TABLE of CONTENTS

4 6 7 9 10 11 12 13
Introduction Breaking Down Contract Language Types Of Assignments And Their Relative Value The Value of Motion Shoots FAQs, Resources, & Additional Tips Finding Clients Conclusion About Bill Cramer and Wonderful Machine

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Introduction
Welcome to the second installment of our series of guides about pricing your work. In this one, we'll cover corporate and industrial assignment photography. (Well be considering clients based in the Unites States, as pricing and terms may vary elsewhere.) It seems there was a golden age of corporate photography in the 80s and early 90s when corporations were flush with cash and photographers like Jay Maisel and Gregory Heisler were flying around the world shooting splashy annual reports full of big beautiful pictures. While those days may be gone (for now at least), there continues to be a steady need for corporate photography in spite of a sluggish economy. And in some ways, demand has grown as companies find more and more channels to get their message out. The explosion of digital platforms has made pricing photography trickier for photographers and it's made clients more demanding. At the same time, advances in camera technology have made it easier for still photographers to capture sound and motion too, which can create lots of new creative and business opportunities for them. In this guide, well look at what rates photographers typically command for this type of photography and how usage factors into that value so you can make the most of those opportunities. As it turns out, pricing industrial photography is not so different from pricing corporate assignments. For that reason, well simply refer to them both as corporate from here on out. But the actual experience of an industrial shoot sure can be different. While most corporate shoots take place in the comfort of a climate-controlled office building, industrial shoots can take place anywhereinside a greasy factory, in a refrigerated box car, hanging out of a helicopter in gale-force winds, or on a container ship or oil rig in the middle of the ocean. Its definitely not for the faint of heart. In fact, you may need to jump through some serious hoops even to be considered for certain projects. For example, if you work in the airline industry, you might need a Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC). If you work on big ships, you may need to take Basic Offshore Safety Induction and Emergency Training (BOSIET). If you're working in the Gulf of Mexico, you may need SafeGulf training. So be prepared! You can find lots of good examples of corporate and industrial photographs on the United Technologies website, including their annual reports for 2011 and 2012.

What influences the value of a corporate assignment?

There are four main factors that influence the value of assignment photography: time, usage, expertise and competition: a photographer's time (including pre-production, shoot time, and post-production time) sets the minimum value of an assignment (the value to the photographer). The way the client is going to use the pictures (and the size of the company) sets the maximum value of an assignment (the value to the client). Where along that continuum you should position yourself is a function of your expertise (which if very good, will apply upward pressure to your price) vs. competition (which if equally good, will apply downward pressure). How special are your skills and how many other photographers could do that job? The more unique you are, the closer you'll be able to push your price up towards the maximum value. Its important to understand that commercial photographers dont sell clients' pictures, they license them for a specified use. The value of the pictures is proportional to that use. A pic4

What do people mean by "corporate" and "industrial" photography?

Partly, corporate and industrial photography refers to the subject matter. Corporate pictures tend to depict executives posed or in action in office environments. Industrial pictures might show workers, processes or products at construction sites, farms, factories, oil rigs, refineries or labs. These terms can also refer to the type of clienttypically big companies, as opposed to newspapers, magazines, record companies, schools, hospitals or individuals. Finally, the audience for corporate photography tends to be employees, shareholders and existing customersas opposed to reaching new customers, which is often achieved with paid advertising. (Corporations do plenty of advertising, but we'll consider that in a future guide.)

| PRICING YOUR WORK: Corporate & Industrial Photography

ture used on a billboard is worth more than that same picture when used in a newsletter. Sometimes clients will want to license broad rights upfront. Other times, it will be more cost effective to license narrow rights initially for a lower price and then license additional use of the pictures as the need arises. There are many honorable clients out there, but there are also some who will try to convince you that they are paying for your time and they are therefore entitled to use the pictures any way they want. Dont be intimidated by them. Learning how to discuss usage with clients is crucial to any individual photographer's success, and for the success of photographers in general. If you ever find yourself complaining about the low rates or rights grabs that photographers have to endure, first ask yourself if you're contributing to that problem.

"If you ever find yourself complaining about the low rates or rights grabs that photographers have to endure, first ask yourself if you're contributing to that problem."

