More and more we here about “sustainable living” and how living alignment with the planet and a cleaner environment can create a happier life. Well in business, we can also do something to make our lives happier, we can live sustainably with the real costs of doing business.

We all have seen or even know photographers and studios that value their work solely on what it their product costs are, and we all have seen $0.80 4×6′s on someone’s website. Those are the obvious ones, the photographers that haven’t figured out that their prices go beyond what it costs them to make a print. Beyond that though there’s another level of photographers, they’re a group that have moderate prices that are just below what is actually profitable and photographers that even when they posses real talent value their work as worthless because for one reason or another they have created a mindset that it’s not “worth it”.

Business in it’s most boiled down essence requires a very simple formula to make money: All Costs + % of Profit = Cost of Product

Any studio can value any cost in their own way, some studios may select to value their print costs based on a markup from their lab prices and charge heavily for their labor. While another studio may select to charge less for labor and more for products and yet another may select to charge a premium for both. In the end all studios have the same costs no matter if they are at home, a commercial space or on location. Some (not all include):

• Labor (your time has value based on your years of experience)
• Equipment (if you ever want to upgrade, clean or repair your equipment you need to devote some revenue to it)
• Utilities (unless you have created free energy and harvest your water from the rain these are expenses)
• Travel (if it’s five miles or five hundred, every mile is just that much closer to the next fill-up, oil change, tires, breaks, etc)
• Prints (the lab might only charge you $0.50 for a 4×5 and even if you’re charging $20 for it already if your whole pricing structure does not support that price point you could be losing money)
• Computers (you’re going to need a computer upgrade every 18 months to 2 years unless you enjoy watching that little load bar in Photoshop)
• Training (to stay up on the latest techniques and improve your style you’ll want to attend Imaging USA, WPPI and other training events small and large throughout the year)

I was compelled to write this article today when I was speaking with a photographer that had spent half a day capturing images and another quarter day in Lightroom and Photoshop. I inquired as to how much they had charged as we had discussed the topic previously and they were contracted for a full day at $1200. Needless to say I was shocked when they had spent 3/4 of the full day working on the images but only billed the company for $600 (a 1/2 day rate).

When I asked “why didn’t you bill them for your full costs?” and was told “it didn’t feel right, and I want to work for them again” I was stunned. This verysentence describes two mindsets I have seen in more than one photographer, the first being “it didn’t feel right”. I don’t hear “it didn’t  feel right” I hear “I don’t value my time or my work”, “these people hired me and I’m not worth what I said I charge” and than justifying it with a second thought of “I want to work for them again” thinking that because you undercut yourself by over half that they will hire you again simply because you over produced and under charged. While this may seem true there’s two more likely scenarios that will play out instead.

The first and most likely scenario is that you will go out of business. Lets take the photographer above as an example. If you have to make a minimum of 3/4′s of a day to cover your expenses (which include but are not limited to those above) before you can even make a profit  and you only charge for half a days worth of time you just paid that client $200 to let you photograph them and now have to find a way to cover this missing money. It’s unsustainable, because if you are hired by them again and again and continue to be dishonest to yourself about what it truly costs YOU to provide them with your photographic services than you only end up more behind than you were previously. If this client or any other client hires you and you continue to repeat this process of under charging you will go out of business.

The second likely scenario is a second person that thinks similar to you, and ignores their costs and undercuts your pricing. They might be making the same mistake and end up failing like in the first scenario but you’re likely to be out a client. You might think “they wouldn’t hire someone just because they’re cheaper” well think of it this way. Because you have not charged what your work costs, you are unable to serve your client to the level they require. You may not be able to complete the work as quickly as they need, capture the images at the quality or resolution they need, lack the ability to do many things. For one very simple reason, you have lacked the capital to finance the upgrades, education, repairs or new purchases you as a photographer need to deliver a high quality product.

Part of being honest about your costs not only helps you to live happier and actually view your job and your art with joy but it helps you to serve your clients. Ignoring what your costs are means ignoring a portion of your studio, your clients and even your own needs which means you will have to use an outdated camera, old computer, have little or no studio samples, under value your time or be behind in the latest photography styles. None of this helps you, your business or your client, and yes it’s not easy for some people to be brutally honest that they can’t sell their work for $1.00, $10 or $20 and stay profitable. But to be in business no matter your style of photography requires that you are honest with yourself and your clients so that you can be sustainable.

If you read this and find yourself thinking “I do that… BUT!” take a step back, swallow the hard pill and be honest with yourself. It won’t be easy in the short-term, nor will I claim it can be, but it can mean long term happiness for you, your family, your business and your clients.

