RGoldman
Member
Well..... I did something yesterday that I never imagined I would do in my lifetime. I paid $5/gal for diesel fuel. I have owned the same truck for 12 years and when I first bought it, I could fill it up for $35. It's now $175 for the same tank full of diesel. I am self employed, running 2 different businesses for the last 20 years and have seen my expenses jump as high as 600% on electricity, 500% on fuel, 400% on propane (which I use a lot of and purchase 1000 gallons at a time), and anywhere from 200-300% on everything else. In that same time, I have only raised my prices twice and not even close to the percentages that everything else has gone up.
I have watched the stock photography market sales rapidly decline over the last 5 years with pricing going the exact opposite of everything else and customers that think pricing should be lower because "it's digital, all you do is put it on the computer and it's done".
Sorry for the rant but.... I guess my question here is what is everyone else doing to cover the rising expenses when most people are expecting to pay the same or less for our work? Not to mention, the hundreds of amateur photographers advertising themselves as professionals and bidding on jobs at 1/10th the going day rates since they got a new DSLR for Christmas?
I know there is always a market for quality work and I have picked up several jobs this year from people that hired the photographer with the cheapest bid on the job and then found they couldn't use any of the images because they were so bad. But even those customers want to pay less than what I feel my time and investment in equipment is worth!
If anyone has a brilliant solution, please share!
I have watched the stock photography market sales rapidly decline over the last 5 years with pricing going the exact opposite of everything else and customers that think pricing should be lower because "it's digital, all you do is put it on the computer and it's done".
Sorry for the rant but.... I guess my question here is what is everyone else doing to cover the rising expenses when most people are expecting to pay the same or less for our work? Not to mention, the hundreds of amateur photographers advertising themselves as professionals and bidding on jobs at 1/10th the going day rates since they got a new DSLR for Christmas?
I know there is always a market for quality work and I have picked up several jobs this year from people that hired the photographer with the cheapest bid on the job and then found they couldn't use any of the images because they were so bad. But even those customers want to pay less than what I feel my time and investment in equipment is worth!
If anyone has a brilliant solution, please share!