What to charge for music festival pics??
Stuart..
Now you are between a rock and a hard place. You want to be paid your worth, but you also want to maintain a positive relationship with the landlord.
In your position, I think I'd ask him what his budget is, and then negotiate a number of images for that budget
My thinking would be that you wanted the experience and he gave you that plus more yet you want to charge him for a few pictures to put on his website?
Chalk it up to experience, give him the pictures, count the 3 days processing as what it was ... experience and maybe he will ask you back next year and you can then negotiate a price for future photos.
From the looks of it you have got the start of a decent portfolio there with some great band pics.
That's what I would do anyway.
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I really do appreciate the advice. It does I suppose illustrate though how difficult a market music is to make a living in unless you're dealing with large name artists and shooting for newspapers or magazines under contract.
Jonathan
I did write a blog about shooting the event which might be of interest: http://www.jonathangorsephotography.com/blog/2014/7/shooting-my-first-music-fest...
Gartmore - I think your advice is very sound indeed to price a job before doing it. That's easier to do when you're established and approached by someone seeking photographs but over the past 5 years I have known the landlord he has always known me as a full time airline pilot and had no clue about my photography so he would never have thought of asking me - I approached him.
If I hadn't developed an ankle problem which might end my flying career that's exactly how things would have stayed and quite honestly I wouldn't have sought to turn photography into a career because it is undoubtedly difficult to establish a new venture in such a highly contested marketplace. Most tellingly I find there seem to be more people offering courses on how to set up as a professional photographer than there are professional photographers!! It means that just maybe some of the existing pro's haven't got enough real work and are doing training and workshops to supplement their income.
I love photography and always have but I'm yet to be convinced that a sizeable proportion of photographers are earning a comfortable salary - lets say £35000 after tax to provide what I would consider to be a half decent lifestyle. I do think there are a few - but they're established players and they might well be earning a lot more than that with a lot of commercial or wedding work. What I'm trying to evaluate at present is how much scope there is for a viable business in this and the truth is I just don't know...
Keep the insights coming and feel free to PM me offline if that's easier.
Thanks again everyone,
Jonathan
1 you have far to many similars which you have spent an age editing by the looks of it so cull cull cull. A pro knows the good shots from the mediocre and picks accordingly.
2 You are cropping free hand a lot by the looks of it. You need to crop to original format otherwise printing or viewing on phones and tablets reduces the impact. Printing becomes very difficult and I sellable.
3 photographing people backs and heads is just a no no and has very little commercial aspect to it.
4 don't photograph people in embarrassing situations the photo of the two ladies about to kiss is an example of this.
5 interacting with the audience will make for better photos and better sales opportunities. I know this wasn't in the brief but business is business and these kind of shots do wonders for your Facebook pages with likes and shares.
6 stage shots be carful with mics in the shots, hands and arms chopped off and try to keep the whole guitar in, lots of yours have the guitar heads chopped off.
7 mixing black and white within colour galleries looks amateurish, create two galleries one in colour and one in black and white.
Hope this helps. I spent the last 7 years photographing festivals and realised there is absolutely none or very little money in it so went to university did a business management degree and now work in comms and marketing. I now shoot festivals I would have to gone to as a punter. I still enjoy it, but it's not a good business venture.
Concert photography
Currently on a Pentax hiatus until an FF Pentax is released
many thanks for the critique and I have as you know replied privately offline - I'm very grateful to all of you for your insights and I fear Jeffstclair that you are right - the arts attracts too many people wanting to do it. I think other jobs such as accountancy or dentistry are well paid because no bugger really wants to do it and the required training acts as a barrier to entry. The latter is probably the only thing that has stopped pilot salaries going into complete freefall - although most of you would probably be horrified to know the real state of pilot salaries compared to the golden age. I had a conversation with an aircraft refueller at manchester airport only perhaps 3 years ago and we were both shocked to discover he was earning more for driving the refuelling truck than I was earning for flying the plane!!
Ever wondered why certain Irish low cost carriers are able to fly you on a £50m jet to Rome cheaper than you can catch a bus/train to the nearest city? They don't employ pilots they hire contractors who pay for their own uniforms, meals, bottled water, simulator training and hotel bills. They have no sick pay, holiday pay and in Winter when the schedule goes quieter they park the planes and leave the pilots at home earning nothing at all.
We live in interesting times...
Jonathan
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68 posts
18 years
West Sussex/Hampshire,
UK
Our local successful pub runs an annual music festival with several bands and an audience of around 2000 people attending. I decided to have a chat to the landlord beforehand and asked if he had anyone photographing the event. It turned out that the guy they usually use (who is a keen amateur) was away and so he was delighted for me to do it. We didn't discuss pricing, he did agree that I could sell some of my landscape work off the walls of his pub and of course I would gain valuable experience and exposure by doing it.
I spent from 4.30pm until after midnight shooting intensively. The landlord wanted lots of candid pictures of the audience and also lots of pictures of a rather unglamorous burger van. I bought a Tamron F2.8 17-50mm especially for the event to gain a stop. I spent a further two days selecting the best images and post-processing them and I'm very pleased with some of them - especially the night-time band shots. I sent a link to the band and they were very complementary and in fact have now asked if I would be interested in shooting the cover of their forthcoming album!
The landlord of the pub has now come back to me and asked how I plan to charge for the images because he wants to use some of them on their website. Now clearly I'm realistic enough to know that I am grateful for the exposure and experience but I'm also aware that three days work really demands I should be charging at least £1000 for this to be viable. Many pro's seem to charge £1000 a day for shooting and I presume they absorb the costs of post production into that and supply a disc of images. I don't feel I can sensibly charge this much for what was an informal arrangement and I doubt he would pay it but equally I don't want to devalue my work.
I would really welcome some advice from established pro's on what would be a fair price for this? How much would you charge etc?
Images can be viewed here: http://www.jonathangorsephotography.com/millfest2014
I find myself in the unfortunate position of having had the year from hell with my ankle problem and photography has been a great blessing in keeping me sane and offering me a possible and yet precarious future...
I would welcome any help or advice you can offer.
Jonathan