Race car event, how much?

I was asked to shoot a road racers car in the pits and while racing. What would be the proper way to charge for such an event... by the hour or by the job, and how much? Thanks for any help you can give me. Bob

I don't you your status as a professional photographer but I can tell you how I handled a similar situation. I had been working in commercial photography and a fair amount of stock nature images when a friend ask me to shoot motorcycle road racing. I went with a deal from the race sponsor that I would be named as the race photographer and my contact information given to the racers/teams. I also had the race organization have model/property releases sign by most of the racers. I then shot the race and met with many of the people. I sold a lot of prints, gave away some small 4x6's which ended up with a few larger deals from sponsors like Pennzoil and others. I was approached by two magazines (one national) to cover the upcoming races in my area coming up. Those races I sold prints, some magazine images and built some interesting stock images with releases. That is how I did it I can't tell you how just that sometimes you have to take a chance and a break from your normal work to see what happens. If I didn't make a penny I had a blast made some friends and further developed my photography skills.
If this race is not at the sponsor level remember these people like good pics doing what they enjoy and it is not an inexpensive sport. If they have sponsors and they need images to send them showing how they show the sponsors name. This is especially true for the awards at the end.
Good luck and have fun it will show in you work

James, so sorry it has taken this long to thank you for some sound advice. I like racing of any kind, so it will be fun just to do something different. Thanks again, Bob

Bob,

Great opportunity perhaps! Congrats! It might help us help you if we knew just who asked you for the images and how they intend to use them. I would certainly look at it differently if a friend of yours who happens to like racing and that car and driver wanted images vs the driver wanting images vs the sponsor wanting images vs the racetrack wanting images vs the national commercial company with advertising on the car wanting images, etc, etc. The answer would most likely be different in each case! Good luck and help us help you out. If it is too late, then let us know what happened for you!!

And James, what a wonderful success story! Thanks for sharing and giving us those great ideas.

Troup

Troup, First of all I'll tell you a little about myself.... I have over 30 years of amatuer experience shooting everything from ants to air shows, to which I've never charged a dime for any pics taken for anyone. That has all changed now that I have just applied for a business license and tax number. I've shot moto-cross, boats, and Nascar twice from the pit area, along with some local late model cars with very good results. The shoot coming up which has not been determined yet, is the sponsor for my friends late model.... he also owns and drives his own cars (road racer). I have yet to speak to him, since this has all come about last Friday, but my racing friend says it will be at a road course not that far away and would more than likely want pit shots as well as on the coarse pics. This is all I know for now. I understand that this isn't a whole lot of info, but I'm very thankful for the info I'm getting here. Bob