Taking The Mystery Out of Commercial Photography

Commercial Photography - its one of those intimidating, mysterious terms.  Most photographers invite you to contact them for a quote and give you little or no idea of what it is you're actually asking about. After all, its obvious to us, photographers... Well - it isn't obvious to you, my client.  I would like to shed some light on the subject.  
Commercial Photography is just images made for the use of a business - be it for advertising, website, products in their catalogue or simply because you want to proudly display a photograph in your lobby.
Unfortunately, I have to concede to my "call me for a quote" colleagues on one subject:  because it is such a broad category, it is difficult to give an idea of pricing.  It would be akin to saying "How much do groceries cost?"... Well... that depends, right?  What type, how much or how many, for what period of time? 
The price of commercial photography depends on the amount of use the pictures will get - both how and for how long they will be used.
Real Estate photography is actually a form of commercial photography - quite frankly, it is about as commercial as photography gets!  So why the distinction?  Well, real estate photography is a very specific, very defined type of commercial photography.  The images are used for the sale of the property.  Their useful life is generally limited to the life of the listing and that can vary from one day to several months, but generally speaking they have a very narrow window in which they can do their work for my clients.  Its important, crucial work - and therein lies the great value, but it is very narrow, specialized in scope.
Commercial photography takes into account how long the pictures will be used, in what media (bill board?  vehicle wrap? magazine?  posters? website?) and how widely they will be distributed (are you a local shop that wants a picture for the website and their ad in the local free press?  Or are you a majour sports apparel company which will use the images on billboards in all the big cities around the world for years to come?).  Basically, to be fair to the client, the commercial photographer charges based on how much use you will get out of the images, to ensure that every one has access to our services at a fair price.
Having said that, I find that many smaller businesses - the single location, "mom & pop" shops and local artists and crafts people - are really intimidated by all this talk about licensing and the prices that sometimes go along with commercial photography.  They usually don't know (and why should they!) what licensing is, what media and territory are, and all that legalese mumbo-jumbo.  They know their business inside and out - it is up to us to make sure we make our business accessible to them and worth their hard earned money!
With those people in mind I have put together a couple of packages aimed specifically at these types of heart and soul, local community businesses.  The packages are described on our pricing page for commercial photography, please click here to have a look for yourself!
Obviously, if those do not fit your needs, I will have to concede to the age old "please contact us for a quote".  I really hate the idea of doing it, but I assure you, its the best way to get together and come up with a solution that best meets your needs! 
In either case, please feel free to leave a comment, or better yet, contact us through our contact page and we will be more than happy to talk shop, any time!