While I’ve done informal portraits and photoshoots in the past, this spring was my first time creating a system to onboard multiple clients and better organize scheduling and logistics. With grad season coming around, it was a good opportunity to practice my photography as well as make some pocket change. Alongside an excel sheet for appointments, I charged a flat rate of $35/hr for individuals and $25/hr each for groups. In the beginning, I thought that this was a reasonable rate given “photography wasn’t so tiring” and I genuinely enjoyed shooting and editing. Plus, I didn’t want to risk overvaluing my work. However, I quickly realized after taking over 2000 photos in a day, following around client after client, hour after hour, in whatever weather, taking whatever requests - I had undercut myself. I surveyed some of my clients after their photoshoots and they were often willing to pay more than I had asked for.

I now understand why photographers charge so much for their sessions. There is a great amount of time and labor that goes into taking and editing great photos, particularly en masse for profit. It makes sense why some photographers even outsource their editing. Furthermore, people underestimate the cost of photography equipment. A professional camera body is at least $2000 and lenses can cost even more than that (photographers carry multiple lenses!). Most importantly, I learned to take deposits. I had a client change their appointment 3 to 4 times only to cancel the night before the shoot. By taking a deposit, it puts the power in my hands rather than putting me at the whim of my clients’ schedules. I want to incentivize consistency and dependability in my bookings because cancellations and rescheduling was a huge pain point in my system. In the future, I plan on valuing my time and energy at at least twice the amount I did before and hope to move to a more robust scheduling service like Calendy rather than a public excel sheet. I think I’ll also begin to sell editing as an additional service rather than a free bonus because I literally spend more time editing a photoshoot than at the actual photoshoot itself.

Overall, I feel a lot more confident in my work as well as future initiatives to make some cash with my camera. It was a great experience and I hope to continue to take photographs as a side hustle regardless of whatever I end up doing full time.