Organizations hiring professional photographers for taking photographs of the corporate premises and industrial setup, calculate the cost towards out sourcing the photographic assignment. They generally call for 3 or 4 quotes/proposals from the local or domestic professional photographers for the assignment. In case, of international projects, companies may rely on advertising agencies to co-ordinate the photo-shoot assignments.
It is always easier to calculate the cost of hiring a professional photographer, which is generally mentioned in the formal proposal. Along with this basic costing, organizations have to also take into account the costs towards travel, lodging and boarding of the photographer along with his team. In case of multiple locations spread throughout a nation, the scheduling and timing of the availability of the local factory manager/staff, assisting staff and logistics have to be planned well in advance, so that there are not last-minute unpleasant surprises.
Value of Commercial Photography
Calculating the value of commercial photography is far more complex than arriving at a simple tangible figure for the costing factor. How valuable is the photography? There are several probable answers to this query.
One of the answers to this query is a yet another question: What is the end usage of the digital photographs captured? There are several applications for high quality digital images, to name a few: corporate collaterals like brochures, catalogs, banners, indoor and outdoor hoardings as well as other promotional materials like pamphlets. The same images can be used by the organization for the digital media like websites, blogs, Social Media Optimization (SMO) etc.
With several usages of the digital images, the photographic assignment becomes important and its value increases. Photographs that are captured with state of the art equipment along with through knowledge of an ace photographer gives a distinct edge over any other option, that although seems to be time and money saving in short-term, can prove to be an expensive mistake in long-term.
Another factor, in calculating the value of the commercial photography is the time and efforts required by a staff member who is an enthusiastic “amateur” photographer armed with just a point and shoot camera to capture the entire facilities of the organization. The resulting images will in any case be amateurish and not convey the appropriate corporate identity as envisaged by the top management.
As a professional photographer, you need to convince and educate the clients on the all importance of hiring a professional with years of experience and expertise in the field of photography. The end results will always be justified in terms of value addition to the company’s corporate identity and overall corporate image in their clients and customer’s minds.