Lesson Info
63. Pricing For Commissions
Lessons
Class Introduction
07:25 2Overview of Brooke’s Journey
20:13 3Your Timeline is Nonlinear
05:37 4Using Curiosity and Intention to Build Your Career
03:26 5What Factors Dictate Growth
08:24 6Organic Growth vs. Forced Growth
05:18 7Niche Branding
04:57 8Brooke’s Artistic Evolution and Timeline
24:27How Can You Get Ahead if You Feel Behind?
10:02 10Ideation and Conceptualization to Identify Meaning in Your Art
05:54 11Idea Fluency
10:33 12How to Represent an Idea
07:01 13How to Innovate an Idea
07:07 14Creating a Dialogue With Your Art
05:48 15Conceptualization For a Series vs. a Single Image
03:43 16Transforming a Single Image Into a Series
03:12 17How to Tell a Story in a Series
03:28 18How to Create Costumes From Fabric
07:20 19Brooke’s Most Useful Costumes
02:19 20Using Paint and Clay as Texture in an Image
02:56 21Create Physical Elements in an Image
10:22 22Shooting for a Fine Art Series
05:45 23Conceptualization: Flowery Fish Bowl in the Desert
04:08 24Wardrobe and Texture
04:54 25Posing for the Story
05:32 26Choosing an Image
01:23 27Conceptualization: Rainy Plexiglass
11:34 28Posing for the Story
04:17 29Creating Backlight
02:37 30Photo Shoot #1 - Creating a Simple Composite
17:51 31Photo Shoot #2 - Creating a Dynamic Composite
06:31 32Photo Shoot #3 - Creating a Storytelling Composite
07:40 33Shooting the Background Images
06:14 34Editing Samsara Shoot #1 - Working With Backgrounds
24:35 35Editing Samsara Shoot #1 - Retouching the Subject
04:20 36Editing Samsara Shoot #1 - Color Grading
02:45 37Editing Samsara Shoot #1 - Floor Replacement Texture
15:24 38Editing Samsara Shoot #1 - Final Adjustments
03:21 39Editing Samsara Shoot #2 - Cropping and Editing Backgrounds
05:25 40Editing Samsara Shoot #2 - Selective Adjustments
03:55 41Editing Samsara Shoot #2 - Adding Texture + Fine Tuning
03:21 42Editing Composite Shoot #1 - Compositing Models
06:58 43Editing Composite Shoot #1 - Expanding Rooms
02:17 44Editing Composite Shoot #1 - Selective Color
02:47 45Editing Composite Shoot #1 - Selective Exposure
04:04 46Editing Composite Shoot #2- Masking Into Backgrounds
10:45 47Editing Composite Shoot #2- Creating Rooms in Photoshop
06:11 48Editing Composite Shoot #2- Compositing Hair
05:07 49Editing Composite Shoot #2- Global Adjustments
04:49 50Editing Composite Shoot #3- Blending Composite Elements
05:00 51Editing Composite Shoot #3- Advanced Compositing
08:46 52Editing Composite Shoot #3- Cleanup
03:34 53Materials for Alternative Processes
06:20 54Oil Painting on Prints
05:41 55Encaustic Wax on Prints
03:09 56Failure vs. Sell Out
05:14 57Create Art You Love and Bring an Audience To You
03:35 58Branding Yourself Into a Story
05:40 59The Artistic Narrative
05:26 60Get People to Care About Your Story
03:36 61Get People to Buy Your Story
11:36 62Getting Galleries and Publishers to Take Notice
03:41 63Pricing For Commissions
06:43 64Original Prints vs. Limited Edition Prints vs. Open Edition Prints
02:11 65Class Outro
01:00 66Live Premiere
16:14 67Live Premiere: Layers of Depth 1
04:41 68Live Premiere: Layers of Depth 2
07:12 69Live Premiere: Q&A
16:10 70Live Premiere: Photo Critique
47:33Lesson Info
Pricing For Commissions
I want to talk for just a minute about pricing and the ways that I make money from my art. So one of them is commissions. I do commissions for bands and for authors, for publishing companies. Things like that, Ah, few times a year. I don't do it a lot because it's not really, you know, the passion of my wheelhouse. But I do. It's, um, sometimes. And when I price for commissions, I think about one. How much do I want to do this thing? Is it really important to me that I do it? Or is it going to be a headache? Because, like I said, I don't really like working with people. It's not my jam, so I would rather not, and it has to be really good. A great collaboration toe want to do it? So I priced myself at a starting point of $3000 and a good base price for a commission could be anything for you. So across the board when it comes, Thio commissions licensing prince things like that, I kind of like to say like $500 U. S. Dollars is a good starting point, So if you're just starting out. That mi...
