What would you be willing to pay for photography services (see details)?

I am a college student with photography skills. I take pictures for my college newspaper and I recently won first place in a photo contest. When I'm home for the summer, I'm thinking about advertising around my town for photography services...nothing fancy, but children's birthday parties, anniversaries, family reunions, confirmation/graduation/communion parties, etc. My plan would be to show up and just snap pictures, and then give the clients a burned CD or else charge an extra fee for to get them all developed. What would you be willing to pay for a college girl to come to your house and take picturesfor the duration of your family event and then burn a CD of them for you? And what would you be willing to pay extra for developing? I've never done this before, so I have no idea what to charge. Also, besides the photography skills....I have a high GPA and a long resume and I've had background checks done for other jobs, so in other words, I'm not a creeper.

What would you be willing to pay for photography services (see details)?
if you charge just the bare minimum, you're going to get clients who are only willing to pay the bare minimum. With that comes no resepct and youre going to have a difficult time pulling everyone together for a shoot. My advice is to charge no less than $50-75 an hour to start. I have an Excel spreadhseet that helps me bid projects. Email me at ashley@pk1studios.com and I would be happy to share it with you.
Reply:Give it a go and see how it works. I would not want to pay someone for a birthday party or some such thing unless it were very special. Most families have a shutterbug they call on to shoot special events. (I should know, I have been our family's personal photographer for years.) Most people have a digicam, and a great many feel their new camera gives them supernatural photography skills automatically. So it might be a hard row to hoe.



If you decide to try it, I think I would charge for my time and hand them a CD. I think the problem will be that people will want you to work for nothing. I would have to have a minimum of $100 per hour, but I'll bet people will think $200 is too much for a kid's birthday party. Some of the cheap wedding photogs don't get more than that for a six hour shoot. Good luck!
Reply:At least $100 an hour with minimal of $200.



Think about this--you might end up in front of your computer longer than the time you spent taking those photos. Think about the $4.50 a gallon for gas to get to the event and back, too.



You either do it for free or get paid for it, and since you're looking to be paid for your service, you might as well charge properly.



I upload mine to Costco http://www.costcophotocenter.com and they can order all the prints they want--and I give them full sized JPG files on DVD(s), too. I don't bother with dealing with the prints myself.