I used to be a freelance home tutor for high school and college mathematics. Typically this line of work involves a lot of travel, dealing with uncooperative kids, and some very unpredictable parents. I would set an hourly rate or sometimes a rate per session. And the problem I found was that I wasn't getting a lot of business because I was not charging enough. I was looking too desperate, basically. I would hear from some parents that the typical going rate was something like $50-75/hour for services I was providing for half that cost.
I stopped doing it because I realized that even at the higher rate there were too many peripheral costs that made the whole endeavor questionable.
From that experience, I also came to the conclusion that I would never do fine art or photography on a freelance or self-employed basis. In other words, I vowed I would never pin my financial stability on something that I felt passionate about. It sounds unfortunate and rather pessimistic, sure. But why would I ever take something I truly love to do, and make my livelihood depend on it? To me, that's a surefire way to suck all the inspiration and freedom to create out of it.
My friends and relatives tell me ALL THE TIME that I need to do this for a living. They see how exhausted and drained I am from working a desk job. But they don't understand that I can't feed myself with my passion for art. The ability to decide when and how to engage in the creative process is a necessity. If I don't feel like taking a photo, I don't take it. Otherwise, it looks like crap. On the other hand, if I don't feel like sitting at a desk staring at Excel spreadsheets, I can get up, take a break, come back, slog through it, and at the end of the day, I'm still paid.
Now I'm not saying you gotta give up doing photography as a career. That's just my own personal experience. But if you are making a career out of your art, you have to understand that your success has far more to do with your business acumen than your artistic talent or uniqueness. The sad truth is that in this world, the exceptionally gifted are rarely discovered, and when they are, are even more rarely commensurately recognized and rewarded for what they bring forth. In this world, it is the conventional and the plain that sells because people are naturally risk-averse and don't want "different"--they want "predictable."
What does this mean for you? Well, I can tell right away that your style of photography is of a rarefied caliber. You are definitely not Sears portrait studio and your clients are NOT going to Wal-Mart to make their prints. Sadly that eliminates about 90% of the people out there. The 10% who do look for what you offer are those who are willing to pay for it. My tutoring clients were nearly all extremely affluent families with property values in the millions. To them, the difference between $75/hour and $35/hour is not $40/hour, but instead is the difference between "This guy knows what he's doing" versus "Why is he charging so low unless he's untrustworthy?" It has nothing to do with how good you are, and everything to do with how convincingly you sell yourself. A gallery curator could probably take some of your images, do a limited print run, hang them on a wall, and sell them each for at least a grand. I've seen some downright crappy photos that, had I taken them myself, I would've deleted them right off the card...and there they are hanging in some snooty hipster gallery with triple- or quadruple-digit price tags.
Value is extremely subjective. And that is another reason why I don't try to earn my living off my art, because in the end, the only valuation I really care about is my own. When I let others care it leads to complications, insecurity, and disappointment. But again, I'm not telling you to put up with staring at Excel spreadsheets. Just to realize that if you want to make your art your business, the operative word there is business.
Good luck! []
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Originally Posted by BES
