Geoff Comfort - Commercial Photographer

Geoff Comfort - Commercial Photographer

Geoff took us through a number of his photographs which he says are good but not arty & this is the bulk of his work – aerial and architecture mainly. Then he showed us what he says are his competitive-type photographs.

He is the president of AIPP in Canberra & strongly advises us to join. They can help us in so many different ways.

ADVICE: Own the copyright on your photos. There is a small book on copyright – get to read it.

Eg he spent 2 nights & 4 hours photographing a new building (one night each side). He gave the client 2 exterior shots & 5 interior shots – charged $1600. (noted that in Sydney a good p’her could charge $5000). Then window company wanted copies – for this he charged 50% of the base usage charge (= this is the fee for taking the photo).

AERIAL P’hy:

Geoff doesn’t get the company to pay for the choppa. Rather he marks his fee up. This is an extra charge along with post prodn fees.

HOW DO YOU FIND WORK?

Geoff works for construction companies & word-of-mouth is good. He also emails personal fliers with appropriate photos on them.

Advises: a simple website – simple is quicker to load photos & flip through them.

CHARGES

Can’t give all of these 3:

Quality

Price

Speed

Geoff goes for quality & the price reflects this.

Price reflects lots of things such as:

Overheads – fixed expenses

Competitors

What the client will pay.

You have to decide how much do you want to work & what is your income goal.

He says to get $110,000 pa you need to earn $3780 per week. For this he works 10-20hrs of photography (plus post prodn).

So cost to clients:

$350/hr photography + $125 post prodn = $500ph

$190/hr photography + $125 post prodn =$300ph

Then he went on to talk about quotes & then the AIPP but he went too fast to take notes.

HINT foe aerial ph'y: Stitch photos

GOOD TALK

Photos from Geoff Comfort website: http://www.geoffcomfort.com