Here’s a great series of articles on pricing considerations for the professional photographer (and amateurs, too).  Check it out on the Professional Photographer Profit Center page.

In the process of trying to set a price list, all the details of processing must be accounted for in order to get accurate perspective of the time commitment.  Once the amount of time to process photos is determined, one step in calculating the cost of creating images is also understood.

Initial timings for 102 (1.22GB) images:

• Copying from media card to server 8 minutes
• Tagged with basic information in 4 minutes

There are more steps to finding out the actual cost of an image, and this is the beginning…

I used to make a lot of web sites, just by drawing them on paper.  Been about 5 years since I seriously did this… it was something I really enjoyed.

Done with my new 50mm lens.  I got a feeling we are going to be seeing a lot of this lens.

Many of my close friends know that I’m planning my first large photo shoot for our Cub Scout Pack’s annual Pinewood Derby Race.  I was showing off samples on what I’d planned on doing and a leader from another pack asked if this was something I did, as in for my job.  In the usual Reynolds’ flair handed down from generation to generation I responded back with an instant, “It is now”!  Glad everyone enjoyed my response.

My first real photo shoot… I won’t make a dime but I’m going to love every minute of the experience!

I was reviewing my Analytics reports today and noticed that my #1 referrer is http://photography.alltop.com/  I’m not sure exactly how I got ranked on there but it feels like an accomplishment!  I’m thrilled about the listing so don’t try and bring me down to Earth by pointing at that the link is at the bottom of the page!

TinEye is a web site that takes an image and then crawls the web to see if that image resides elsewhere on the Internet.  In theory this would help me determine if any of my images are being used by other web sites without my permission.  In practice I don’t think TinEye has crawled enough web sites to be effective.  For example, the image below is located on this web site.  The same image also resides (with my permission) at Lima Lima’s web site.  TinEye didn’t catch this.  Until TinEye crawls more images, I’m afraid the service is only a novelty… but once they get more data I hope they turn into a powerhouse!

I wouldn’t say I’m a rock star photographer who major photography manufactures send tons of stuff to review.  Instead I’m more of an opinionated brat who whines about really bad shams and raves about awesome deals.  I like my equipment page, because I receive questions about the gear I use and now I can send a link with a quick blurb on how I feel about that item.  If the reader is so inclined he can click on the link to buy it.  Major things I try to send to Amazon.com for the best prices (I am an affiliate), but if it’s not on Amazon I’ll gladly point someone to a web site without receiving an affiliate reward.

With that said, I don’t want to turn this blog into a book review site either.  I use Amazon to store my reviews and gladly receive feedback from other users on my reviews, too.  After clicking below you can read my insane amount of reviews.  That’s a joke.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1UADJ4MDPH9V0/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Long story short.  If I like the product I’ll write about it.  If it’s really bad I’ll write about.  If it’s mediocre, I’ll use it and you may never know.

One last thing… here’s the setup of the shot above.  I like having the flashes down low so the paper builds texture.  On quick point of clarification, this was taken outside while I watched my kids play ball in the back yard!

That’s a 285HV laying flat on the ground to the right at 1/4 power and a 550EX to the right on a stand.  All fired with my Cactus v4 triggers.

Many times I’ve searched for a free model release and I’ve never found one until now.  I’m not going to run out an use it until I have it reviewed by proper legal counsel…ya’ right.

Here’s the link

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC060870551033.aspx?CategoryID=CT062100661033&ofcresset=1

Currently, I claim micro-photography status.  Don’t confuse this with macrophotography as I truly don’t have a lens with the feature and my interest just doesn’t lie in that facet of photography…yet.  I say micro-photography in the same connotation as micro-brewery should be viewed.  I don’t have the infrastructure or personnel to do elaborate photo assignments in the same matter that a micro-brewery couldn’t start shipping to a nation full of customers.  The tools and automation to support shooting 500 school children in a single day and the delivery system to provide parents the options of 7 different photo packages are significant and the experience necessary for that kind of scale is learned over a period of time.  What I like to do in my micro-photography world is set up small assignments with a lot of flexibility given to the photographer on the day of the shoot.  Here’s an example.

