How much should I charge for ............. (yet more YA questions)

OK, the last post was the “I have started a photography business” questions. This one is the “How much should I charge” questions. Some from the same people in the first lot and some not.

Why do these questions piss me off so much? I mean surely it is a good thing that people ask questions and it is all a part of the learning process.

Yeah, sure you can look at it that way but charging for ANY work is not just a case of sticking your finger in the air and picking a figure. There are specific ways of working out what you should charge.

Anyway, more on that in later posts. Here are some of the posts which I find particularly annoying.

Note: the answers are only what I am adding here not on YA itself.

How much should I charge my client for hiring me to be a photographer on their private boat party?

I'm new at this and and I'm not sure how much I should charge them for using my services. It's going to be a 4 hour event.

So let me get this right, you are touting yourself as a business, well you talk about clients hiring you, but you have no idea how to charge for your time or services. You will go far.

How much should I charge for a cd with all the pictures on it?

I am a beginning photographer and I am wanting to lean away from proof books and steer towards CD's. I will charge for the CD and the editing of the photos, but from there they will have the right to take the CD and make the prints they want. I'm having a hard time deciding on how much I should charge them. any ideas????

A "beginning photographer" and yet talking about leaning away from proof books etc. If you are a beginning photographer then you will not have the necessary skills to take the shots in the first place but this is about charging not photographs. If you are going to charge then you need to research properly not on a site like YA. What is good in Europe/UK/Russia or anywhere else in the world may not work where you are.

How much should I charge for doing photo shoots.?

A local auto salesman wants me to take pictures of his cars and post ads in various lists and papers. I'm not new to photography, but I am new to making a business out of it, so I need to how I should charge my client and how much. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

If you are new to making a business out of it do you not think that it would be a good thing that before you accept commissions you actually know what you are doing and what your costs and charges will be.

How much should I charge to take pictures for a wedding?

I have been taking pictures for almost a year now and charging (kids, couples, family, etc). Someone has asked me to do their wedding and I have no clue as to how much to charge. What I would do is take pictures of the wedding, reception, getting ready, the whole wedding day, edit the good ones and burn them onto a CD and give the right to print which ones they want.

So how much should I charge? What would you pay for something like that?

Ah my favourite. First wedding, no experience and asking what to charge. Charge nothing, why? because you won't be doing the gig. You are NOT skilled enough. Wedding photography is specialist and not for the fainthearted let alone the inexperienced. What to charge is the least of your problems.

That is just a very small sample, in themselves not really that bad, sensible questions you may say.

Well yes, they would be except for the fact that some of them are coming from people who are "beginning photographers" (in that case why are you accepting a paying gig for which you have absolutely no skill or experience) or are from people who have supposedly been charging for a while and yet are asking the most basic of questions.

It is no wonder that, according to surveys, more small photography businesses are failing now than at any time in the past.

NO, it is not because people do not want professional photographers. It is simply that the amount of idiots who got a digital camera for their birthday and now think they can take photos like a pro soon find out there is more to it than they think there is.

Please all you new snappers, do yourselves and everyone else a favour and at least learn your trade first before pretending to be professional.