The Business of Photography

If you would rather listen than read, you will find very useful business tips from Leslie Burns-Dell’Acqua on:

http://burnsautoparts.com/podcasts/CreativeLube4

If you also wish to read, go to http://burnsautoparts.blogspot.com

Back in the 90’s, a group of advertising photographers made a move to establish standard rates for advertising photography. Sadly that move, and some other reasons, practically broke up the group. Some did not want to set minimum rates because clients might peg us to those minimum rates. Some did not want to set maximum rates because even those may not be high enough for more demanding projects.

We also recognized that we represented different expertise, different levels of success in marketing ourselves to clients, and offered different facilities and value-added services. Pricing also had to consider to whom we were selling our services – as rates would be different for a start-up company or a multinational corporation.

There was a time when we considered charging a photographer’s fee and charging separately for other expenses – films and processing (which now would be digital processing, editing, downloading or uploading, archiving, etc.), use of studio, use of other facilities (make up room, kitchen), catering, delivery/courier etc. Although we were designing the photographer’s fee to be variable, clients misunderstood it to be a fixed fee (day rate), so we went back to the drawing board.

Even though we were a small group – about 30 – we were a fragmented and disparate group. We could not even agree on basic things like – how many transparencies (now with digital, how many images), do we submit per set up? Some selected a certain number to submit, some gave everything – outtakes and all. Some surrendered negatives, just as some photographers now submit raw files, some held on to them. Some photographers defined the set ups and charged for variations, again defining what would be considered variations. Some did not, and just charge a fixed day rate. Some charged extra for films and processing, and others gave a day rate that included everything.

Maybe the difficulty, then and now, stems from the fact that we do advertising photography. Unlike school, portrait and wedding photographers who design their own packages, we do customized work. Our advertising clients dictate what we need to shoot – and those could be any of thousands of different set ups. If we set up prices for product shots, would we have one common rate for product shots? But products could mean food or beverage, cans or cars, diapers or jewelry, tubes, boxes, sachets, etc. Surely, we could not enumerate all of them. And what about when clients add other elements to the set up – people or additional products? The possible combinations are infinite. How much would we charge for working with certain clients or art directors, since they can often dictate how fast or efficiently we worked? Would we charge the same no matter where the materials are used, or do we define usage?

In short, there are many variables to consider, and pricing in itself is an art and a science.

This is 2007 – is this the year when photographers finally get together to draft something that would unite them? Let us, for now, set aside those issues that lead us to disagree. Let us start with the most basic things that we can agree on. Let’s agree to agree.

For those of you who are interested in animal photography, here’s an announcement from Filipinas Heritage Library:
Photographing Animals
May 26 at 9:00 a.m. -6:00 p.m.

Whether tame or unruly, animals definitely make good subjects. This specialized field in photography is intended for novice photographers who may also be animal lovers.

Speaker

Kathy Chua, an associate photographer of Adphoto, is a Ford Foundation Grant Awardee for her thesis, “Portraits of Philippine Wildlife”. She has photographed for international environmental organizations in Asia, Europe and Africa, and co-founded MyZoo Volunteer Group Foundation, a local wildlife and nature preservation group in Manila.

Fee
Php 2,500.00 inclusive of handout, meals, transportation, entrance fees, and certificate.

For more details, please call 892-1801 or email AFIFHLEvents@ayalafoundation.org.ph / events@filipinaslibrary.org,ph.

I often hear professional photographers almost proudly declare how much they hate the business side of photography, as if their creativity would diminish if they learned to do the paperwork. Unfortunately, if they are unwilling to do business management, or have a partner who will learn it, they can’t succeed as professional photographers, no matter how great their photos are. I have seen many talented photographers drop out of the scene because no one was attending to the business side of their photography.

We established our studio in 1973, but after five years of working practically 24/7, we still were not making any headway. So, in 1978, I decided to go back to school. Being a Political Science graduate, I thought I had no head for business. I was poor in numbers and hated accounting, but one of my professors at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business, Mr. Augusto Acoymo, helped me change my mind.

At our first test – the subject was management accounting – we were given a narrative about a company producing widgets. I was stumped. First, what were widgets? I approached Professor Acoymo with the most confused look on my face. He laughed when I asked, “Where are the questions?”

Apparently, accountants can pick up enough information from a story, such as what he gave us, to prepare a financial report comparing how a company performed in two consecutive years, and then draw some conclusions, and make recommendations. I never knew that.

He was very reassuring. He told me then, that my accountant classmates were ahead of me, but before the end of the term, I would be ahead. “Why is that,” I asked? “Well, they know how to prepare financial statements, but you know how to make financial decisions.”

