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Photographers charging for bad portraits? SAY IT AINT SO.

Tee hee. To be honest, $150 for a 2 hour session with 10 edited photos and 5 8x10's is quite a rip off, but that's just me. I've never liked ripping people off and I've always kept my prices low... Just don't be as greedy as most photographers are. Like Gary Phong, I absolutely DESPISE that guy. Not just because he rips people off, but he teaches other photographers how to rip people off as well. It's disgusting.

Also, piece of advice, don't put borders on photos, like the outdoor picture. Long story short, unless someone specifically wants you to do something like that, don't. Just a good piece of general advice. I don't know if you do that on your photos or not, but regardless it's not worth the troubles it can cause......

Anywho moving on. Tips on portraits?

Lets see... Based off of your camera situation, stay away from indoor shoots unless there's plenty of light right where you're shooting. In general, go outdoors, find some shade, have the models back to the sun, but never have them facing the sun. Have a large aperture (Small number, f1.8, f2.8, etc). If you can't do that but have a telephoto or zoom, get further away and zoom in.

Fashion. Kind of a broad subject, not even sure where to start with that. Fashion like... Runway shoots? Just shots of clothing? People wearing clothing?

Tips on photography in general...

DONT use automatic - EVER
DONT use scene modes - EVER
DO use manual - ALWAYS

smile

Reasonable prices for an amateur to charge $30~.
Honest prices for an amateur to charge $0.

Depending on your skills and work you might be able to charge more however, if you like to actually be honest about cost (Which almost no one is nowadays), and if you're just starting out the only thing that should be paid is money for travel, like gas. Since you're taking that person, that models time.. And you don't have the experience, skills or equipment, honestly I think covering gas should be the ONLY thing discussed involving money at this point.

But that might just be me, maybe you'll charge $100 and you'll find people who will pay it. If that's what you do, then that's what you do. I couldn't do that though.

lol it's all about the $ nowadays! I had a friend who went to her friends wedding as a bridesmaid and she hired some photographer for $5,000. The photos were absolutely horrible. People who took photos from their cell phones, no joke, were better.

It was really sad... Cause like.. It was her wedding, you know. It's funny cause like everyone was all like "omg the photographer was so charming and fun" generally I've noticed, photographers like that... Usually suck at photography and are only like that to get peoples money. And it works sadly.

Well i'm not saying putting borders on your own pictures is bad, you can do whatever the heck you want! But if you're doing pictures for someone, like a client, unless they WANT borders or something like that - DONT. Because you can put something on and then they'll complain about it if they don't like it, and it can just cause a lot of problems really. It's just not worth it. Esepcially if you're new, some bad things can happen. haha like lets say you put a border on a photo in photoshop.. But you save it as a jpg and you don't have the original PSD file, or you merged all the layers, now you're stuck with that border.. So unless you wanna edit the photo all over again..... you know what I mean?

But ya, if its for your photos, go nuts.

If you were to charge $30 well the thing you need to realize is.. Ok so, if you are going to give them prints, thats something you're probably paying for. So you might go to wal-mart and have them print out, 5 4x6's, that might be a few bucks. But it might be more expensive depending on the size and amount, so you might only be making a few dollars once you do the prints. If you charge like $30. So what you could do I suppose is have something like... You tell someone, if you want photos at this size, lets say for example...

http://photos.walmart.com/walmart/loggedoutproductpage/prd=Prints/product=prints/prdtype=/isfrom=_xffwalmart_xffreprintscreateflow

Based off of that

If you want 5 4x6 prints it'll be $15. Since 4x6's are like $.15, with 5 of them, you might spend $1 including tax (Not sure on actual prices though), so you're making $14.
If you want 3 8x10's, thats about $10. So you might charge $20 or $30.

I mean you can charge whatever you want, if you think that making $10, $20 is to low then whatever. You gotta find something that works for you. If you charge something, and you have a reason behind it and you know that you feel that it's decent and all that then that's all the better. Because if someone comes up to you and says, why are you charging $___? You can give them a real answer, you know. Like hey, sure I'm new but I'm still spending an hour or two taking the photos, and then working on the pictures afterwards and then printing them out if you want. And here's the costs from wal-mart, and blah blah blah.

And if you think that spending an hour or two taking pictures, and then printing them out is worth $50 even. Which, lets put it this way.

Lets say you do a shoot for $50, and you shoot for 2 hours. That's basically $25 an hour you're charging... Do you feel that that number is ok with you? Or are you like, whoa... Thats a lot. If you're saying that, then maybe you should bring it down to something you feel comfortable with. Now granted, you're probably not shooting for 7 - 8 hours a day, so it's not like you can charge minimum wage or something and live off of that, if that makes sense. So since you're working LESS, you might have to charge more but don't go to over a certain point that you don't feel comfortable with.

If that makes sense....