2025 05 13
Emily, keeping it 100 at See You Soon, Chicago, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Previously, I wrote about the origin of this “Keep it 100” portrait setup I’ve been doing, along with some of the challenges I faced. (See: 2025 03 24)
This will be a short update, of sorts. In the spirit of transparency (I like when people work through challenges publicly via social media and whatnot — even if, in reality, it’s more done as a marketing ploy), I thought it might be beneficial to some to see some actual numbers. In reality, it will mostly be beneficial to myself, as I struggle to figure out how financially viable it is to offer one-hundred unique portraits for one-hundred and fifty dollars.
Someone on Threads posted asking how people make a living from being portrait photographers. The one-word answer that came to mind, for me, was: hustle. That really kind of sums it all up. Finding willing participants is no easy task. Convincing people to come to you, money in hand, is hard. What keeps me going is the huge amount of very appreciative feedback I am getting from the sessions. Lots of people who otherwise hate getting their photo taken are really enjoying the process. Of course, there are endless intangibles that go into all of this beyond raw numbers, and at the end of the day, it’s myself and my decades of experience which is the real value.
February 2025: (19 sessions) $3,250 bookings; $625 tips & add-ons. $3,875 total over 9 days = $430/day.
Not terrible at a glance, and perhaps a sustainable way to make a career as a photographer, especially if you can keep your expenses down. In reality, the only way I’m able to do this setup is because I am pulling from gear accumulated over a decade by three different photographers. The upfront cost, wear & tear on the camera, and all of my time makes it hard to pin an exact number on what all of this costs, but if you were to go and rent all the necessary gear for the nine days, you’d likely spend over 100% of revenue on rentals alone.
Then, factor in the space needed to make it all work, and now we’re losing even more money. Not a sustainable business model.
My ideal, best case scenario for this specific setup is not to raise prices, but to figure out creative ways to make it make sense. I’ve been considering things like: making the entire setup go towards charity (not possible in my current financial situation); making a portion of each session go to charity; partnering with nonprofits and allowing participants to donate any number they deem appropriate; trying out a pay-what-you-want model.
What I’m trying to communicate is that the price of this offering is artificially low and should not be interpreted as what you might expect to get when you hand a photographer $150 in exchange for portraits. I’ve been trying to do things like asking for additional tips, high resolution, and/or retouched files in exchange for more money, in hopes that people might help “subsidize” the low price for others. Now, I have an entire new website (everyoneisfamous.com) dedicated to both showing the work and gaining more attention to the offering. Since launching, I’ve done one run of portraits, resulting in:
April 2025: (16 sessions) $2,500 bookings; $535 tips & add-ons. $3,035 over 7 days = $433/day.
One month is not a trend, but I will be interested in seeing if I can get the daily revenue number to at least double. Realistically, that’s the only way to make the setup start to make financial sense. This entire project is very much a time-consuming personal side project. Sure, a bit of extra money is nice, but in a way it’s likely doing more harm than good, considering I make my living as a commercial photographer with a perceived (and real!) value that is welllllll beyond “guy doing $150 headshots”. But I don’t care. I enjoy doing this and think there is some kind of longer-term solution that will make it make more sense/cents, both figuratively and literally.
On that note, I’m now booking sessions May 19-24! Tell yours friends! And tip! Or don’t, whatever.
-Clayton
PS - Emily bought one of my prints when she came by for portraits as well. Thanks Emily and shoutout intangible value
