what to charge??

Code Blue · November 20, 2008

Here's the scoop. A friends boss wants to take pictures of his companies work. They do billboard advertisements. they want on average 2 picture of each billboard, one full frame and one as your approaching it. there are 92 billboards in all, spread across a 50 mile radius of my location. They dont want them printed, just hi res photos to show potential clients what they can do.

What should I charge them ? they wanted to go to a professional but my friend said "wait, I know somebody who can do it as well"

I don't want to get underbid, but dont want to work for nothing. I dont run a business for photography, I'm actually on Workers Comp due to a shoulder injury I'm having surgery for.

samc · November 20, 2008

hourly?
You could make this somewhat simple and ask an hourly rate. Not sure what would be fair--depends on where you live, if you have to make the prints, etc. For non-wedding stuff I charge $70 an hour, but this usually isn't for a business. You may want to think about the $100 range.

Art Scott · November 20, 2008

92 shots total with time for tripodding and driving.....I would give a flat rate of approx $750 upto 4 hours.....it will probably take you nearly as long as a wedding.....of course personally I would like to do a dry run (drive to each location...) to see how long the drive time is and then give bid......if it is going to take more than 4 hours including driving then bump the rate to 1200 or $1500......that would include the pp'ing of raw files and burning a disk or 3.....clearly label the disk so everyone knows it is your product, whether by printed stick on label or lightscribe or injet label( for this I would suggest inkjet printed also).

JohnBiggs · November 21, 2008

I think this is going to take longer than 4 hours. And you need someone else to drive you. 184 shots total (you'll actually shoot a lot more than that).

If I understand correctly
To get shots approaching the billboard, they probably want to see the billboard in it's urban setting. As your approaching means you need to drive and shoot... just not safe.

To get the proper 'full frame' shot, you are going to need a suitable place to stop and possibly have to pay for parking or something. I don't know of too many cities where its easy to pull over real quick for a shot. There are probably very few location choices where you can get a complete view of the billboard.

I'd do the $100-120 an hour and use some of that to pay the driver. It may be best to do this at the crack of dawn on a sunday.

Sam · November 21, 2008

It's hard for me to see this taking less than 40 hours.

If took you only 20 minutes to drive to each location, park, set up camera / tripod, take photos for 92 locations that would be 30 hours, and I don't see it being done that efficiently.

Then you have all the processing.

Sam

mercphoto · November 21, 2008

Code Blue wrote:

What should I charge them ? they wanted to go to a professional but my friend said "wait, I know somebody who can do it as well"

The fact they did not go to an established professional tells you at least two things. One, they don't want to pay much. Two, they're not overly concerned with the quality. I'm also questioning if they REALLY need photos of all 92 billboards to show potential clients what they can do. Or, for that matter, why people in advertising to begin with don't understand the "curb appeal" that quality professional photography has.

what to charge??

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