Massachusetts-based fashion and Lifestyle photographer (NYC-based rep) with occasional ad agency gigs working professionally for 10 years.
Pre Covid: $180k taxable income
Last couple of years: $80k
2023 is starting off well. January billing was $37,500 from 6 shoots and only $3k in expenses.
My best-paying job was working with an ad agency for an eyewear brand. Global usage for 2 years, 5 days of shooting which paid $76k. I shot for that client for years, and every 2 years, they would re-up a lot of the usage.
Average fashion shoot: $4,500/day 1yr term (they change the collection every 6 months)
Average lifestyle shoot: $4,500/day +10k usage.
Ad agency jobs: Last year, my best one was 1 day, 15k for an OOH campaign in 3 cities for an energy company. The worst was $1k to shoot stills on a TV commercial shoot.
No employees… just freelance assistants
I’m all about working with any budget because, in my experience, small gigs have led to big ones either directly or through word of mouth or contacts made. The agency that gave me the 1-day 15k job this past fall is the same one I shot a day for 1k and have a 1-day 5.5k gig coming up.