As an independent photographer, I take pride in being able to offer clients a truly personalised experience, from our initial correspondence right through to the delivery of the final photographs. Although there are general amounts I will charge for a certain type of task, with so many variables in terms of what specific requests entail, I find limiting my proposals to fixed advertised pricing simply inappropriate; professional photography should be something very particular to each customer. Here I'll go over why getting a fully customised photography quote is so important from a client's perspective.
The problem with a "Daily Rate"
For location work, a "Day" can mean anything from 8 hours to 18 hours. Therefore, it will be rare that a fixed daily package is going to correspond exactly to your desired shooting time.
The problem hiring "by the hour"
An “hourly cost” depends entirely on the duration itself and how many photographs. Like anything, the more of a service you're requesting, the better the value you'll obtain: hour-for-hour, hiring a photographer for 5 hours should be more resourceful than hiring them for 1.
The right image count for you
Usually, a client will want to receive a number of photographs roughly corresponding to the time the photographer spends on location. However, there are cases where, for practical reasons, a client might need a photographer on location for a considerable amount of time, but only require a relatively small amount of images. In such cases, a personalised quote will take this into account and apply an appropriate reduction in total price. Why pay for things you don't need?
Multiple Service Types
Customising your quote, you won't have to stick to one service or another (as tends to be offered by package deals). If you want some interior photographs of your office space to accompany your team portraits, why not request that? Customised proposals will allow you to make full use of your photographer's time on location, rather than paying unnecessarily for 2 lots of shooting time.
Discounts for Multiple or Recurring Shoots
An upcoming global summit over several days? Various private shoots in different areas of Paris? An open dialogue with a service provider will allow you to secure a suitably discounted price.
The Truth about Turnaround Time
A popular selling point of many photography packages is their claim to a speedy turnaround time, e.g. "your images within XX hours". By being able to specify an exact date by which you need your images, you're likely to not only an even faster turnaround time, but you'll also be allow the photographer the maximum amount of time possible to retouch your images.
A Proposal within your budget
Whilst I cannot, of course, propose any level of service, for any level of budget, by being able to communicate any specific budget you may have, at least that gives the photographer the chance to make a compromised proposal, at least as an option: this could consist of a more targeted shooting time and lower image count for example. In any case, you will be guaranteed to be offered the very best proposal possible within your designated means.
Conclusion
Limiting yourself to predetermined package pricing, you may risk either paying too much for coverage you didn't really need, or paying too little for an inadequate level of service. This is a compromise you shouldn't need to make: when investing in professional photography, flexibility and customisation should be a part and parcel of the service.
If a provider only offers fixed packages for photography, this can indicate that they neither have the time nor the business structure to take your needs into account. That's the advantage of working and corresponding directly with an independent photographer. For your total satisfaction, I make your needs the starting point of the discussion, and then work towards a price, rather than having them settle for a package that is more of a compromise to what they actually want.
