How to Deal with Friends Requesting Discounts on Your Photography

Photographers often receive requests for free images and services, and messages from friends asking for your services at extremely discounted rates are not much better. Here’s a helpful 3-minute video by Josh Enobakhare of Olufemii Tutorials in which he shares a number of ways that you can avoid needing to give that awkward “no.”

Josh charges around $15,000 to produce music videos and regularly experiences friends and people in his social circle asking for his services. While they may have full intentions of paying for the services, it seems that pretty much all of the time these friends are ignorant of what standard fees are.

So how do you politely decline, and avoid, these sorts of awkward situations? Here are Enobakhare’s tips:

  1. Don’t take it personally
  2. Post your prices on your website
  3. Don’t jump the gun – talk to them until you actually know they can’t afford it
  4. Bring up the budget as soon as possible, rather than wasting time talking about the details
  5. Be direct and clear
  6. Share information about why the price is what it is
  7. Don’t flip out!

Enobakhare elaborates on these points in the video above, so give it a watch if you often find yourself dealing with this situation. You can also subscribe to Enobakhare’s channel here.

Discussion