Home Forums Main YANAP Discussion Forum Potential client telling a photographer what they'll get paid.

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  • #8780
    octophoto
    Participant

    I found this job listing on craigslist, and I was immediately insulted.

    http://dayton.craigslist.org/tfr/3701644906.html

    The gist is, this person has a job/website where they have to have “perfect” looking shots of themselves, and based off how much they stress about getting a good Photoshopper, they clearly want a lot of photoshop work done.

    What irritates me is that they are setting the fee for the photographer, and what they’ll get out of it.

    “$150 for a 3 hour shoot- plus photos + photo shop of 20 images”

    First of all, I don’t have a package that is $150 and is a three hour long session, and it most certainly does include me handing over all of my images, and doing heavy retouching on 20 of them, but that’s just me. This is why:

    -This person is from Dayton, OH. If these are being done in studio, which I assume they are if it’s for a professional website (unless they are a model or stripper), it costs me about $75 to rent a studio here in Dayton. That’s for 3 hours, and with a student discount. If I didn’t have that discount, it would be $100.

    -Full-on retouching for one image generally takes me around 15 minutes. Multiply that by 20 images they are demanding, that’s roughly 5 hours. Add that on to the 3 hour shoot time, plus about another hour round trip for travel, and you have 9 hours of  your time devoted to this shoot.

    -Then you have taxes.  I generally try to save around 25% since I’m an independent student, and I’m in a low income bracket, which equals about  $37.50.

    So $150-$37.50= $112.50 -$75= $37.5 /9= $4.17 per hour.

    And we haven’t even scratched the service of all the other overhead expenses that come with owning and operating your own business.

    And that is well below minimum wage.

    I kind of want to email them and break this down, because what they’re expecting for so little pay is absurd. This isn’t a corporation, or a well established business looking to hire someone regularly. This is just a regular person trying to set up a website, with only the possibility of regular work, which you’ll essentially be doing for nothing at the end of the day.

    Obviously, not everyone understands the cost of being a photographer, but come on!

    #8782
    Loke
    Participant

    1. they will probably get a lot of hate mail…..2. someone will bite……

    #8841
    Nightrose
    Participant

    I’m voting for the second option Loke!

    Aside from anything else, the poster of the ad sounds like they would be a completely nightmare to work with, which in itself is not worth all the money in the world, let alone a paltry $150.

    #8843
    octophoto
    Participant

    Indeed. I’ve been around long enough to realize that someone will definitely take the job without thinking it through; most likely someone who doesn’t understand overhead expen

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