Sam Adler

What no-one told you when you started your food photography business: 1- No two clients are the same so why should your pricing be? This is why I dont have a rate sheet. It is so much better to find out what the client needs are first, and then build a custom quote for them after. Otherwise you’re doing yourself a disservice because you could be giving a lower rate than you should be. 2- Licensing your images is industry standard. Have you been sending out proposals and doing work without charging for licensing? If yes, you’re most likely leaving thousands of dollars on the table! 3- Closing a deal with your clients can take weeks! My largest jobs have taken the longest from first contact to contract. There’s a lot that goes into a 20K+ project and most likely different people that need to sign off on it. Just because you haven’t heard back from your client yet doesn’t mean they are ghosting you! If you have a food photography business and want to learn how to go from 3K to 25K contracts, come to my free pricing working tomorrow on 3/17 at 12 pm EST! The link is in my bio to join, or you can comment the word “class” and have it sent in a DM. Can’t wait to spill ALLLLL the beans tomorrow and watch you transform your business!! #learnfoodphotography #commercialphotography #foodphotographer #foodphotography #miamifoodphotographer

On weds 4/17 at 12pm EST, I am hosting a free workshop on how to go from $3k to $25k contracts! 2 years ago I decided to make a big change and no longer focus on sponsored work. It was super scary but something I just had a gut feeling about. I let go of my management team 👋🏻 and totally rebranded. Bye @frostingandfettuccine, hello Sam Adler photography! Flash forward to me now, signing on my highest paying and most creative jobs 😭 (shooting two websites, catalogues, and more!) I really truly know want you to know that this is possible for you too- which is why I made this free workshop! Comment the word class below or sign up using the link on my profile and you’ll get the link sent straight to your inbox! See you on weds! #learnfoodphotography #foodphotographyandstyling #foodphotography #foodphotographybusiness #commercialphotographer #commercialfoodphotographer

Here’s 3 things I did over the course of my food photography career to go from making 3K on contracts to making 20k+ on contracts sine 2021: 1. Pricing- Instead of just throwing out a random number that felt good to me I figured out how much money I needed to charge to sustain and grow my business. I dont charge per photo and I dont charge per hour. I know how to charge what I’m worth because of the value I bring to my clients. 2. Licensing & Usage- OMG have you not heard me yelling this from the rooftops? If you are not charging for licensing and usage as a commercial photographer you are leaving SO much money on the table! For the first few years of my business I knew nothing about it, after learning everything I can, it’s the biggest game changer for me. It’s also not anything I saw in any food photography class until just a couple years ago, which is why I teach it now! Bc we ALL need to be charging for it. 3. Negotiating- In the beginning negotiating was scary to me, especially if you are starting to charge more for your work. But I learned some strategies and now I find it like a fun game! Bonus tip number 4- I invested in learning from different commercial photographers in different fields to make sure this is how it works across the board. Spoiler alert, it does. 🎉 If you want to grow your food photography business in 2024, and learn each of these things to get you better paying contracts, comment the work “class” and ill send you the link to my Free pricing workshop I am hosting on Wed April 17th at 12pm Est! Can’t wait to see you there its gonna be so fun!!! #learnfoodphotography #commercialfoodphotographer #foodphotographybusiness #foodphotographer #foodphotographyandstyling #commercialphotographer #foodphotography

RIP to all that money, for reals. When I first started my food photography business I knew nothing about licensing and usage, and therefore left a lot of money on the table. It wasn’t anything I knew about or knew how to charge for. When I finally realized what I was missing out on, I dove in REAL deep to learn everything I could about pricing myself effectively and how to charge for licensing and usage on top of that. Flash forward me charging over 20K+ for contracts where the licensing was *literally* more than the actual work. If you’ve been following me for a while you know I am super PASSIONATE about creatives knowing how to charge their worth, which is why I am hosting a free live workshop next week on 3 things you need to go from 3k to 25K contracts!! In this workshop we’ll go over: 1. The do’s and dont’s (almost said donuts) of food photography pricing 2. The number 1 reason why your’e leaving money on the table + what my contracts looked like before licensing and after 3. My exact negotiation strategy on how to raise your rates with clients you already have. It’s all happening live on April 17th at 12pm EST. Grab the link in my bio to register because there’s only one LIVE class and you dont want to miss it! #learnfoodphotography #commercialfoodphotographer#foodphotography #foodphotographybusiness #foodphotographer #foodphotographytips

That time I went to shoot this pineapple cake with cream cheese frosting and found the cutest baby dried pineapples in the store the week before but then when I went to shoot someone ate half the bag 🫠 

I made it work though! Bc after all isn’t food photography all about trouble shooting? If I had had more I would have scattered them all around, I love a more rustic scene! On the agenda for this week is a pie and cookie shoot for a client, and 2 ice box cakes that are currently sitting in my freezer. So many goodies in one week! PLUS tomorrow I am putting out the link for my free workshop on 3 things you need to go from 3k-25k contracts!!! Make sure you’re following along so you don’t miss it! #foodphotography #foodphotographer #foodphotographybusiness #miamifoodphotographer #commercialfoodphotographer#pineapplecake #cakephotoshoot

The number one thing you must have for food photography: GOOD LIGHT! I always tell my students, you can have the most beautifully styled scene but if you dont have good lighting it won’t look nice. Yet if you have really great lighting and a super simple scene like this, you can come out with a show stopping photo. Whether thats natural or artificial light, its the most important thing to get right when setting up your shots. I have a really big NW facing window here and the light is beautiful from 1pm on but in the morning it totally sucks. Its super helpful to know which direction your light is coming from if your using natural- usually a south or north facing window will give you the best light!

Follow along for more food photography tips! #foodphotographybusiness #foodphotographer #learnfoodphotography #foodphotography #commercialphotographer #miamifoodphotographer

To clarify actually: I was ghosted. Here’s what happened: a past client reached out to license full digital rights to a photo AND recipe that I created 3 years previously. For the size of brand and what they wanted, I gave a $5k proposal. When I followed up a week later they told me it was out of budget. I offered to lower the usage instead of perpetuity and guess what - was ghosted again. What did I do? *literally nothing* What didnt I do? I didn’t tell myself my price was too high, and I didn’t kick myself for not offering a lower price. The reality is that it will always come down to budget, and this client did not have the actual budget for what they wanted to pay for. I always tell my students- if a brand asks for a lot ( in this case the right to use my photo literally anywhere in the world) then you have to charge a lot! It’s also OK to be out of clients budgets. There will always be clients who you will be “too expensive” for, just like there will always be clients who will pay your rates! I’m hosting a free live training on how to go from 5k to 25k contracts in a couple weeks! Follow along so you don’t miss it! #commercialfoodphotography #foodphotography #learnfoodphotography #foodphotographybusiness #foodphotographer

When you get that perfect drizzle and that perfect slice 😍. This vanilla bundt cake was one of my favorite shoots because of how perfect that icing was. To be honest, I didn’t measure the ingredients that time, sooooo that’s annoying🤣. Food photography’s all about troubleshooting anyway right?! #foodphotography #learnfoodphotography #cakephotography #cakestyle #cakestyling #foodphotographybusiness