TapiaPhoto Blog

The information below was collected from a 10-question survey performed on April 14, 2010 through April 18th, 2010. These are the first 100 completed surveys:

Question 1:

What do you photograph?
College and Professional Sports – 74%
High School and Lower Levels – 56%
Portraits – 46%
Commercial and Product – 34%
Other (Landscape, Weddings, etc.) – 45%

Multiple answers were accepted for this question. That is why the percentages add up to more than 100%. I wanted to see what people were photographing. This info is only useful if you look at the individuals survey and their following answers, as a group its doesn’t have much use other than to generally see what the everyone is photographing.

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Question 2:

What do you photograph the most?
College and Professional Sports – 39%
High School and Lower Levels – 29%
Portraits – 7%
Commercial and Product – 11%
Other (Landscape, Weddings, etc.) – 14%

68% or about 2/3 of the people surveyed photograph sports as their main concentration. I was shocked that only 7% surveyed photograph portraits as their main concentration.

Question 3:

How many years have you been in the business?

1-2 years – 6%
2-5 years – 28%
5-10 years – 33%
10+ years – 34%

67% had 5 or more years in the business, that’s a lot of experience.

Question 4:

How often do you shoot per year?
1-25 – 0%
26-50 – 19%
50-100 – 35%
100+ – 46%

Almost ½ of those who answered the survey are shooting more than 100 times per year. (Editor’s note: if the respondent answered 1-25 shoots per year, it was omitted from the survey.)

Question 5:

Are you are Freelance or Staff?
Freelance – 88%
Staff – 12%

The Majority of the people are freelancers by far.

Question 6:

How much do you charge on average for your services?

WOW, this is the big one. I am now more confused than ever on how the “average” photographer charges for their services. I got hourly, day rates, game rates, usage fees, speculation/stock, expenses plus and everything in between.

(Editor’s note: there will be an answer to this question, but not at this time)

Question 7:

What is the MOST and LEAST you have ever received for your services?

Most – $14,000
Least – $0

I was greatly surprised at how many photographers had received $0 at one point in their careers for their services. And $14,000 was the most of the most, meaning that most photographers never come close to $14,000 for one photo, one game or even one day.

Question 8:

Do you photograph on speculation?
Never – 36%
Sometimes – 46%
Mostly – 15%
Always – 3%

About 2/3 of photographers who answered, shoot on speculation at some point in their careers’.

Question 9:

How do you determine your rates?

Cost of Doing Business, What the market would bear, estimates were some top answers. Others: “Talk with clients and find out their budgets,” set hourly rate, “is my tank empty, is my fridge empty, actual cost to me to complete the job.”

Comments:

Most people did not answer this question. Here is a couple of comments:
“I try to make sure that I always have rights to resell the images”
“I am not the cheapest… nor am I the best. It seems the worst charge the most.”

This was a big undertaking and I am currently not satisfied with all the results. I am going to start step two of the multi step process. If you have read this and thought that someone was going to give you a straight answer on what to charge, I am sorry. The fact is that no one has all the answers because this business is too complicated to stay black and white.