10 Years in Business – #3 Know your worth

January 2024 marked 10 years since I started my own product photography business. There have been lots of ups and downs, “ooh’s” and “aah’s” over the years. To celebrate this milestone I’m doing a recap of key moments and lessons I learned running my photography business.

It has been a bit of a journey thinking back about all the different stages of my career so far. On a professional level, this recap has allowed me appreciate my own growth as a photographer. On a personal level, it has taught me to trust my instincts and follow my passion.

In this 8 blog series, I’m sharing some lessons I have learned over the years. Other product photographers may have had different experiences but I know we all face similar challenges in the industry.

Whether you are a photographer or run a different type of small business, I hope you find this blog series useful and interesting.

This is blog 3/8 – check out the rest at the end of the page.

Getting paid

I did not receive a lot of useful advise or wisdom on getting paid properly. Like many freelancers, I had read many self-help books on ‘running a business’, ‘how to get paid’, etc. Working out your base rate can be THE hardest thing.

The biggest lesson I learned from experience is to never work for very little money, and definitely not for free. In the beginning of your career you might think that you still need to improve your skills and build up your portfolio therefore you shouldn’t charge much. That’s totally wrong. Practicing and building up a portfolio never really ends throughout your career so you shouldn’t base your rates on that. Your rate should be based on the service you provide and it should be fair within industry standards. Once you start to build up a client base, it becomes very difficult to drastically increase your rates to a more reasonable level.

Be very wary of offers to work in exchange for exposure and other types of spec work. Free work and low rates are harmful for the industry and damage potential clients expectations. The classic example is: you wouldn’t ask a plumber to fix a leaky pipe for free and tell them that if you like their work you might hire them to fit your whole bathroom. So why should photographers be treated like that?

Been there, done that.

I only ever worked for exposure twice (that I recall), right at the beginning of my career. I was asked by local magazine to photograph some events in exchange for a half-page advertising spot. Magazine advertising is expensive and I did get some work from it, so I’d say it was worth spending an hour or so shooting some events in exchange for that.

The second time I worked for exposure, I created a couple of studio images for a creative backdrops brand in exchange for a @mention in their Instagram post and a 10% discount on their products. Looking back, it was more beneficial for them than for me because they got free content and advertising from me and I got nothing for my images.

Here is the thing,

If you work hard to learn your craft and believe in the value of your product/service, potential clients will see your worth and will be happy to pay a fair price.

The brilliant Studio Cotton has written this great blog post on spec work. It’s an important read for both creatives who are looking to get hired and businesses who are looking to hire creatives. It includes unfair practices that need to be talked about and denormalised because they are not ok, or as Aimee puts it, just plain “icky”.

Photographers, like all other freelancers in creative industries, have spent years getting academic qualifications, working hard to learn their craft and perfecting their skills before they take on any clients. They deserve to be paid fairly for their time.

The rest of the blog series

• #1 Getting into product photography READ IT NOW
• #2 Follow your gut and take risks – getting a studio READ IT NOW
• #4 The power of a great community – networking and competition READ IT NOW
• #5 Be yourself – Instagram and managing expectations READ IT NOW
• #6 Learn, share, grow – try new things, stay creative (COMING SOON)
• #7 Take your work-life balance seriously – work hard play hard (COMING SOON)
• #8 Embrace change and opportunities – moving countries and new challenges (COMING SOON)

You can see my work and continue following my journey on Instagram and subscribe to my newsletter for occasional news and updates.