As a professional photographer, you have to believe in the worth of what you're selling. Worth determines value. Value determines price. Price determines whether or not you stay in business.

Photographically speaking, your pictures have two kinds of worth - intrinsic and extrinsic.

Intrinsic worth is what it would cost to purchase or replace. Most often, not much. Never sell your photographic treasures on intrinsic worth. Because, frankly, the intrinsic worth of most photos isn't much. It's negligable. It's the materials themselves. Again, what it would cost to purchase or replace. You are not selling a print. You are not selling a DVD. You are not selling an album. You are not selling a digital download. You are selling so much more than this. You are selling a photo's extrinsic value.

When i'm selling a photograph, whether it's stock or assigment, it is for it's extrinsic value. The value from without, not within. The extrinsic worth of the photo is hope, beauty, self-esteem, permanency, history, confidence, self-respect, joy, happiness.

This is much different, conversation-wise, with your customers. You should not be endlessly haggling over material costs, mark up, etc - which is generally a race to the bottom. You are selling so much more than goods and materials. You are selling solutions and resolutions to customers problems and dilemmas.

I have always believed (and still do) that, ultimately, it's the customer and not the photographer who determines a photograph's value. A photograph, in and of itself, isn't valuable or worthy just because a photographer claims it to be. That photograph becomes valuable and worthy only when it directly solves a customer's problem. So on the one hand, it's the customer who determines value.

On the other hand, it's the photographer's job to help posture and influence the worth and value of their photography to their customers. Not by browbeating, brainwashing or intimidating with salesmanship tactics. But rather by genuinely and confidently, deep down in your heart, believing that your photo has worth. Has value. Is, indeed, going to solve a customer's problem.

As you assign and ascribe monetary worth to one of your photographs, you are doing your professional part to favorably influence the value a customer attributes to that photograph's value.

It goes back to honestly believing in your work. Believing in the worth of your work. Believing in the work's value to solve a customer's problem. If you don't believe it, don't expect anyone else to.

You are worth. You are value. You are affirmation. What you are bringing to the table is far more than raw materials. You are selling desire, conviction, belief, passion, elegance, splendor, emotion, authenticity. What is all of that worth?