REPORT BACK - PHOTOGRAPHERS BUSINESS COSTING MEETING
Thank you to all those that attended the business costing meeting on 18 October. The turnout  was impressive.
A special thank you to The Pixel Foundry for hosting the meeting and supplying the drinks and to Andrew Pittaway for presenting the business model. The notes and business model that Andrew referred to are available via e mail from Andrew. Please e mail your request for them to him at
andrew@pixelfoundry.co.za .
Please note that if you did not attend the meeting you are still welcome to request the information and business model from him.

The minimum rates sheet that I referred to is available on the SAFREA website at www.safrea.co.za . Click on the rates tab and download it from there. Please remember that these are MINIMUM recommended rates and are the least that should be charged in order to maintain a financially viable business. For those of you interested in joining SAFREA you can apply through the site as well.

A brief summary of the points presented is as follows:
1. Photographers should consider the financial viability of shoots
before accepting them.
2. In order to assess the financial viability of a shoot photographers
need to know the real cost of running their business (the non
negotiable costs) and how much they need to charge in order to cover
this.
3. The business model that Andrew has put together is a tool that can
be used to determine the real cost of running the business.
4. Photographers shooting digitally are carrying approximately three
times the equipment overheads of film photographers and need to recoup
these costs in order to run a financially viable business.
5. Digital equipment needs to be replaced and / or updated more
frequently than film equipment (at least every three years) due to
rapid technological advancement and the replacement thereof needs to be
costed into shoots.
6. The photographer's fee (Base Usage Rate (BUR)) (the negotiable part)
should be recorded in invoices separately to fixed costs such as
lighting equipment, studio and consumables (the non negotiables).
7. The method of charging an 'all in' photographer's fee should not be
used.
8. The rate per capture of digital images should be the rate per
SUPPLIED PROCESSED UN-RETOUCHED image and is NOT charged as the number
of times the shutter release button is pressed. The capture rate can
realistically be approximately the same as the cost of a roll of film
and the processing thereof (with markup).
9. Just as a film photographer would shoot and process film so should a
digital photographer shoot and digitally process digital images. A
digital photographer should not hand RAW unprocessed images to a client
(would you hand exposed unprocessed film to a client?).
10. A film photographer would normally hand processed images to the
client (trannies) who would then send the processed images to their
repro house who would scan and retouch the images.
11. A digital photographer does not have to retouch their own images
and can hand processed images to the client for their repro house to
retouch.
12. Should a digital photographer insist on retouching their images
then the quality and price of their retouching should AT LEAST be equal
to that of the repro house that the client would use.
13. In our opinion the way forward is through unity, good business
practice and education.
14. Photographers need to be educated about the real cost of digital
photography and how to recoup the costs thereof.
15. Clients need to be educated by photographers about the real cost of
digital photography and the difference between capturing and digitally
processing an image and the retouching thereof.
16. Photographers need to educate themselves and keep abreast of
technological advancement and fair market rates.
17. We would like to suggest that key photographic industry figures
develop and present lectures in association with the educational
institutions on job costing and determining and recouping the overheads
of a photographic business.

We would like to open the above for discussion on the safrea and
saphotocentre e groups and invite intelligent comment thereon.