Hey everyone, so I've found myself in quite a complex situation.
First off: I am young student working in research, new to professional photography and have never done a paid gig. Recently I started focussing on concert photography and it has been going great. Shot and will shoot multiple internationally respected bands, got great feedback from both bands and their fans and I seem to have found a sense of meaning to my craft.
The request: An acquaintance of mine asked me to shoot a two day festival that friends of his are organizing. The festival is pretty underground and will most certainly have a tight budget. The festival is about 3 hours by commute away from me which will be free for me. A sleeping place would be organized. There will be 29 bands in total, playing pretty much all of friday and saturday. Fast music, short sets, high work volume and intensity.
Pricing: At first I wanted to offer my services for free, seeing as how I am very new to photography and (propably wrongfully) still feel way too unprofessional to charge anything. Then I realized that the festival would come with around two days aka around 20 hours of just shooting as well as a minimum of 290 pictures to select and edit. On top of that would come looking through and sorting out all the pictures taken which would be at the very least around 6000 pictures. I have thankfully adopted a very streamlined workflow for selecting and editing but nonetheless all this should equate up to at least 40-50 hours of work in total. After I told the acquaintance that I would be interested, he asked me what total honorary wage I had in mind. Seeing as how I am a student already working maximum legal hours, official working and payment agreements will not be possible to set up.
So: Given all that information, do you have any tips for how I can determine what to charge?
My guess: If I calculated with minimum wage for just the work hours, we would end up with about 600€ for the 50 hours. That seems like way too much though, seeing as how the festival is indepently organized and I would be really grateful for the opportunity of contributing to the scene alone. Do you think asking for 300€ would be fair? Still seems like a ton to me but given the calculation it should be reasonable enough.
Thank you very much in advance!
Cheers
The type of photography you are aiming to make money out of thrives on network. The more people you know, the more likely you are asked for a job (there's no such thing as job adverts for event photographers).
You also want to build up the nicest portfolio you can. I suppose the question is, how good a friend is this and how well connected are they? For them to set up a festival (however small) with 29 acts (oops, not so small now!) means they have connections elsewhere.
I would choose the amicable route, have a chat (now) explain how much work is involved and share your thinking with regards to the costs involved. Your time doesn't have to be free, but payment doesn't have to be in money either...
There isn't a right or wrong answer, early on you will have to balance favours with work. I shot some professional events for my job and they (to my surprise) led to several other requests that did offer fair payment. It's the way you build things up.
This is what I wanted to say but put more eloquently