That was enough to inspire me to try to learn something I thought I could never learn. I am very grateful that I did.

Through this blog, I wish to express my gratitude to him for his encouraging words. Thank you, Professor Acoymo.

I got permission from APAnet as well as from the author of the post, Chip Mitchell, to share his views here and other local photography fora. It’s a bit long, but if you are in the photography business, it would help to read on and to adapt his arguments for pricing for usage instead of charging a day rate. Here’s what Chip Mitchell wrote:

Hello group:

I think many photographers run into problems with clients over
licensing for this very reason…they don’t really understand how the
client benefits or can’t explain it. Explanations involving rental
cars or licensing rights to billboards in Peru, though excellent
analogies for the licensing model, don’t really explain to a client,
especially local clients, how they will benefit from dealing with a
photographer who licenses over dealing with one who throws in
everything for a day rate.

A couple of years ago a local agency had a client who had become used
to using RF for everything. The agency wanted to do original
photography, but was having trouble explaining to the client why it
was better to pay more money to use a photographer who licensed the
work as opposed to just paying a day rate and owning it. They asked
me if I could write something they could show their client that would
explain how the client would benefit from licensing rather than
owning. I wrote this for them and later adapted it for the CVASMP
newsletter. It is based on everything I have learned over the years
from ASMP, APA and my own experience. Anyone who would like to use
it or adapt it for their own use, please feel free. I apologize for
the length, especially if it gets repeated 15 times.

Chip Mitchell
APA/ASMP

http://www.chipmitchell.com

The Licensing Business Mode

Why I License My Photography

Several years ago, while visiting my in-laws in Georgia, I had a
conversation about intellectual property and licensing with my
brother-in-law, Rex, a talented songwriter/musician. I expressed my
frustration in trying to explain licensing to clients. To their way
of thinking, they were paying me for my time and expenses to take the
photographs, so why should they have to pay additional to use them.
One client had made the analogy that charging her to use a photograph
was as if she bought a car and then had to pay everytime she wanted
to drive somewhere.

Rex picked up on this. Suppose the technology existed so that when
she bought her new car she could drive it into her garage, press a
button and the car would be scanned and digitally stored. Then when
her new car wore out, she could press another button and a brand new
car would appear. Do you think GM and Ford would sell their cars or
license them? Well, that technology does exist? for photography.

How Do I Determine What to Charge

Some photographers charge by the day, or even by the hour. It does
not make sense that a more experienced photographer, who can make a
great shot of the CEO in half an hour should earn less than an
inexperienced photographer who may take two or three hours to make
the same photograph. The more experienced photographer is much more
valuable, since he is not only able to make a great photograph but
he also takes much less of the CEO‚s time.

I charge based on the complexity of the photography, what I bring to
the job ˆ my experience and talent ˆ and the value of the photographs.

What Determines the Value of the Photograph

The client does. They tell me the value of the photograph when they
tell me how they will use it. A photograph which is used over and
over or which will be the centerpiece of a company‚s image campaign,
and costs thousands, hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of
dollars to run in magazine and newspaper ads, has considerably more
value than the same photograph when used only in a small brochure. In
a nutshell, the more a photograph is used, the more exposure it
receives, the more valuable it is.

While it‚s difficult, if not impossible, to measure how effective a
photograph will be on the front end, it is possible to measure the
exposure the photograph will receive. The more visible a photograph
is, the more people who see it, the more value it has. This is why
size, print run, insertions, area of distribution, and length of
usage are all taken into account when determining an appropriate fee.

How Does the Client Benefit From Licensing

Why should you hire a photographer who licenses over a photographer
who charges a day rate and includes all rights? To begin, all
photographers are not created equal. Therefore many photographers
compete with each other on price alone, often by including all rights
for their day rate. The question becomes are they a better value if
the photograph does not accomplish what is intended. A photograph
which does not deliver, not only wastes the money paid to the
photographer, but the additional money paid for printing or media buy.

Licensing to a photographer is much like commission is to a sales
person. The majority of businesses pay their sales people commissions
rather than salaries because they know it benefits the company to do
so. They know that sales people will work harder because the more
they sell the more they make and the more they sell the more the
company makes. Licensing works exactly the same. The photographer
works to create photographs that are so far beyond what is expected,
photographs that communicate exactly the message the client wants, a
photograph that delivers, as well as additional photographs the
client may not have considered, so that the client will find
additional uses for them. That way everyone benefits. The client
benefits from increased sales and the photographer benefits from
additional licensing fees.

As British writer John Ruskin said, ” If you deal with the lowest
bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you
do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.”
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