About a month ago my neighbor, the Vice President of the Parent Teacher Committee, had a fantastic idea she shared with me.  Since our school is being split into another and many of the students and faculty will be moving, she wanted to do a special photo session of each class and present the final product as a teacher appreciation gift.  She’s seen my landscape work of Lake Olathe in charity auctions and inferred my skills were not of a photographic newbie, but I’m fairly certain she had made the assumption that a good landscape photographer is a good group portrait photographer.  I’m curious if she knew that tidbit if she would have offered the gig to me, but little did it matter as my excited acceptance of the assignment sealed the deal!  The teacher appreciation gifts would be an awesome experience gainer and give me a manageable level of exposure.  There was no haggling over price or deliverables as I instantly claimed my sitting fee would be waived and unframed 8x10s of each class would be provided at cost [at the time of writing this was $1.99 each at MPix]. 

The great thing about providing photography services for free is the amount of control over the project—almost complete control, and the tolerance of imperfection to process.  For instance, when on a family vacation I cut the old time photographer little slack when she had six customers in line and didn’t even acknowledge any client except the one she was taking pictures of and then had the audacity to continue ignoring every client until the pictures were printed and the bill was paid in full. Going into this project, I was going to miss some steps so I definitely wanted to over communicate this fact when we agreed to do an outdoor shoot on the playground.  I proved this a few days later when I called to ask about one more enhancement to the photo—placing the teacher’s signature along with the abbreviation for the school and the year into the final product.  She loved the personal touch for enhancing each photo and the last loose end of the deal was tied.  I was about to do my first group photo session with exposure to all my kids friends and the chance to gain some valuable experience.

The decision to take a vacation day to do “volunteer work”  made with my spouse was easy and her volunteering to write my exposure numbers down and track which numbers went with each teacher was very useful.  The VP agreed to bring each class to the playground and return them upon completion meant the difference of complete chaos and a controlled photo shoot.

One of the personal goals for this shoot was to only use manual mode on my camera, which I did accomplish for the first time.  I thought posing would be difficult, but engaging each class and making the typical photographer jokes proved successful.  My favorite one liner when one of the kids is just not smiling is to shake my head in disgust and yell, “Hey, kid in the back, get your finger out of your nose.”  This would buy me about 1 second of smiles and a three second opportunity to get a decent shot.  Be ready as those four seconds are your last.  No matter how much you are tempted do not try this joke on the first shot as your resulting images will invariably have a kid with his finger half way up his nose.

After a solid day of shooting 23 classes I knew I would face a few hours of post processing to scan the images of the teacher’s signatures, to select the best image and PhotoShop them together into the final image.  I cropped each of the photos while in PhotoShop and my post processing consisted of the additional step of cropping the images into the 8x10 format.  After investing most of the day I decided for one more final touch, I would print proofs (4x5s) and go through each of them with the VP and confirm the final order.  Presenting them in this manner gave the VP one more idea, to compile the proofs into a binder and present them to the principal as a picture memoir of the year.  After confirming all the proofs I got a little lazy and only printed 21 not noticing that I missed a couple.  This was quickly rectified with a reorder and I ate the cost of postage for my mistake.  Like I said earlier, the tolerance for mistakes is high with volunteer work and no reputation loss was incurred.

The week after I delivered the portraits they were framed and give to the teachers and the principals gift was on display for everyone to see.  Many parents and teachers alike had positive comments, and I’m told that even one teacher shed a tear.  In retrospect tracked how much time each step of the process took and the costs associated with the shoot.  The document linked below is to that document.  In summary I like flexibility, the opportunity to gain experience and to learn from my mistakes while making a difference in the lives of others through photography.  The success of the teacher appreciation shoot has been told by many neighbors and has resulted into multiple photographic requests from both the school, scouts and friends.