Credit: Jason Grow

| PRICING YOUR WORK: Corporate & Industrial Photography

Breaking Down Contract Language

Your ability to negotiate a good deal is going to hinge largely on your ability to express yourself in the form of a contract. Youll need to structure your contracts in a way that will meet the needs of your client while also protecting your interests. It's reasonable for clients to want to be able to use the pictures without worrying about infringing on your copyright or negotiating every single use. But its not reasonable to get a national ad campaign for $150/hour. There are times when a client has a very specific use in mind and it will be appropriate to license the photographs for just that use. But with so many options at their fingertips, like websites and social media in addition to printed material, clients will often want broader use of the pictures. At one extreme, you can license a client one-time use in a particular publication. At the other extreme, you could let them use it any way they want. But in most cases, something in the middle is going to be more appropriate. The following terms are useful in describing different types of use: is when the client submits photographs to an outside publication (often in the form of a press kit) for editorial use and the client (or their client) is not paying for that use. This tends to be the least valuable of the uses.
Publicity Use Internal Collateral Use is when the photographs appear in a publication that the client produces, such as a newsletter, brochure, pamphlet, poster or (internal) website, and whose audience is limited to the corporation's employees. This is also of modest value because of the limited audience (though there are some corporations with hundreds of thousands of employees) and the purpose is more informational rather than to generate revenue. External Collateral Use is when the photographs appear in a publication the client produces and distributes, such as an annual report, corporate magazine, brochure or website, and whose audience is customers, shareholders or the general public. This is more

valuable than internal use because of the larger audience and it's more about building a brand to generate revenue. is when a corporation is paying for the placement of a photograph in whatever media it appears, such as in a newspaper, magazine, billboard, or website. This is the most valuable usage because of its large audience and its ability to generate revenue for the company. In addition, the media budget will make it very clear how important the photography is to the client. Its unusual for advertising licensing to be included in corporate assignments. Instead, its common to quote corporate photography by the day (for a specified use) and offer an option to use pictures in advertising on a per-picture basis (for a specified use). You can get a sense of what advertising photos are worth by consulting pricing guides like Blinkbid or FotoQuote.
Advertising Use

By using these terms in your contracts, you'll be able to give your client moderate use of the pictures for a moderate price. For clients who want "unlimited use" on a limited budget, we find it effective to send them two estimates to choose fromone with their budget and limited use and one with a higher fee and unlimited use. Some clients will ask for a buyout. This is a term that a lot of clients and photographers use, but it means something different to everyone, so I recommend avoiding it. Instead, if you want to allow your client to use the pictures any way they want, forever, just grant them publicity, collateral and advertising use forever. Another way you can limit the use of your images is by specifying the duration of use or the number of pictures. Some photographers routinely specify two or three years' use for any given project. Other photographers license their pictures for a specific type of use forever, figuring that the value of most pictures declines rapidly after a few years. A more useful negotiating tool is limiting the number of images for a certain price. This is almost always the case for advertising photography. But in cases where a client insists on very broad use, limiting the number of pictures is a reasonable way to limit the "unlimited."
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| PRICING YOUR WORK: Corporate & Industrial Photography

Types Of Assignments And Their Relative Value

Lets break down the major types of corporate assignments, what they entail, and why each are important to clients. Event photography usually entails simply documenting meetings, speakers, ground-breaking ceremonies and other photo opportunities. This probably occupies the lowest rung on the pricing food chain because not only does it require the least amount of skill, but it requires very little equipment and the pictures tend to be used only for internal (or other modest) purposes. These events usually do not to lend themselves to making interesting or important pictures that might otherwise be more valuable to the client. A typical fee can land around $100 - $200/hour (for shoot time and post-processing time) plus incidental expenses like mileage, parking, tolls and meals. Some photographers charge half their shooting rate for travel time to and from the shoot. From a licensing standpoint, most companies will want publicity and internal collateral use (plus social media) forever. Its not unusual to exclude print collateral and advertising use and negotiate an additional fee when the need arises.
Event Photography: Headshots: Corporate headshots are typically lit head-and-shoulders pictures on a seam-

