In-Depth Look at a $275,918 Photography Estimate

275 918 that's a real estimate for a real photography job and it's not as rare as you might think the reason why 275 000 seems like a lot of money is well because it's a lot of money but secondly because most photographers myself included tend to do a lot of work for much smaller clients with much smaller budgets if you're used to doing jobs for local clients who have to stretch to make five thousand dollars work it's hard to wrap your head around a shoot that has 28 30 people on set every day and costs more than a quarter of a million dollars in the commercial photography World jobs with budgets this High they're just not uncommon commercial photographers regularly work on large projects with large budgets for large companies that spend a lot of money on Advertising so when a large multinational brand is spending say 20 million dollars on a multinational advertising campaign 275 000 is just a drop in the bucket it's literally only one percent of the entire budget for that entire advertising campaign I'm going to look at the client brief the deliverables requested explain the line items of the estimate look at any revisions that may have come up and talk about the client approved budget and results and in the case of some older estimates like this one I'm going to reveal what the cost of the shoot would be in today's dollars based on the rate of inflation since the original estimate was approved so stick around until the end of the video for that because this estimate is five years old and inflation has been out of control for the past couple of years so the number could shock you before I get started though I want to take a quick moment to thank and acknowledge the sources of this information in this video the budget in this video was put together by the people at wonderful machine and published on Rob Haggard's blog a photo editor wonderful machine is a company in the US that helps photographers all over the world by providing services such as portfolio edits design marketing publicity production and pricing and negotiating budgets on behalf of their clients a photo editor is a long-running Blog with a ton of resources and a fantastic Instagram account I'm going to link to all the resources including the original blog post at the top of the description for this video so check those out and give them a follow uh no this is not a sponsored video but who knows maybe it will be one day I'm open to that one final note the photographers and clients mentioned in this video have been redacted by wonderful machine to protect the privacy and identities of everyone involved I don't know who the photographers are or who the clients are either so please don't ask me in the comments I don't have answers for you so let's take a look at the brief so this brief was sent to a photographer who specializes in creating food and lifestyle images think people enjoying a barbecue or a dinner party together the client is a large multinational brand and they're asking for unlimited use of 80 images in perpetuity and own social media use of an additional 100 images in perpetuity so in total the client is requesting a library of 180 images 80 with unlimited usage and an additional 100 for their socials the concept is listed as a food product and lifestyle shoot for a new cookware product launch so this is a new line of cookware which needs product images which will likely be used on websites packaging point of sale signage and stores magazine flyers and a whole lot more food images with the product in use which could be tabletop images of different meals being prepped cooked and served in the cookware ingredients being prepared and lifestyle images of the product being enjoyed and showing the brand values at work in the images happy families enjoying life and making memories over incredible meals they'll share together all thanks to this new line of cookware wonderful machine explains that the creative brief called for a narrative lifestyle approach to a series of four casual family and or friend Gatherings the photographer needed to photograph the ingredients the recipe process says product details kitchen lifestyle plated dishes a lively dining experience and everything else surrounding the the life cycle of the meal ever since social media became a key component of marketing there's been an increasing emphasis on narrative lifestyle sheets mainly because companies such as this one need hero images for ads and supplemental images to support the hero images of the campaign this client needed 20 hero images from each day and 25 outtakes from each day which are variations of the hero images that would be used for social media only so 45 images per day for four days for a total of 180 images this is what is referred to as creating a library of images these images will go into the Brand's media library in in like a digital asset manager such as asset bank libris or photo shelter so starting with the photographer's fees wonderful machine explains that for a normal Library day rate they might start around seven thousand to ten thousand dollars and adjust based on the project but because of the scope of this shoot the size of the brand and the volume of work they set the total at a combined creative and Licensing fee at 65 000 which works out slightly more than sixteen thousand dollars per day because the client was realistic their budget was able to cover that cost the shoot also called for pre-production days and Scout days for the photographer because there was still some need for the photographer to provide oversight and insight meaning uh management of the shooting conceptualization of some aspects of the narrative they included four days for her pre-production involvement at fifteen hundred dollars each day and one Tech and location scouting day at twenty five hundred dollars bringing the photographer's total fees to 73 500 now if you're liking those numbers so far click the Subscribe button so you don't miss any of my future photography budget breakdowns also keep in mind that these figures are from five years ago I'll feel the figures adjusted for inflation at the end of this video alright so continuing on given the scope and size of the project it required eight Talent per day for four days a total cast of 32 people a shoot this size requires a casting agency so in this case the casting agency provided a quote of eleven thousand dollars to cover three days of live casting and prep the talent rate was set to 1524 dollars per person for 32 people for a total of forty eight thousand seven hundred and sixty eight dollars add in the agency's fee of eleven thousand dollars and that brings a total expense for casting to fifty nine thousand seven hundred and sixty five dollars what a lot of new photographers don't realize is that when you're putting together an estimate