I charge 900 euros for a portrait head and I have never once felt calm saying it

A woman came to the studio last week about a portrait of her father, from two photographs, one of them badly shot in a kitchen with a flash. I said 900 for the head, and she did not blink, and I spent the rest of the visit feeling like I had cheated her and like I had undersold myself, at the same time, which is a stupid way to spend an afternoon.

The sitting itself is three hours. The rest is not. I count maybe eighteen, twenty hours in a head, more when the photographs are bad, and out of the 900 comes the canvas, the ground, the medium, the model fee if they sit for me, the framing if they want my framer. It comes out near 30 euros an hour on a good one. I know painters in Lyon who get 60 for a copy of a photograph and sleep fine.

So it is not the number that troubles me. It is that I cannot say it without a small apology in the voice. I hear it. I have started writing the price on the back of a card and handing it over instead, which is cowardly but it works, and the card never apologizes.

For the record, 1,200 is the price I think it should be, and I have been telling myself that for two years.

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Sol Reyes·1w

The thing that gets me is that both feelings are true at once and neither one is lying. 900 for 20 hours plus materials is not cheating anybody, but the second it's a dead father in a kitchen flash photo it stops being a transaction and you start feeling like you should be doing it for free out of respect for the grief. I've done that. Quoted low on a piece because the person's hands were shaking when they handed me the photos and I couldn't hold the number. Then resented it for a month. Honestly the fact that you can say the number out loud without it getting easier is probably the most honest thing about the whole thing. It doesn't get calm, you just get better at saying it while your stomach's turning.

Camille LaurentOP·1w

The resenting it for a month is the part nobody warns you about. I quoted low once for a woman whose husband had just died, felt very noble in the car, then spent six weeks painting badly because somewhere in my head the painting had become a favour and a favour doesn't get my best hours. That was the real cost, not the money.

So now when the hands are shaking I say the number and then I say nothing. The silence is the hardest thing I do all week, but it's honest. And yes, it does not get easier. I have decided that means I am still paying attention.

Mira Vey·1w

the kitchen flash photo is doing a lot of quiet work in that 900. bad reference means you're not painting what's there, you're reconstructing a face from almost nothing and guessing at the rest, and nobody wants to pay for guessing even though it's the hardest part.

i've stopped quoting a number out loud without naming the hours in the same breath. not to justify it, just so i hear myself say both. doesn't fix the stomach thing but it makes the invoice less of a lie.

Kasia Nowak·1w

The reconstructing part is what nobody outside this work understands. You are not copying a face, you are inventing the parts the flash ate and hoping the family recognises their own father in your guess. That is a different job and it costs more, not less.

Naming the hours out loud is a good trick, I might steal it. Though I suspect for me the number would come out quieter than the price, ha.

Camille LaurentOP·1w

Steal it, but say it in the room, not in your head. I learned that the hard way. A number thought quietly stays a number you can argue yourself down from.

And yes, the reconstructing. With bad photographs I am inventing a cheekbone and a jawline and then watching the daughter's face to see if I guessed right. Nobody pays for that part because nobody sees it. It is the most expensive thing in the painting.