Advice re Kids portraits

Sir SR

Sir SR

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Shaheed
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Hi there

Most of you who've seen my posts will see the pics are mainly of my kids and ours friends kids.

Over the last fortnight I've been asked by several of the Mums from school if I'd do some pics for them (paid). They'd seen pics I'd done of friends's kids on Facebook and asked them to ask me.

I do enjoy doing it and feel my work is of a decent standard.

This has raised a few questions.

I wouldn't just take 50 shots and hand them over (I'd only let out shots that were edited and I liked), more like 5-10.

Soooo - what to charge, what to do with the discarded pics (delete or keep as backup) - starting to think a contract would be wise.

I do this for friends already (free) but wouldn't do it for people I don't know - hence charging.

A few examples




I'm Cold! B&W by Sir SR, on Flickr

Cheeky Geeky by Sir SR, on Flickr

Rogue Flashbender Poser! by Sir SR, on Flickr


New Edit by Sir SR, on Flickr

Warren Wedding by Sir SR, on Flickr


Any advice wise people?

Shaheed
 
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First things first you need insurance. Never do paid work without it because you're leaving yourself open to all kinds of pain should anyone have an accident whilst shooting - especially with children.

The quality of your work is great, so you should charge accordingly. Personally, I charged a small sitting fee (£30-40) and deducted it from the final bill if they spent over x-amount on prints. Look around at other family photographers and see what they're charging for prints or DVD's. Start with a high price and offer incentive discounts - never start low as you'll have a hell of a job raising prices later.
 
The23rdman said:
First things first you need insurance. Never do paid work without it because you're leaving yourself open to all kinds of pain should anyone have an accident whilst shooting - especially with children.

The quality of your work is great, so you should charge accordingly. Personally, I charged a small sitting fee (£30-40) and deducted it from the final bill if they spent over x-amount on prints. Look around at other family photographers and see what they're charging for prints or DVD's. Start with a high price and offer incentive discounts - never start low as you'll have a hell of a job raising prices later.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dean,

Sound advice. I'll look at the insurance. I'm probably going to hold off for a bit, as I'm just going to hone using the hilite and when I'm completely happy, I'll start (I suspect this just means getting a light meter +\- another smart flash head).

It'll be images on a DVD I think as that's what the people want. Looked at the competition - £45 all images, min 50, on a disc by a national franchise - my friend did one, 10 images printable, not edited, others ok,ish and a few not useable. Others were high key style with a sheet (I know because I could still see the sheet in the pics, all creased up and ruffled), and there is a very good photographer with a proper studio and good pics (around £200 for images on DVD)

I don't want to let out any work I'm not happy with. I'd thought about a sitting fee including one edited pic on DVD. Around maybe £30-50. Subsequent images on DVD (introductory discount maybe) at a set price per image. Do you think that would work, and remove the introductory discounted offer once word of mouth had spread further?

We are looking at moving so hoping to have a dedicated area in the new gaff for it.

Thanks again for the advice

Shaheed

Ps great result for the reds......and Palace today!
 
That seems like a good place to start.

Yes, great result. Gotta win tomorrow though...
 
All the photos look lovely.I have had my children photos taken long time in a shopping mall by one of the franchises, who charged me about £100-125 for about 5 photos about 8*5 inches and that was 4 years ago.Your photos look much better than the ones I have of my children.
 
I've seen Shaheeds work... It's wonderful stuff and he obviously puts a lot of hard work in..

It would be great to get back something mate. You images are top class! (and your kids look great too!)
 
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Thanks everybody for your kind words and advice.

I'll hopefully be having a little practice this week (learned the hard way that a light meter isn't a luxury item when it comes to speed/or ease of set up - one arriving tomorrow) with some friends' kids.

Going to use that as a fine tuning of my set up to efficiently get the shots I want.
 
beauty is in the eye of the beholder
cant see why you wont excel at this commission
use your heart and your eyes of cours
cheers
geof
 
I see no reason why your not charging Shaheed, I would say Dean has it about right, I would say £35 for an hours sitting, with a free 8x10 print, which is easy enough when they are buying other prints from you, as it's peanuts to add a free one, personally I think it can come down to the area (geographically speaking) your in, do people have money to spend on family portraits ? particularly in this austerity climate, as for providing a DVD of images, while that is a good idea you then have no potential for reprints in the future, however it depends on what you charge for the DVD I guess, and how much money you want to make, swings and roundabouts as they say :)
 
mrtoad said:
beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Click to expand...

Certainly is. My other half loves a picture of our son she had done on the high street. It's so over exposed it's untrue, but she can't see that, she just sees her son.
 
TG. said:
I see no reason why your not charging Shaheed, I would say Dean has it about right, I would say £35 for an hours sitting, with a free 8x10 print, which is easy enough when they are buying other prints from you, as it's peanuts to add a free one, personally I think it can come down to the area (geographically speaking) your in, do people have money to spend on family portraits ? particularly in this austerity climate, as for providing a DVD of images, while that is a good idea you then have no potential for reprints in the future, however it depends on what you charge for the DVD I guess, and how much money you want to make, swings and roundabouts as they say :)
Click to expand...
Yeah, there seems to be a couple of levels of photographer .....the local "award winning" guy who used to have the local studio is at the top end and there are a few cheaper providing images on DVD.

I'm putting it on hold for now as I'm busy with work. Have just got my licentiate qualification from the swpp ( I'd sent off 20 images to the mentor me scheme and they just said to apt for the L level as it was deemed of the standard already). I want to do the associate level next as I want to develop and have something to work towards! Might do a bit of market research whilst setting it up.

Ta

S
 
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