Three Hundred Dollars to Help Sell the Whole Damn Experience

A branded holiday bar offered me $300.00 for opening-night photography. At first glance, $300.00 for 3 hours of work seems pretty good. However, once I took a breath and considered what it actually costs, my profit margins disappeared into real expenses, before I’d paid myself for a minute of work. Meanwhile, if the organizer wanted to use even one of those photos in a paid campaign to sell tickets, that license alone could be worth thousands. The offer priced the photography like a minor expense while leaving its commercial use out of the conversation entirely. A serious budget has to account for both what it costs to make the images and what the images are worth to the business based on the expected job they will do.