A friend of mine is a professional photographer. She agreed to take some pictures of my kids and to sell the digital files to me at a discounted price. She usually charges $50/file, but she’s going to do an informal shoot and sell three files to me for $100. Based on my limited experience with professional photographers, I think that sounds great. What do you guys think?
Prices for these sorts of things are all over the place. I’m a pro, I charge for my services differently (I have a higher flat fee per session, but include many more files in the deal), but in terms of what I’ve seen others charge, that seems in the right ballpark, if not on the cheaper side.
Very cheap. Many photographers work on an hourly basis and charge two different rates for shooting and editing. But most of the photographers I know have reduced their rates in recent years. The “bread and butter” work of years past has disappeared. Anyone who just needs a photograph can buy a decent enough camera for what a professional photographer used to charge for a shoot. Now, you are hiring the skill - they will have better equipment, but a good photographer will get better results no matter how crappy the camera. One friend of mine is a professional photographer and he has an amazing collection of great cameras…but he also takes photos with his iPhone and manipulates them. Half of the art in photography these days is skill with Photoshop.
Thanks, guys. It sounded cheap to me, especially since she isn’t charging a sitting fee. I’m more than happy to hire the skill (and the better camera), as you say, gaffa.
I assume this was them taking a whole shitload of photos, you picking three, then you getting three edited files for your computer?
Something like that, yes. We haven’t done it yet, so I’m not sure of the exact details.