for both the photographer and the client. (A typical rate might be around $500 for the first headshot and $100 - $200 for each additional including post processing.) That way, the photographer is getting paid in proportion to their productivity and the client is being charged in proportion to the value they're getting. Charging for headshots by the hour or by the day can set up a situation where the more productive the photographer is, the less they're getting paid per picture. At the lower end of the pricing spectrum, we would normally include publicity and collateral use forever, excluding annual report use, which along with advertising use will be negotiated separately. Some clients will want to include annual report use, but be sure to factor that into the fee if thats the case. Its almost unheard of to include advertising use unless youre shooting the pictures for that purpose in the first place (and for much higher fees).
Corporate Reportage: These images normally depict people in real working situations, but with more sophistication than event photography. The pictures usually do not require much in the way of equipment or crew, but they demand a lot of finesse, awareness and a keen eye. These assignments come with at least moderate budgets as they require a decent level of expertise, and the pictures could have a wider variety of applications. Photographers can often charge around $1500 - $3000/day plus mileage, parking, tolls, meals and $100 - $150/hour for post processing time. Since the pictures tend to be shot in a photojournalistic style, assistants, strobe lighting and hair and make-up are rarely used. The licensing is typically publicity and collateral use forever, excluding annual report use, which along with advertising use will be negotiated separately. Photographers dont normally charge separately for local travel. Environmental Portraits: Environmental portraits are often lit, always controlled, portraits of people full-body or cropped to the waist, sometimes multiple people, in a setting that helps tell their story. These shoots have moderate to high budgets due to the level of skill required, the moderate amount of equipment and crew necessary and the wide variety of uses that clients will find for them. Rates often fall between $2000 - $3000/

less paper background or against a simple out-of-focus background. Mostly, these come with a low to moderate budget when the pictures are for press kits, websites and other general use, since these shoots are not very demanding and there are many photographers who can handle them. However, if they're specifically being shot for an annual report or some other high-profile publication, a higher level of quality will be expected and bigger budget will normally be available. A photographer can typically charge $150 - $300/hour for shoot time and $100 - $150/hour for post-processing time plus assistant, seamless paper, mileage, parking, tolls, and meals. Again, some photographers charge half their shooting rate for travel time. Charging separately for photographic equipment is not uncommon for many assignments, but somewhat unusual for headshots. If you have established a regular rate for a particular client, it may make sense to stick to that for headshots too. But if it's a first time client, charging by the head shot will probably make more sense
| PRICING YOUR WORK: Corporate & Industrial Photography

day plus $100 - $150/hour for post processing time, assistant ($250 - $350/day), mileage, parking, tolls, and meals. Some photographers charge separately for their photographic equipment. Depending on how important the picture is, it's not unusual to bring along someone to handle hair/make-up, especially for female subjects. For male subjects, Ill bring my own powder, sponges and an apron (to keep the powder off the subjects clothing). The licensing is typically publicity and collateral use forever, excluding annual report use, which along with advertising use will be negotiated separately. Photographers dont normally charge separately for local travel.
Corporate Lifestyle: These shoots can be executed with a reportage or portraiture approach (or fashion or landscape, for that matter), but always employ a photographer with a specific style and who brings a high degree of production value to the shoot. This will often include strobe lighting, hair & make-up, sometimes wardrobe, location scouting in advance of the shoot, as well as careful selection and directing of subjects. The production values of these pictures are such that fewer photographers can make them and theyre valuable to the client because they tend to be used to build a corporate brand. In addition to showing people at work, the pictures can sometimes strike a more symbolic or inspirational tone, like a hand-shake, someone looking out the window dreaming of the future. At its best, a good corporate lifestyle photographer can create pictures that can help define the image of the whole company. A typical fee can be $3000 - $6000/day plus $100 - $150/hour for post processing time, assistant, (sometimes digital tech, hair/makeup, wardrobe, casting, talent, location scouting), mileage, parking, tolls, and meals. The licensing is typically publicity and collateral use forever, excluding annual report use (at the lower end of the price range), which along with advertising use will be negotiated separately. Photographers dont normally charge separately for local travel.

The licensing is typically publicity and collateral use forever, including annual report but excluding advertising use as that will be negotiated separately. Its not uncommon to limit the number of images for a particular fee and offer an option to license additional images at a predetermined price per picture. As good as that might sound, we have also seen some highly sought-after photographers command as much as $15,000/day for corporate lifestyle and library shoots.

