I need your opinion ….
I was selecting a picture to hang in one of my rooms, but I got stuck on which one to hang.
I printed them both thinking that would help, but I’m still stuck, so I thought I’d leave it to a vote.
I’ll randomly select a voter to receive the alternate print as a "thank you" for sharing their opinion, but I’ll wait until the 21st March to give everyone time and then notify the winner by email.
Votes can be made in the comments below or by email
So, which one do you prefer – A or B ?
| A) |  |
| B) |  |
Print Info
Paper dimentions: 24" x 7"
Print dimentions: 22.5" x 4.75"
Paper: Hahnemühle FineArt Baryta
Printer/Ink: Epson Stylus Pro9880 + K3 ink
Framed: Nope
Providing (or hiring) Photography as a service requires a minimum fee which is calculated the same way as any other business.
Divide that by 230 and you have your average daily minimum requirement.
Why 230? … 5 days x 52 weeks, minus 20 days vacation and 10 bank holidays = 230 🙂
This is also assuming you have daily paid work, print sales or licensed image income 😉
Social photographers often work for 2 days in order to generate 1 complete day’s portrait work and Wedding photographers will work for 1-2 weeks on each wedding, but spread over a 6 month period.
We also have to take into account that photography is often seasonal. Busy summers and quiet winter months. Plus there are many days when business owners have to work on accounts, marketing, meetings, networking, testing, blogging 😉 and so on …
None of which is time generating a direct income.
So….. below you’ll see I made a simple table showing estimated costs from a hobby photographer up to a studio +1 assistant where the photographer wants to earn the UK National Average salary of £24,000.
The numbers look a bit whacky, but thanks to the lovely tax man they do add up.
I even kept it conservative by choosing the lowest marketing budget where it should really be the biggest spend (existing business owners will know of the many tax benefits, but I’ve kept it simple)
So there you have it.
Try it with your own expenses and numbers and you’ll find your own minimum day rate 🙂
I should point out that I’m not taking anything away from highly skilled hobby photographers, but if someone is hiring you for work then you should at least get insurance to protect yourself, your equipment and also your client … and also put a proper value on your skill.
… and pay tax 😉
Anyone that knows me will tell you that I’m not a morning person.
In fact you usually have to be up early to catch me before I go to bed ;o)
The BIPP 2009 conference and semenars were held on the 7+8th September in the RAF Museum in Cosford. A fantastic venue, but fantastic enough to get up at 05:30 for?
Definately
So I dragged my butt out of bed and lobbed it in the general direction of the shower. 30 minutes later I’m checking emails and munching on some breakfast and swigging strong coffee. I consider throwing the coffee down my pants to wake me up as I’m still half asleep, but 5 minutes later it kicks in and and the brain ticks into life without me jumping around the room swearing randomly
While packing I decided to make a small picture diary of the day. I’d already planned to take some reference shots during the semenars, but I decided to take a broader account of the conference and make them into a small video (below)
Bags packed, camera ready and off I go
Day 1
The day started with registration and a welcome speech from the president and then we all went straight into the day’s courses.
My first session of the day was Hair and Fashion with Jack Eames who is based in London. This short session was mainly about model interaction and the use of props in your session. At the end of his session he was presented with an LBIPP qualification as he wasn’t going to be around for the main awards ceremony in the evening. Happy days
The afternoon double session was ‘It’s only an Iron” with Jonathan Beer. He’s an amazingly talented product/still life photographer based in Manchester and he talked us through a basic product shot.
Jonathan says he has no photographic talent and that he’s 100% technician, but his understanding of texture, shape and attention to detail over a couple of hours was truly inspirational. He’s way more than a technician
Back to the cheap hotel booked from booking.com
Turned out to be a service station motel, but a welcome rest. Didn’t bother going to the evening BBQ and awards ceremony as it was a long drive this morning and I wanted to be alive for day 2. So I puttered around the bland hotel room and grabbed a couple of frames to add to the diary before heading to bed
Day 2
Back to the Museum for the morning session with Steve Howdle on Professional Lighting. This tied in with Jack Eames’ session, but was all about the lighting where Jack’s was more the feel and mood of a shoot. Both had very different styles of working and was an interesting contrast.
If anything Steve’s session was much more like Jonathan Beer’s as it was very technical (right down to 1/10th stops) except the model was the ‘product’
Steve’s model in the morning session was Ivory Flame and she appeared again for the afternoon session with Dave Hunt on the human form im fine-art images.
Dave has worked with Ivory Flame quite a few times in the past and you may notice that there are no images of this session due to the content, but the bare(sic) lighting setups were as expected.
I have friends that’ve worked in this style of art, but I’ve never been present during those sessions and so it was interesting to see some “behind the scenes” of how Dave worked with Ivory Flame. Particularly when they role-played the differences in working with a professional model Vs a client coming to you for this style of image.
Then a long drive home, tired, but happy