salary expecations

Gary

Gary

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lets say hypothetically that you went for a staff photographer role at Autocar magazine, or something along those lines.
when they ask you your salary expectations, what kind of ballpark figure would you answer?
 
First thing I would suggest is looking to see what the market pays, find similar jobs elsewhere and do some research along those lines. You have to becareful when negotiating as you don't want to go too low but on the other hand you don;t want to go too high.
 
Tis a tricky one - locally to me I saw an advert for an Experienced Wedding Photographer to work under the umbrella name of a local studio, but who should have all their own gear, do all the client meets, shoot, post-processing and organise/sell the albums 5-days a week and work most Saturdays - and all for £20,000-£24,000 pa

By comparison shooting for Autocar should be worth about a 50p over national minimum wage?

:shrug:

DD
 
Anything above 20-25K and they'll laugh at you. Publishing in general is a very low paid industry unless you're in on top-tier titles with huge readership like FHM. Even then, I doubt you'd be talking that much as a staff photographer.

Freelancing pays better once you've got your foot in the proverbial door but you you have to be good, willing to put up with crappy jobs to start with and basically speculate to accumulate if you know what I mean...
 
Most photographers in this field are either self employed or work on several publications.
 
DiddyDave said:
Tis a tricky one - locally to me I saw an advert for an Experienced Wedding Photographer to work under the umbrella name of a local studio, but who should have all their own gear, do all the client meets, shoot, post-processing and organise/sell the albums 5-days a week and work most Saturdays - and all for £20,000-£24,000 pa

By comparison shooting for Autocar should be worth about a 50p over national minimum wage?

:shrug:

DD
Click to expand...

hmmm, if you were willing to do all that, wouldnt you do it on your own and keep all the money??:shrug:
 
They know what the job is worth to them.

If you pitch your price below that level they will (apparently) reluctantly agree to pay what you ask and secretly rejoice that they found a fool willing to work for that amount of money.

If you ask more than they want to pay they will refuse to meet your demands. If you then go elsewhere they will look for another mug. If you drop your demands to their offered level they will (apparently) reluctantly agree to pay what you ask and secretly rejoice that they found a fool willing to work for that amount of money.


I have worked for companies like that in the past - as the person being taken for a fool and as a manager doing the dirty on some very nice people. I didn't stay too long and the whole thing was what gave me the push to go self employed. I ended up selling my work to the same firm for a very great deal more than they had been paying me when I worked for them.
 
So now you've answered that question, the next one is can you afford to do it?

If you can manage on a pittance and you're prepared to swallow, you would have the opportunity to build up one hell of a portfolio as a staff snapper.
 
fletch5 said:
hmmm, if you were willing to do all that, wouldnt you do it on your own and keep all the money??:shrug:
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly - but...

The appeal has to be no advertising/marketing costs as the studio would pick those up; and of course no rent/rates/premises issues/insurance/accounts/VAT/telephone/receptionist/etc.

Actually, it's a pretty good rate as I doubt most purely Wedding togs T/O more than £50k anyway before all of the above bills arise - certainly in our parts few do

DD
 
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