Credit: Audra Melton

You can find examples of corporate lifestyle photos on the MetLife website. Click on the Insurance, Investments, Planning, Retirement, Employee Benefits and Life Advice tabs.
Library Shoots: These shoots tend to sit at the top of the corporate photography food chain in terms of skill needed to pull them off properly and value to the client. The expectations production-wise are the same as corporate lifestyle, but instead of shooting a particular subject for a particular publication, library shoots are about creating a wide variety of images that could be used for all sorts of purposes across different divisions of a big company. As a result, photographers can charge $5000 - $7500/day plus expenses.

| PRICING YOUR WORK: Corporate & Industrial Photography

The Value of Motion Shoots

More and more, clients are asking photographers to shoot motion in addition to, or instead of, stills. For lots of projects, the creative fees will be about the same as for still photos (for non-broadcast use), but the production costs will tend to be higher. While still shoots can be relatively spontaneous, a motion shoot will require more planning, more crew and more post-production time. Historically, directors and videographers have charged for their time but not usage. Thats because they tend to be one link in a long creative chain that can include producers, writers, art directors, DPs, camera operators, sound technicians, grips, gaffers, editors, colorists, musicians and more. But advances in technology are allowing photographers to handle so much of the creative process themselves such that they now have the leverage to license their moving images in the same way as their stills. There are different roles you can play in a motion project depending on your interests, skills, your relationship to the client and the size of the project. You might have an opportunity to be executive producer, director, line producer, director of photography, camera operatoror any combination of those. The bigger the project, the more people you need to get the job done and the more specialized the roles become. As it often works, the higher up on the totem pole you are, the more youll get paid. If you have the relationship with the client and youre willing to take on the challenge, youll want to play the role of executive producer, where youll be supervising the whole project. Then, you can decide whether youre going to handle the actual camera work yourself, or hire someone to help you. The most important thing to understand about motion work is that its a much more collaborative process than still photography. But if you can make that mental leap, a lot of possibilities can open up to you. Here are some of the crew members youll need and what they typically charge: Line producer (to manage the shoot logistics): $750/day Director of photography: $600 - $2500/day Camera opperator: $500 - $1000/day Camera assistant: $350 - $500/day Audio technician: $650/day Gaffer: $600 - $750/day Grip: $400/day Motion picture editors: $1000/day And of course, youll also need camera, lighting and grip equipment which you can price locally. As executive producer, the bigger the project is, the more likely youll be to charge a project fee rather than a daily fee. Customer testimonials are one example of how corporations use motion pictures. You can find some good examples of this on the Caterpillar website.

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FAQs, Resources, & Additional Tips

What kinds of questions should I ask when a corporate client calls about a shoot? There are three types of questions you'll need to ask (some of them you'll ask your client, others you'll just ask yourself ).
Creativewhat kind of pictures do we need to make? Who are the subjects? How much time do we have with the subjects? How much time will we have to set up? Is there a shot list? Who is the audience? Production what do we have to do to make those pictures? Do I need assistants, digital techs, props, wardrobe? Do I need to scout locations ahead of time? What is the deadline? Usagehow will the pictures be used? For how long? In what publications will it be distributed and how many copies? In what geographic area? Is there a predetermined budget?

You can download a basic sample estimate here. You can download an editable Microsoft Word version of our terms & conditions here. We think it's a good idea to get a signature on your estimate (especially from new clients). That way, it's clear which revision of your contract theyve settled on and that they have agreed to your terms. There are times when you develop a regular relationship with a corporate client and it will make sense to create an ongoing contract rather than sending them an estimate for each shoot. Here's a contract that we created for a university client that you could adapt for corporate use. You can find explanations of all kinds of contracts on the Wonderful Machine blog. Here are a few corporate and industrial estimates: Executive Portrait Shoot for Fortune 500 Company Industrial Shoot for Annual Report Low Budget Annual Report Image Library Shoot Group Portraits for Publicity and Internal Collateral Use Article Reprints for Corporate Use

