HELP! I have a company that wants us to shoot a commercial building to be printed for the lobby of the development company. We can do it, just don't have a clue what to charge!!!! HELP! Anyone able to get us in the ballpark?

You'll have to come up with a contract for rights usage, ie.,how big the photo will be, where it will be, in how many places it will be, and for how long it will be there. What type of media will the photo be ran in? Will it be in a flyer, or on the web? Figures will change depending on what they are actually going to do with the photo.

This will help you:
http://photographersindex.com/stockprice.htm

They are only using the photo on the walls of their development company to show some of their work. Any ideas?

I used to work for a home builder and we would hire someone to come and shoot the model homes. He charged about $250-300 per image we chose, printing and all of that was extra. We then got the image on disk and could use it for display, in brochures, internet, etc. HTH!

are you a PPA member? they may be able to help. if you aren't... join up ASAP, especially before taking on a job like this.

We are primarily wedding photographers, but in a very small town. So I am with WPPI but not PPA but I will look into it. Why do you say "especially before taking on a job like this"? Is there something specific about it that I should be concerned about? The shoot itself seems pretty straight forward. Alot like some of the assignments I had to do in school. Let me know if you think there might be something more that I could be walking into and thanks everyone. OSP is the best!

I'm primarily a wedding photographer as well... joining the PPA was probably the best thing i ever did as far as educating and protecting myself as a professional photographer. they have a wealth of information available to their members, including info on charging what you're worth, writing up contracts, usage rights etc and they also provide legal services including copyright enforcement and "malpractice" protection to every member. it's worth every penny of the ~$300 per year to be a member.

as far as this job goes... charge what you're worth. you must have some average hourly rate that you charge your clients, so apply that to this job, make sure to take into consideration not only the photoshoot side of it, but also the production time of such a large file, dealing with the right lab, checking the final print for quality, repackaging and shipping etc.

also... look into the usage rights information through PPA and make sure to educate not only this client but EVERY one of your clients as to what their rights with digital or printed images are.

good luck.

Thanks Trevor. Seems like very sound advice to me. You have been VERY helpful.