How much does an architectural photographer make?

Well if you are considering starting a career in architectural photography this is a great question.

How much an architectural photographer can make depends on a number of factors.

Experience
Brand
Portfolio

Qualifications
The economy
Market/ Clients

Types of work
Quantity of work
Number of images

Editing
Full-time or part-time
Other related sectors

Commercial deals
Competition
Other income streams

Online presence
Social media presence

First the bad news

Unfortunately, I cannot give you an actual number, and I am not able to tell you how much I charge as this will compromise my commercial negotiations with clients, and will also breach client confidentiality with existing and previous clients.

Any number that you see online is pure conjecture, as there are so many variables and factors.

This is one of the very few things that I am not able to share about my architectural photography business. I share everything else freely but not this.

I work on an individual commission basis. The amount that I charge depends on all the factors above.

Your own number

This is the one thing that you will have to work out for yourself. But I will tell you all the things that you need to know which will help you get the numbers that you need.

Experience

Do you have demonstrable experience as an architectural photographer? In general terms you will be able to charge more as an experienced architectural than you will as a photographer with no experience in this discipline.

When you start off your pricing will have to reflect the fact that you are new to this, but as you gain experience you will be able to gradually increase the rates that you charge.

And as you build your portfolio and reputation the amount you can charge will change.

Brand

To be a successful architectural photographer you need to build your own reputation, your own brand. You need to position yourself as someone who does that.

And this is a tough thing – it is very hard to build a reputation as an architectural photographer if you are doing weddings, portraits, and any other stuff.

Your reputation is your brand, and this needs to shout out – “I photograph buildings” – “I am an architectural photographer”.

But the good news is that when you make that leap it is much easier to position yourself as an architectural photographer, and in time your brand will grow, as will the amount you are able to charge.

Portfolio

To be able to charge money to take photos as an architectural photographer you need to have a portfolio, a body of architectural photography work.

Why?

Well you need to be able to convince potential clients that you can deliver the images that they need, and the best way to do this is by having a portfolio that proves that you are genuine.

The better the portfolio, the more the value of work that you can bid for and hopefully win.

I think that I need to cover this in a separate post, as this is so important.

Qualifications

I am an ABIPP – Associate in the British Institute of Professional Photography. What does this mean?

Well this is what the BIPP say on their qualifications page.

“ABIPP is a high standard of craftsmanship, including the use of light, composition, image framing and cropping. The assessors are looking for a high level of skill and ability. The panel of images should reflect a growing style, look, or brand that the photographer has started to develop.

Creating and developing a consistent post production style should be evident. Demonstration of good ability in preparing files for print, including knowledge for output and the correct choice of printing media.
The panel should hang together as a solid piece of work.”

Basically, as a professionally qualified photographer you are able to charge more, just like in any other profession.

And when you are a member of a professional photography institute you are listed as a photographer who can provide such services.

The economy

Well this will always influence how much anyone earns. The economy in the country where you are will always vary, in boom times rates go up, in times of recession things get harder.

But then again, when time get harder sometimes people are looking to spend more to boost their business and their income, and we as architectural photographers can be at the front end of this when clients are looking to find new clients and new markets.

Market/ clients

Which market are you in? Are you working for architects, contractors, developers, product manufacturers?

Each client has their own needs and times when they will be looking to commission new work, and rates will vary according to their needs.

Being aware of the markets, economic climate and the various parties commercial pressures will influence how much you can charge.

Clients all have different needs at different times, and it is our job to correctly gauge these and price accordingly.

Types of work

If you are photographing Buckingham Palace you will charge more than if you are photographing someone’s house.

Ridiculous but I hope you get the point.

Different types of work can command different levels of fees. This is something that you should think about when you are coming up with your potential clients – who do you want to work for? What do you want to photograph?

Sure you can’t pick and choose, certainly not in the beginning, but you need a plan that will dictate what you are going to do and how much you can charge for it.

Quantity of work

How may shoots can you do in a week/ month/ year?

Being an architectural photographer, unless you are lucky or brilliant or a genius, is not just a case of turning up, photographing a building, and collecting a big cheque.

If only.

No, there is so much more

Marketing
Agreeing deals
Contracts

Prepping the gear
Planning the shoot
Doing the shoot

Editing the images

Again, this is one for another post – oh no I have already done one – What Does An Architectural Photographer Do? (see I know about this stuff!).

Being a photographer is probably 10-20% taking photos, 80-90% other stuff.

Just saying.

Number of images

How may images are you going to give a client? This massively affects how much time you need to take and edit images, and how much you need to charge.

Big takeaway here is that clients normally do not want that many images – on an average shoot I can issue 30 (ish) edited images and fully satisfy the brief.

Nail down the number of images you are going to issue to a client which will allow to get your time commitment sorted and now much you need to charge.

Editing

Well I have covered part of that above. The only thing to add is that we need to limit the extent of editing included, as wholesale removal of significant parts of an image such as a scaffold can take a lot of time, and should be at an additional cost to the client.

Full-time or part-time

Is this the only thing that you do, or is this part of other stuff? Is it your intention to do architecture photography full-time or part-time?

Many photographers start off with regular day jobs and do this on the side to start off with. This is a good plan, which I recommend if you are starting off.

You can afford to charge a reasonable rate and build up a portfolio whilst having regular income coming in. And if it take s off great.

If it costs you money to do your day job over architectural photography then you have a wonderful decision to make.

Other related sectors

I know I said that to be successful in architectural photography you need to stick to that, but there is an amount of broadening out that you can do – here are some ideas. We need to be smart about this!

Estate Agent Photography
Real Estate Photography

Construction Product Photography

Rental property sectors

I am sure there are many more, these are just ideas to get those creative juices flowing. All sectors where you can charge good commercial money for your services.

Commercial deals

You have taken photos of a shiny new building, for say the architect.

Excellent.

Now how many other parties are there to the construction process? There are many. And do any of these other parties want your photos?

Quite possibly yes.

So here are two things that you can do.

Make sure that your contract with the client allows you to sell your images to others.

Get the contact details of all the other interested parties if you can, consultants, contractors, suppliers etc.

Do these two things and you can do a third thing – ask any of them if they want to buy any photos.

This is a great, legitimate way of boosting your income.

This is is freelancing.

Competition

Competition dictates price, which is why all of the above are so important. You need to be ahead of the competition, be the go to man/ woman, be the one who delivers, who is better than the competition.

Other income streams

These days there are many other income streams that a photographer relies on, other than taking photos for clients.

These provide additional, background income that help keep pricing of work competitive, and include

Ads on websites
Affiliate income

Online presence

These days you need an online presence, as this is how people are going to find you to talk about working for them.

You need a website that is appealing to clients, that makes them feel comfortable approaching you to discuss you taking photos for them. The quality of your website will have a huge influence on the clients you might attract, and the amount you can charge to work for them.

I am not advocating one website type over another here, it just needs to quickly tell a client what you can do for them, how you can help them, and make it easy for them to get in touch with you.

Social media presence

Sorry, I have to say this. Not a big fan of this but if you know what you are doing you can make on online reputation for yourself and charge accordingly.

OK I am done here

Related viewing

There is a video for this blog post that you can watch right here on my You Tube Channel.

My Podcast

Also please check out the Photography Explained Podcast, my small but perfectly formed audio offering available on all good podcast providers.

With kind regards from England

Rick McEvoy Photography