Spanky Haynes

My thoughts on Collages. 

Collages are pretty common. Lots of photographers offer them. I’m not sure how everyone else does them but like everything else that I do, I’m doing it my way. I’ve come up with a solution that I think works best for everyone. 

The way I see it there should be a fee to design the collage. Often times your photos don’t fit in a regular template. We taylor fit the collage to the photos you choose. But, I don’t think you should have to pay that fee again for every copy you want. This means that the design fee is separate from the printing fee. 

I offer two types of collages. The first is the “Basic Collage”. It’s a simple design with photos that have borders to separate them from the others on the page. It’s what you’d normally think of when you think of a collage. The design fee for basic collages is $50. You’ll still need to pick out what you’d like it printed on and the size.  

Next I offer another collage called a “Custom Collage”. This is full blown piece of artwork. Custom Collages require much more time and skill and therefore have a design fee of $250. Sometimes two or more people are involved in the process of designing it. Each photo is cut out by hand to ensure the best quality and precision. That’s usually handled by a specialist who does that kind of work for a living. Then all the photos are arranged by me to until I’m satisfied with the layout. The photos will certainly overlap and that can make them hard to distinguish. I’ll add layer of smoke or a gradient between photos to add depth and separation. Behind all these photos will be a background. Often this background is multiple textures blended together to create something unique. I’ll then add any text like their name or horse’s name. This text will be layered in there and stylized to taste. 

In the example above I added the customers’s name and the words “Come Here Bull” per customer request. 

Once the design is finished to my liking I’ll add the event logo as well as my own before sending a proof off to the client for approval. He or she has the option to change either the basic or custom collages. 

This process seems a bit complicated at first but I think it strikes a good balance between ease of understanding and saving clients money.