When should you not sell photographs on disc?
November 21st, 2008
In response to the thoughts and discussions raised by my previous post on selling pictures on disc I thought I’d have a go at establishing the tipping point for the sell / don’t sell argument.
Bamboo at Westonburt Arboretum in Gloucestershire gave me just the 'film set' needed for this demure portrait of one of my favourite clients. Taken at f/4 on my 70-200mm lens.
For the vast majority of social photographers who have clients that limit their order based on a predetermined budget or other cost factors selling pictures on disc can be very lucrative as it is surely the most profitable product they have to offer. An example: A portrait client that sets an upper spend limit of £1000 on products from their one hour shoot session that buys a set of pictures on disc would give the photographer in excess of £999 of direct profit (before fixed overheads). If however the client had more money to spend and could choose the items they wanted without the need to count the cost, it would be prudent for the photographer to sell multiple products like frames, canvases and albums. Some photographers I know regularly exceed £10,000 in orders from single portrait sessions. They could never do this if they offered pictures on disc. In fact one London photographer friend of mine earned over £18,000 from one portrait session last month alone.
I love the interaction between the star and the maple leaves. Sometimes the most beautiful pictures I take of children have a calmness and a sense of peace about them.
Here are my guidelines:
A) Photographers with budget conscious clients: By offering pictures on disc you may well be capping your income but you will be giving your clients what they want. By not offering pictures on disc you may well find it increasingly hard to get clients and a high percentage of your client spend will go to album, print and frame manufacturers.
B) Photographers with a unique image style and products who do not have to compete on price: These photographers attract the big money, their prints are often considered investments and their clients are fiercely loyal. For these photographers the print quality is king in maintaining the brand integrity. Giclee printing, alternative processes and individually signed photographs ensure that each image commands a high price. There is no logical reason for these photographers to sell their images on disc. They run many risks by doing so.
This high viewpoint combined with a lack of eye contact makes this image more graphic and contrasts well with the intensity of the above image in the set.
I fall in between these two categories where some of my clients are fellow photographers and creatives and I want them to take ownership of my pictures. Other clients of mine want the full service and buy albums and frames custom designed by us for them. Our average portrait sale is between £4000 and £6000 and I suggest this is the point that the grey area between selling or not selling pictures on disc begins.
Please let me know your reasons for selling discs or not and other thought processes that should be being discussed here.
Damien
6 Comments Add your own
1. Wing Liu | November 22nd, 2008 at 2:38 am
Great follow up to the last SELL BY DISC acticle. Makes complete sense now.
2. Wing Liu | November 22nd, 2008 at 2:40 am
btw, the photo of the little girl is so much better than the boy – love the out of focus few pieces of bamboo – f4 is just the right amount that created more focus on the little girl.
3. David Lowerson | November 22nd, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Hi Damien,
Firstly, love the blog and the useful articles that you so kindly post for us fellow professional photographers.
Secondly, I currently sell my images to the client on disc, if that’s what they want. Otherwise the client may go elsewere. I do however make quite a healthy profit from doing this.
The flip side to this is that if I sell the images on disc, the client may go and print the images on their home desktop printer or at the supermarket lab and the quality could be quite poor. This could result in my work being presented at a substandard and could be detrimental to my professional reputation.
Therefore, when I sell my own reprints the client gets quality every time and my images are displayed as they were intended.
Dave
4. Anna S | November 24th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Hi Damien,
Really useful follow-up to your previous posts.
I’m just redoing my portrait prices at the moment for next year and am now thinking of offering a series of packages with, say, a top package where clients get all the images on CD, plus other bespoke products such as a coffee table book etc, priced accordingly (so £1,000+), and then a series of other packages that don’t include the CD option, but just framed products etc – so a combination of the two different offerings.
Would be interested to know if you think this sounds workable, as am finding the whole pricing thing a bit of a minefield for someone who’s only previously done corporate photography!
Thanks for the brilliant blog too.
Anna
5. dave cooke | January 23rd, 2010 at 10:11 pm
I think the lower budget clients will always want a disc, and the higher end clients will always come to you for there reprints as they can afford it.
thanks for this ace site by the way
6. Richard King | May 30th, 2010 at 11:51 am
One point to add here is the “when” Our clinets do get the disk, bit they dont get the disk untill we have supplied the first wave of products (including the album). As we all know, that takes time.
I would argue that the further you are away from the event/wedding/portrait session, the more unlikley it is you will get an additional sale. The disk, in the end, serves as the couples archive backup, because they had all the products they wanted from you in the first place
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