Part 1 Asking for It - establishment of fees for photography seminars

PSA Journal, August, 2000 by Lorelle VanFossen

As PSA members become more experienced and active in the leadership of their club or group, we often consider reaching out further to the community by offering educational and informational workshops and seminars to the general public. The biggest challenge facing us is how to ask for compensation. After all, we've put a lot of time, money and energy into becoming qualified and establishing a reputation to be honored with an invitation. Shouldn't we be fairly compensated?

When it comes to asking for it, guilt and inadequacy raise their ugly heads. Many of us are now considered experts in our field, yet most of us arrived here through volunteer work. You must recognize that the work involved in achieving your credentials comes not from some school which hands you a diploma, but comes unrecognized in the trials and tribulations of working within a photography club and on your own. Experience is the greater teacher. It means you got your hands dirty and you deserve honor and recognition as well as compensation for sharing your learned experiences with others.

Asking for It

After getting past the guilt and accepting that you are deserving of compensation, setting up a price scale is a little harder. It is dependent upon three things: the time length of the program, the size of the audience and the organization's ability to pay. There are other smaller concerns, but these three are the most important.

First, how long is the program? Longer programs should pay more. Sometimes, you still have to factor in how many people are there and how much they can afford to pay you.

Second, how large is the audience? Compensation can be determined by audience numbers. If only a few show up, you will only make a little, as you are paid per person. You can also set up a minimum amount based upon how many people are anticipated. For example, an audience size up to 20 people is a minimum of $100, to 40 people is a minimum of $150 and to 75 would be $200. The larger the group, the harder you might have to work, and the more equipment, such as a microphone and PA system, will have to be provided.

Another common method uses a compensation figure based on the audience number with a guarantee built in. This covers your base expenses no matter how many people attend, and then provides you with compensation for each person past your minimum. This "rewards" you for attracting a large crowd, while still covering your expenses. For example, for an audience of up to 20 people, you may have a $75 minimum and then $5 per person past the first 20. If 32 people show, you could make $135. If only 10 people showed, you would still have $75.

Third, how much can the organization afford to pay you? This is a challenge. Based on extensive experience, most organizations have more to spend than they admit. Few organizations are as generous with their funding as they could be. They live with the attitude that volunteer organizations deserve freebies. After all, the membership is made up of volunteers, many of whom work hard to support membership activity without compensation, and here you come, for a one shot deal. You should be "honored" to just be there.

In a way, they speak the truth. But as much as they recognize the hard work their membership does, they aren't honoring the hard work that brought you to them. Is that experience and expertise deserving of compensation? It's not only for your time spent in one evening, but reward for all the years of paying "your dues" to stand before them. The hard part is convincing them of that.

Using these three guidelines and resources, how do you establish a fee structure? Let's look at the expenses for a moment. It's a basic business function that income should exceed expenses.

Expenses

Unless you are doing a program for a large audience - who will compensate you extensively - never expect to cover ALL your expenses in one shot. Many professional speakers and photographers use the same program over and over to different crowds to maximize the income from one single expense. Estimate the total expense and then estimate how many programs you may have to do to recoup those expenses.

Expenses in producing a photographic workshop are fairly consistent and easy to account for. Duplicate slides, title slides, slide trays, fade/dissolve controls, slide projectors, electrical cords, presentation laser pointers, displays and the general equipment purchased or rented to do the photographic elements all add up. The bigger the group, the greater the expense if they don't provide microphones, long distance projection lenses, long electrical cords and other needs you may have.

Expensing your film and processing is a much harder task. For many quality images, several rolls of film may have gone into capturing one image. Camera equipment, camera bags, tripods, insurance, gas, travel expenses - all these expenses cannot be adequately figured into the cost of producing a program. They are the tools of the trade. These can only be estimated and expensed (depreciated) over a long time period. At best, once you figure your basic expenses, add on a dollar amount you feel compensates you over the long run.