What should my estimate look like? I recommend a simple two-page document combined into a single PDF. The first page will be your estimate that briefly describes the pictures you're going to make, the licensing the client is going to get, and the fee. Under that will be a list of production expenses and a total. The second page will list your boilerplate terms & conditions. You'll attach that two-page document to an email (delivery memo) that says, "Dear <Client>, thank you for considering me for your <name of project> shoot! I'm attaching a cost estimate and terms & conditions for your consideration. Please let me know if you have any questions. Otherwise, if you'd like to move forward with the shoot, kindly sign and date both pages and return to me at <fax number> or <email address>." We happen to use Quickbooks to create our estimates and we write our terms & conditions form in Microsoft Word.
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Finding Clients
Most experienced photographers will tell you that word of mouth is the best advertising, and it's no different for corporate and industrial photography. Early in my career, as I was transitioning from photojournalism to commercial photography, I decided to contact all the biggest companies in the Philadelphia area. I didn't have many corporate-looking photos in my portfolio, but I had lots of portraiture and reportage. I had shot enough newspaper assignments in corporate settings that I was able to put together a portfolio that those folks could relate to. I had heard that the Philadelphia Business Journal published a Book of Lists, which turned out to be a great resource for me. In fact, their parent company publishes lists for 60 cities around the U.S. I went through the list, from the biggest company on down. I got 11 rejections before I got someone from ARCO Chemical Company to meet with me. They happened to need a photographer, and they gave me a chance. I shot an assignment for them. Then another. The design firm that they worked with liked my pictures, so they referred me to another of their clients, Rhone-Poulenc Rorer. And then another called McNeil Consumer Products. What started with a few phone calls ended up resulting in well over a hundred thousand dollars worth of work for me over the next couple of years. Another useful source of client information is Agency Access, which tracks client contact information for prospects at corporations, magazines, ad agencies and other types of clients. And of course, theres the Fortune 500 list and the Global 500 list, published by CNNMoney. If youre doing your own research, you'll also need to find the right person within each company who's in a position to hire photographers. At some companies, it's the corporate communications director. For others it's someone in the investor relations department or public affairs or graphic design (or at some larger companies, all of the above). Sometimes the receptionist answering the phone will be able to guide you. Other times, they won't really know and you'll have to take a stab at one of those departments.
Credit: Audra Melton
| PRICING YOUR WORK: Corporate & Industrial Photography

Corporations will tend to work directly with photographers on smaller projects and through graphic design firms or ad agencies on bigger ones. You'll simply have to do some detective work to learn who the right people are to connect with, whether theyre inside or outside the corporation. Shooting for business publications can also be a bridge toward corporate work. I once shot a portrait of a Morgan Stanley executive for Business Week and Morgan Stanley subsequently hired me to photograph their key people in New York, London, Singapore, Tokyo and Conshohocken for a capabilities brochure. And there were many other valuable connections I was able to make over the years working for business magazines. For more on that, check out Pricing Your Work: Magazine Photography.

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Conclusion
The first step in learning how to price your work and negotiate effectively is to actively engage in the process. If you simply take what you're given each time, you'll always be working too cheap. Just as you will spend your whole career learning how to make great pictures, if youre smart, youll spend your career learning how to judge your worth and negotiate fair compensation for it. I'd like to thank Tom Maday, Marc Morrison, Edward Carren, Roger Mastroianni, Jason Lindsey, Lou Bopp, David Vincent Wolf, Audra Melton, Mike Roemer, Joshua Drake and Raymond Patrick for their valuable assistance in writing this article. Wonderful Machine is available to help all photographers with estimates and shoot production. Call Craig Oppenheimer at (610) 260-0200 for more information.
Credit: Jason Grow

If you simply take what you're given each time, you'll always be working too cheap.

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About Bill Cramer and Wonderful Machine

Bill Cramer is founder and CEO of Wonderful Machine, a curated directory of high-quality photographers, serving commercial and editorial clients worldwide. He is also a photographer in his own right, specializing in environmental portraiture for a wide range of corporate, editorial and advertising clients including Forbes, BBDO, Comcast and Accenture. Graduating from Penn State in 1985, Bill began his career as a photojournalist, stringing for the Associated Press and The New York Times. He assisted many prominent photographers, including a year with fashion photographer Steven Meisel. Over time, his interests grew to include portraiture, where he now concentrates his efforts. He has received a number of industry awards and has been included in Communication Arts Photography Annual three times. In 2007, seeing an opportunity to build a better mousetrap, Bill created Wonderful Machine as a "source book on steroids." In addition to providing creatives with an eclectic selection of photographers from around the world, Wonderful Machine aggressively promotes those photographers using email campaigns, print mailers, web ads, social media, publicity, phone calls and portfolio events. Wonderful Machine also offers member and non-member photographers a host of consulting services including help with estimates, production, web design, photo editing and more. Their staff members frequently participate in industry events and contribute a popular monthly column on pricing and negotiating to aphotoeditor.com. Wonderful Machine currently works with more than 600 photographers in 50 countries around the world.

Website:

billcramer.com wonderfulmachine.com

| PRICING YOUR WORK: Corporate & Industrial Photography

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