Read some more – Betsy Finn at LearnWithBetsy.com discusses this topic in her latest article ”Free is the New Paid” read it HERE.

A sample menu included with the patent.

You’ve just bought you new Apple Computer, pull it out of the box and remark about how pretty it looks all white and clean. Power it on and before you can even click the mouse an advertisement window pops on your screen “Your computer will start momentarily, but first a word from our sponsors”. Not something you would expect from Apple Computers who for over the last year has been running advertisements specifically targeting things such as advertising (also known as bloatware) that many low and mid-range PC’s come pre-loaded with.

It doesn’t stop there either, in a recent patent filed at the US Patent Offices, Apple left no stone unturned in possible advertising locations including “portable” and “media” devices which we can obviously include iPhones, iPods and the like. We see advertising everywhere these last few years so it would not be a total let down if we had to let some boring commercial play for 10 seconds before we get to watch a whole episode of a television show on Hulu or Fancast, but our operating systems… really?

Beyond just adding the advertisements Apple could decide they want to make sure you are watching by basically crippling whatever device you may be using. This means they could lock up your computer, have your iPhone ignore touches on the screen and make you confirm at a random place in the ad that you are in fact actively watching. If you fail to prove to the software you were present and did watch the ad it will essentially in my opinion punish you for not watching by making the ad “not count”. But make of these excerpts from the patent filing what you would like.

“[T]he advertisement screen area includes a response button. The response button is displayed in order to confirm that the user is actually watching the advertisement content. During the presentation of the advertisement content, the response button may appear at a time that the user does not know of in advance, [and] may appear in different screen locations, it may appear with a different size, and/or it may respond to different keyboard shortcuts, etc., in order to confirm the presence of an attentive user…. In contrast, if the user does not click (within the predefined time), then the advertisement does not count.”

“The operating system is configured to present one or more of the advertisements to users of the computer device. In some implementations, the operating system can disable one or more functions during the presentation of the advertisements and then enable the function(s) in response to the advertisements ending. That is, the operating system can disable some aspect of its operation to prompt the operator to pay attention to the advertisement.”

Now don’t get me wrong Apple has filed for some insane patents in the past, some people even joke that Apple filed a patent for the “on/off switch”. In truth the image above might just be Apple trying to get a leg up on Microsoft who has been experimenting in the use of advertisements to subsides products or even make them completely free such as free games for their Zune players that play an ad prior to starting the game.

On the other hand if Apple does succeed in getting this patent and does select to impliment this idea it could anger long time Apple users that do buy an Apple computer in part (large and small) because they lack bloatware that is included on some low and mid-range PC’s.  So we’ll have to keep a wait and see approach to this one, as Apple doesn’t really need the patent to move forward with the idea even if it’s not approved. The question is are the willing to risk the possible backlash if they did use such an idea.

These releases mark milestones in the computing world. Windows 7 is the first version of Windows to seriously beta test, take input, listen and respond with positive changes to the operating system. Windows 7 is also the first operating system since Windows 98 I personally will be installing at release rather than waiting for the first service pack release. I can’t hide the fact that I’m excited but this release is like an early Christmas, I have played with the beta and enjoyed it the ease of well… everything! I don’t doubt for a second this release is bound to even make the most die hard Mac Addict to take a second look.

These new processors and Windows don’t just mark a milestone for PC users. It marks a time for Apple, to both be proud and at the same time question. Why be proud? Well, from the outside I would say that in part this new version of Windows is not only because Microsoft knew they had to do better, but because they had to do more then some hugably cute commercial that had 5 year old making a slide show, they had to put a shot across Apples proverbial bow. Without Apple lobbing hits at at Microsoft over the last few years and over the dismal Vista release I don’t know that Microsoft or Apple would be where they are today.

With all that hype, marketing and banter Apple has also gained, oh boy have they gained. The question for Apple now is can they live up to their hype in the real world. Until now most everyone knows that Apple computers have claimed to be “Fast, Hassle and Virus Free” but that could be changing. As Apple’s market share has grown so has their viability to attacks from hackers, virus writers and others. Which until now hasn’t been a big concern but Apple has a problem, one that was pointed out at a hacker and security conference this summer. Apples problem is their OS is not as hardened against nor as well tested against attacks in the real world, their OS has more code leaving them more vulnerable than Windows. A few of these vulnerabilities were even pointed out at the conference and Apple given notice of their public discussion prior to a fix being released. In the end only time will tell if  Apple simply survives this storm or thrives within it. Either way, we the consumers and professionals are likely to be the winners.