How Not to Do Business (Dollars and Sense 101)

A colleague and friend of mine (let's call him Tom) is quite a talented studio artist and fine art photographer. Recently, a friend of his asked him about a corporate shoot for a weekend-long event up in Phoenix for her employer. After all, a photog's a photog, right (ahem)?

Granted, it's a simple shoot and not a bad place at all to start if one wants to break into corporate event photography. Hotel ballroom, corporate "x-of-the-year" shots at the podium, keynote speakers at the podium and some candids of beered-up salesman arm-in-arm with beered-up manager. I say it this way because while some companies value a certain degree of art and quality in this type of engagement, these guys really don't appear to. They are seemingly hoping to rent a 'camera and operator' for two four- or six-hour days.

It was made clear to Tom pretty early on that the company wanted the work "on the cheap." In this economy, there's a more of that going around than usual in an already deflated marketplace. However, sometimes a bad deal can be negotiated into an acceptable one, or circumstances dictate that you be a little forgiving in pricing. But this is how you know to run, not walk, away:

1) The rate: $950 for a 2-day grip-n-grin shoot. Granted, the company was willing to cover a hotel, mileage and meals. Tom was told that the hotel at which the event is being hosted recommended a photographer who wanted $1800.

Realistically, for a shoot like this the creative fee "on the cheap" should probably be somewhere around that $1800 BEFORE licensing and expense. Anything less than about $1200 is an outright insult in that market.

For that or less, I'd expect a college kid with a D40 and kit lens to come waltzing in decked out in jeans and a Metallica t-shirt. Whether or not any usable images would be delivered is another story.

2) The rate pt. 2: When the client actually delivered the contract (4.5 business days before the shoot) the rate was mysteriously dropped to $650. Typo? Re-definition? Who knows?

A CEO portrait sitting for a company this size would likely start at about $650. Not a two-day-long event in an affluent, dingleberry suburb of the 5th largest city in the US.

3) The licensing agreement: There isn't one. This is a 'work-for-hire' deal where the client automatically and permanently owns all rights to all the photos taken at that event (worse, arguably the entire weekend). That's right, friends, Tom couldn't even put this work in his portfolio without permission from the company; all the while they could use one of the images from this event as the signature image for their business without the photographer who made the image getting anything extra for a job well done.

I've got to tell you, though, at this price that 'signature image' point is moot. They're not going to get someone who can get the shot at that price.

4) The general attitude: In an email made available to the photographer, the "art director" for the shoot demonstrates that he/she knows very little about the game. And actually, that's OK. I frequently work with people who might be hiring out their first commercial shoot. The point is that, despite being a bit guarded usually, are more than happy to ask rather than tell when they have no idea how things work. Here's a redacted version of that email:

XXXX Please find a photographer for the XXXX. I want the
> person there the entire event taking photos of all award
> presentations, speeches, speakers, etc....I want to photos
> taken with film printing abilities and digital quality for
> print media 600 dpi and web 67 dpi. He or she should know
> all this. Unlimited photos taken, i will pay for time only.
> Also, all pics are owned 100% by XXXX and can
> not be reproduced or use XXXX as a testimonial or
> previous client without permission. Photographer will not
> have any rights to any pics without permission or payment to
> XXXX. Please communicate this project with XXXX and XXXX.
> thanks, XXXX

Granted, that was an internal email. I'll excuse spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors to a degree. But this email indicates that this project is not important to the client. In fact, it makes things look as though it comes on his list right after organizing the sock drawer and cleaning the gunk out from under the water cooler.

I'm not even going to get into "film printing abilities..."

5) Their treatment of photos on their site: Always check out a company's Web site before you sign off on a job. At best you'll learn more about their needs and style requirements and at worst, you'll learn that they place no priority (and hence, money) on quality art.

This company's site boasts a postage-stamp image of the front of their corporate office, an unflattering portrait of their CEO and a bunch of generic (stock, shall we say?) "people-doing-stuff-that-looks-like-it-fits-in-their-business" pictures. And it's a minor thing, but not one of them is credited.

So what can we learn from this?

Photographers: If it looks like a turd and smells like a turd, it's probably a turd. Again, feel free to negotiate, but it's probably not wise to take the deal unless the negotiation gets you to where you need to be. With these guys, I have a feeling that negotiations will be a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

It is imperative to calculate a cost-of-doing-business so that you know how much you need to charge to run the business AND pay yourself.

Also, know the market you work in. Phoenix is a lot different from LA, Chicago and New York when it comes to market price. But it's still not Backwater, USA where you can be expected to accept a bushel of peaches in exchange for a couple hours' work.

Businesses: It's easy to make money when people are running to you with their wallets open and credit card in hand to buy your product or service. But as the economy worsens, the 'packaging' is going to have to do more to sell the product.

This particular company provides and franchises some pretty high-end personal services. They're far from the only ones in the business. I'm not needing what they're selling, but I can say that if I were I'd be looking elsewhere.

In less than a minute, I found three other businesses offering the same services. And their Web sites (including the pictures) all but guarantee I'd call them first.

First impressions count. Spend the money on quality art. I see so many companies buy ad space comparable to a 5-acre lakeside property on a golf course only to park the photographic/artistic equivalent of a rusty 1958 Airstream single-wide on it. It really does more harm than good.