I’m a full time salaried employee at a New England based branding and design agency. I am the only photographer at this company, I do photo and video work. I mostly interact with graphic designers and 3D artists.
We have our hand in a variety of industries and seem to be dipping into more every couple weeks/months.
Our clients are East Coast mostly ranging from start-ups to more national companies.
I have no employees under me, but as a company we range from 20-40 full-time.
I work the normal 5 days per week, year round with federal and local holidays off. Sometimes I work weekends. There is a lot of overtime and some weeks I work between 50-60 hours, but typically I’m 40-50.
I have occasional freelance work but that stays below $2K unless I do a wedding.
Too many variables to have a typical shoot, it can range from months shooting on the same property, to a 15 minute shot. It’s all over the place.
We pay assistants $250/half, $500/full day.
Video is 35% of my work.
Best Advice: Diversify your offerings.
Worst Advice: Shoot weddings.
Fight for your worth. I stayed at this company hoping for a raise each year, and each year I would have to broach the subject. No cost of living raise despite each year our profits going up. Agencies offer benefits and stability but demand long hours and in my experience less pay. I find the admin/marketing and customer service efforts of freelance tiresome so I opted for an agency job. I may rethink this in the next year or two if things don’t change given I can’t progress financially at this income with where I live.