Pricing of commercial photography is something hard for many clients to understand. These Clients are often only familiar with buying widgets and doodads. The concept of paying for a creative work that is not a widget or a doodad is sometimes hard to grasp.

The issue comes from the commodification of photography and a lack of professional photographers educating first time clients. I should give other professional photographers a break about not educating first time clients. Truth is they fail to educate any clients. Add to that photography students get left out on the business side of photography, graduate and have no knowledge of how to bid on a job, or what goes into pricing the job. Photography students are also not well versed on the value of the work they create, resulting in pricing that is unrealistically high or so far below fair market value that their bids get laughed at.

So let's start from the top with what a commercial client is buying. A commercial client buys a license for the use of a creative work. That license covers at least: what the images will be used for, what publications, for what time-frame, how much exclusivity the client gets for the image, and in what geographical area. There may be other terms a license could cover but those are the basics covering: who, what where, when, why, how, for the reproduction of the Image.

The client also pays for a service. The service is the photographers creation of an image that meets the needs of the client.

This is very different from buying a portrait. With a portrait you are buying a service with a singular print, and in most cases are not getting reproduction rights. Anyone remember the mom getting sued for copying portraits of their child at a walmart kiosk? She didn't have a release, or license, to reproduce the images.

In both cases we are not talking about a widget. A widget is something like a gear that you buy that is the same every time, and is the same from every manufacturer. With very few exceptions, you can't get the same image from different photographers. Nor is every image going to be exactly the same as all other images.

Photography is more like music. It's a dynamic arena with many artists, and large varying talent. Both industries license the use of their creative works, and the digital influence on the industries is changing much of the way we experience the final product.

As long as we keep our focus that photography is not a widget, we can help avoid perceiving photography as just a commodity to be bought and sold like a widget. I hope that by writing and providing guides to help educate clients, students, and other photographers; that we can eliminate much of the confusion in buying commercial photography.