almost everything flows through you as the photographer as the photography company this 275 000 estimate includes expenses of more than two hundred thousand dollars that are ultimately paid for by the photographer the casting alone on this project accounts for almost 30 percent of its total expenses so this project required three locations it required product inventory and had a total daily head count of 30 people on set including the client reps the photo team the talent and crew members a production of this size really needs to have a producer a production coordinator and a PA on set so that was also itemized in the estimate they oversee all the moving pieces of the production keep it running on time and smoothly they sort out any problems so that the photographer doesn't have to take time away from the shoot to deal with them and they keep track of expenses occurred during the shoot and all of those expenses will be adjusted to reflect their actual numbers the producer will also spend time in pre-production managing and coordinating the shoot so for 10 producer days at one thousand two hundred dollars each a coordinator days at 500 each and six PA days at 350 each the total expense for the production team comes to eighteen thousand one hundred dollars since this shoot relied on a lot of available light the photographer assembled the team that included a first assistant a second assistant and a DigiTech and with a PA already on set that person could also assist with the production as needed an extra day was included for the first and second assistance to help with gear prep and rap but the DigiTech was only covered for the four days she was on set they also note that the DigiTech was present during the tech and location scout but the photographer said she would cover the DigiTech out of her own pocket for that day so with five days for the first assistant at 450 per day five days for the second assistant at 450 per day in four days for the DigiTech at a thousand dollars per day the total budget for the photo team comes to eight thousand five hundred dollars for the production it's also noted that in order to keep the post-processing and retouching budget down the photographer would hire the DigiTech to handle the post-production one that was an additional ten thousand dollars so that brings the total expenses for the DigiTech to fourteen thousand dollars and the total expenses for the entire photography team to eighteen thousand five hundred dollars the budget for the rest of the crew includes eight days for the prop stylist at one thousand five hundred dollars per day which includes sourcing renting and returning props for four separate shoot days seven days for the food stylist at two thousand dollars per day which includes pre-production days for buying food and creating recipes testing the recipes and for production days of prepping the ingredients cooking the meals and styling the dishes that's during the Productions four days for a hair and makeup team at one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars per day which included the hmua and an assistant and nine days for the wardrobe stylist and an assistant at one thousand three hundred and fifty dollars which includes sourcing clothing for 32 separate cast members styling on each day and returning the clothing after the shoot the total budget for these crew members came to forty three thousand one hundred and fifty dollars so at this point you really start to appreciate the massive amount of time effort and talent that goes into a production of this scale it's very much like a small movie production and just like movie productions the photographer also has to rent production Vehicles cater meals for everyone on set Rent equipment and props and buy the food for the shoot pay for the location permits and production insurance and account for any other miscellaneous expenses such as parking any tolls Vehicles pass through to and from the shoot shipping expenses and mileage equipment rental is always itemized back to the client even if the photographer is renting their own equipment to the client for the shoot in the case of this shoot lighting equipment was rented and a medium format camera system was also rented there's likely a 98 chance that that would be a phase one camera the total rental cost for the four production days at least one prep day and probably a day to return everything came to nine thousand five hundred dollars food and props and wardrobe account for an additional fifteen thousand dollars Insurance costs thirty five hundred dollars and miscellaneous expenses were estimated at an additional 2 thousand dollars bringing the total non-labor expenses to an even thirty thousand dollars once you add the labor back into the equation the total expenses for this whole shoot come to a whopping 202 418 the final estimate which includes the seventy three thousand five hundred dollars in photographer fees and 202 418 in expenditures and you end up with a total estimate of 275 918 based on this estimate the photographer was awarded the project and she also went on to photograph another production for the same product line now before I reveal the inflation indexed figures take a moment to punch the like button and share this video with your friends if you found this video helpful or insightful please share it and like it I plan to make this into an ongoing Series so let me know in the comments if there are specific genres of Photography that you'd like to see me break down and cover and I'll add them to the list these posts from wonderful machine machine have been an incredible resource for me and my business ever since I discovered them many years ago and I hope that these videos can do the same for you now this estimate was posted to the blog on August 15 2018. we don't know the shoot date but the blog was posted after the production and after another production for the same product line were both executed so let's take a look at what these numbers would mean today at the time I'm recording this is May 2023 using the US Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI inflation calculator will plug in the 275 918 and set the date to August 2018. using the latest data for the CPI which are for April 2023 we get an adjusted rate for this estimate of 331 963 US Dollars the photographer's fees for this job would be 88 429 now for my own curiosity I want to see what this is converted to Canadian dollars because I'm in Canada wow that's 447 766 dollars and change that's almost 120 000 just for the photographer's fees and like I said at the start of this video that's not as rare as you might think you just have to be creating work at the right level to get these types of jobs so release the shutter on the Subscribe button and turn on the notifications so you don't miss any future budget breakdowns have a great day