I've been asked several times if I will sell my photo's, I want to, but I wouldnt have a clue how much to charge? So whats a ball park figure for prints?
That's a tricky one... I buy peoples photos off Deviantart.com... you could always post your photos there and people will buy them. You won't have to print or ship Deviant does it all for you. . . If your looking at someone local than go find out what it's going to cost you to print it and triple it...If you think it's work more than price as you see fit.
I bought that off a 365 user. I fell in love with the photo and she posted it on Deviantart for me to buy.
@triptych_angel I'm about to do the $150/year smugmug. I posted some of my own photos, then ordered a print, just to check it out. The print is AMAZING, and I ordered it Tuesday night and received it today. You can set your own pricing there with the PRO membership, but you can kind of base it on what you get as the "artist" price. An 8x10 print for me was about $7 including shipping....so, if I sold it for $10 I'd make money :)
There are many, many theories and methods about this. In fact, entire companies have been formed on the basis of helping photographers price their work (fotoQuote to name one).
There is no real general rule of thumb, so I'll offer a few pointers on how I came to pricing my photography in the beginning.
The first thing to consider is your cost of doing business. How must will it cost to actually print the photo? If you are fulfilling that print request yourself, rather than using an automated website, how much is your time worth?
When you really get into photography seriously you will have business fees to think about. Did you know it is illegal in any state in the United States to do business as anything other than your name? For example, I do business under the name Jason Barnette Photography. I had to file for a business license, receive a form from the notary, pay fees for having that license in the city and county, and banking fees. It is illegal for someone to write a check to Jason Barnette Photography but then deposit that in my personal banking account. That is check fraud, and people are busted for that all the time. So...you have business fees to take into account.
Finally...how much is your equipment worth? Think about what your equipment cost to purchase, and how much equipment you may still need, and then figure out how many prints you would need to sell to cover those expenses. Ideally, you should be able to buy one premium piece of equipment a month.
All these come together to determine the price you set for prints. If you would like, visit my photography website to see what I charge for my prints. I charge about 70% what other professional photographers charge, but still enough that I make a comfortable living.
ok... I just wanted to make sure... after reading the comment that you mentioned to Jason the laws are different in Au I just wanted to make sure you had heard about them... I make a very healthy living getting people out of trouble who have been working for a number of years outside the rules because they don't know better, don't care or are just too busy working to care... wanted to save you the fines and penalties...
As for price photos... I had an art teacher once tell me... never put your work on sale... once you can get one of your prints for $500, the rest are no longer worth $5000... ect...
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I bought that off a 365 user. I fell in love with the photo and she posted it on Deviantart for me to buy.
There is no real general rule of thumb, so I'll offer a few pointers on how I came to pricing my photography in the beginning.
The first thing to consider is your cost of doing business. How must will it cost to actually print the photo? If you are fulfilling that print request yourself, rather than using an automated website, how much is your time worth?
When you really get into photography seriously you will have business fees to think about. Did you know it is illegal in any state in the United States to do business as anything other than your name? For example, I do business under the name Jason Barnette Photography. I had to file for a business license, receive a form from the notary, pay fees for having that license in the city and county, and banking fees. It is illegal for someone to write a check to Jason Barnette Photography but then deposit that in my personal banking account. That is check fraud, and people are busted for that all the time. So...you have business fees to take into account.
Finally...how much is your equipment worth? Think about what your equipment cost to purchase, and how much equipment you may still need, and then figure out how many prints you would need to sell to cover those expenses. Ideally, you should be able to buy one premium piece of equipment a month.
All these come together to determine the price you set for prints. If you would like, visit my photography website to see what I charge for my prints. I charge about 70% what other professional photographers charge, but still enough that I make a comfortable living.
@jasonbarnette ooh thanks for the detailed response, I'll take all that on board...luckily its a bit different in Australia!
A two second google and a hunch tells me as a British based econ you have business and banking laws....
go talk to an accountant but likely you can do work as
Emma Cook.
Emma Cook is a Photographer
with cheques payable to Emma Cook and you just file it with your personal tax return....
but if you want to be Emma Cook Photographer/Photography... you likely need to have a business name registered...
http://www.business.gov.au/BusinessTopics/Registrationandlicences/Pages/default.aspx
Yes I know there are laws here, thanks for pointing that out to me lmao
As for price photos... I had an art teacher once tell me... never put your work on sale... once you can get one of your prints for $500, the rest are no longer worth $5000... ect...
So what do you do if you dont sell your prints?