EOS 3.

Including a small mark-up to cover these significant expenses, over time, is not unreasonable in my opinion.

There's also the photoshop factor: with film you dropped it off at your lab and let them do a significant amount of the processing. By going digital, we've traded that for more work for us in front of our monitors. Ultimately, you should be compensated for that additional part of your workflow it seems to me.

The bottom line is you need to figure out which league you want to play in, get your product and workflow up to speed to match that league and charge whatever the market will bare.

Gary Fong did some research recently which suggested the average wedding shoot goes for about $2500, which is down a bit from 9/11. These external factors play a role in all this as well.

I am one of those photographers that David mentioned who do complete shoots for $50-75 (These are 2 hour portrait shoots, by the way). I am also just starting out and have been told many times to charge more. I have another full-time job that I live off of, so all of my photo income goes into much needed and longed for equipment. So for me, any extra money is worth it. Additionally, my current network is my church and people aren't willing to pay more. I figure I have to work hard to start up successfully and I will be able to raise my prices down the line when I'm better, have better equipment and have more of a clientel built up.

Melissa! Good to hear from you and you know my take on why I charge/don't charge for certain services - but people will pay more for what you do. You are a wonderfully gifted photographer and two things have to happen:
1. You need to believe that!
2. You need to put a higher value on your products because people associate price with quality and this doesn't mean that you can't give people deals and shoot 80% of your stuff for the same $50-$75 but I've learned that people won't pay you $200 unless you charge $200 dollars. I know the level of photographer that you are and a 2 hour shoot with you should cost around $200. Ask for it - you'll get it!

This next bit of advice is unsolicited and all my advice is worth less than you paid for it which was nill, but I wouldn't put a time limit on your shoots. Time has nothing to do with anything. Shoot till you get enough good shots and go home. The more experience you get the quicker the shoots will be and you'll be in and out of there in 30 minutes. The client doesn't care if you spend 2 minutes or 2 hours with them and they're busy as well so the quicker the better anyway. They just want good images! Provide that and they'll be happy!

You need to charge what you are worth. Anything else is a lose for everyone ... even the client. You lose because you don't get what you're worth. You also lose because you are not motivated to move to the next level. It's too easy to stay in the hobbiest category. Your colleagues lose too because they are being undercut, which will ultimately come back to bite you when you become undercut by someone else. It just drags everyone down. Even your client loses because as David noticed, people actually experience getting a better product when they pay a fair price for it. You will be categorized by where you place yourself in the market. Choose what league you want to be in and then work to deliver on that high standard.