ght be a good place to begin. I have done commissions for $100 and for many, many thousands. More than that, depending on the client and my starting point and where I am now, so I can never tell you a price that you should start at. I could never do that because this is up to you. What you need to make, how much work goes into it, how valuable you think it is based on where you are in your career. But I charged minimum and I don't get fancy. Okay, all these portrait photographers, I don't understand you guys. There's this whole, like there's the fee for the thing and then the other fee for the other thing you can tell. I really know the business of Portrait, and I just do one price, so I just do. The price is $3000 and that's what it takes for me to shoot it and give you an edited photo, one edited photo. That's how I do my commissions. And if you want more images, I charge a separate fee per image, and that price might go up depending on, you know the scope of the project. So commissions a really simple for me. I don't do like tears, pricing structures, stuff like that because it's just confusing to me. So I choose my base price based on the project, how much work it is. And then I say, this is what it costs. Take it or leave it. And sometimes I'll explain what goes into that you can see in this pricing sheet here that I go into just a little bit of what you know what they get out of it and to make sure that they understand where this price comes from. And then we go on to licensing. So when I license images, it's different from a commission because it's the sale of a digital file. It is not, You know, I'm going to show up and do a photo shoot and provide new images. It's I already have an image that you want to use for your purposes, so licensing is very different, and licensing is very difficult to price because it depends on the exclusivity of what you are doing. So if you're gonna provide a book cover, great, fine, You're providing a book cover. But what does that mean? So the book cover maybe a very small book that is going to be only published online, Let's say, And it's by an author that has never, you know, put anything out in a very tiny company. Well, then you would wanna pick your base price. So your your base price is going to be a nonexclusive contract, meaning you can license that image again and again and again to other people. And that's your base price. So you could even put on your website. Licensing begins at $200 something like that, and that gives people a baseline of what they can expect. And then it might go up from there. And it might go up based on all these different licensing factors, like how much exclusivity there is. So is it going to be exclusive to that book or that album or whatever it is for one year, two years? Three years? Is it going to be exclusive per location in the United States? In Portugal, In Germany, you know, where is it going to be reduced to, or is it worldwide? And if somebody says to you, I'm gonna license an image and I want exclusive rights to that image. That's gonna be your high point. So for me, I started $500 as my low price for being able to license toe anybody anytime. And then I go all the way up to $5000. Plus if they want exclusivity. So that's kind of my range. And again, I can't tell you exactly what you should do for yours. I started out at $100 as my low price, and it went up from there just to give you a little example of what I dio. And then finally, Prince, how do I Price Prince? Well, there are a couple ways that you can go about. This one is that they say you should get the price of a print, multiply it by 10 and start there. It's a problematic way of doing things, but if it makes you feel better, toe have, like, some multiplication to dio go for it. Okay, so my 10 inch prints cost $10. If I multiply that by 10 that's $ and that's a fine base price. But the bigger the print, the more it's going to be, and it might get a little bit pricey, so I think that's a fine place to start with your small size print. Just think about that. But when it comes to pricing, lower can often be better when you're starting out because you can't take a price down once it's already been up. So starting Loken be good, and then you just incrementally move it up as you go. Uh, if you don't feel comfortable doing that for whatever reason, um, you know, start higher. That's OK. You set your price. I would say. Don't go below 100 to $200 when your pricing limited edition prints. That means that there is a limited number of prints that you are going to sell, so I wouldn't start below 102 $100 because that gets into the realm of Open Edition. Pricing under $100 is pretty typical for open editions, meaning that you could sell as many as you want anybody who wants them. So think about that in terms of do you want to be able to sell to a lot of people at a low price or a fewer number of people at a higher price, and they're very different career paths. So really think about what's best for you. If you want to sell limited editions, you go through galleries. That's the way that you make sales typically. But it doesn't have to be that way. There are plenty of websites online that will allow you to sell just yourself through those platforms, or you might just have something on your website. I personally go through galleries, and I have been more successful with galleries since creating bodies of work rather than random images that don't really go together. So think about that.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Brooke never fails to deliver. I found this course superb from start to finish. From exercising your creative 'muscle', demystifying taking self portraits, and showing that they don't have to be perfect before you begin editing, to walking you through her editing process and how to price your work. Brooke's enthusiastic personality and excitement about the work shines through it all. Definitely recommended!
Rebecca Potter
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Brooke for this amazing class. Inspired and so full of practical knowledge, this is the best class I've ever watched. You have given me the confidence to pursue what I've always been afraid to do. Watch this space!
Søren Nielsen
Thank for fantastic motivating an very inspiring. The story telling and selling module was very helpful - thanks from Denmark