If it's truly for a friend, then you should only expect reimbursement for your own expenses. Favors are something friends do for friends.

See, that's exactly what I was thinking. I could care less because I don't really need the money. But her mother is insisting on paying me. Should I just go with the "whatever you're willing to offer" line?

If it was a favor then done is done.

If she still feels the need to do something then ask for the price of something fun, needed, or important to you and tell her why. Maybe the price of a book for school (needed), a bottle of some booze you like for a friend's birthday (fun), or a donation to a spay and neuter clinic (important to you).

Both of you will feel better for it. "whatever you're willing to offer" is a bit insulting to her needs.

These people suggesting you do it as a favor have apparently never gone down the road of pseudo-professional photographer for friends/relatives before. It can turn into a stress-filled wallet-emptying nightmare.

A photographer who charges friends nothing will suddenly find him/herself with a whole lot of "friends". If your only qualification is that you have a digital camera and know how to take reasonable pictures (you said no experience) and you have no clue about portrait lighting or what makes a head tilt looks feminine/masculine, flattering for the kind of face he/she has, ect. then I wouldn't charge much - but your time is worth something and it IS work (at least if you want to do a good job). As you said, it also depends upon whether you are giving them a CD or making prints, and what sort of post-processing you are doing. I'd seriously get a few price lists from senior photographers in your area and take 1/2 price. That is sizable enough of a savings for them to give you a shot, but rewards you enough for your time to come out a bit ahead (hopefully).

I'd be interested in seeing the results of your shoot.

spock, as someone who has supported himself as a photographer you are right.

BUT.

A favor is still a favor and capacity to labor calcs have no place in the equation. If someone still needs to pay you then value it via your own values.

Going rate minus 30-50 percent? If I did favors gratis for all my friends I would freelance for free more than pay, considering most my friends work in my area.

It would be helpful to you if you could narrow down why she is insisting about the money. It may very well be that because she is asking for extra work (the photoshopping) she wants to establish some sort of pay basis, because she feels badly about getting something for free, plus asking for more.

If you think this is the case, you could tell her that the photo shoot was really done simply as a favor/graduation gift, but she can pay you for the Photoshopping time at $X, where "X" is the lower-end price, since you're not an expert.

Otherwise her point about the money might be that she wants to support you as a photographer by encouraging your early work, or else that she simply doesn't want to feel indebted. Your relationship with the mom and things she's said in the past may help to make it clearer where she's coming from.

I'm £50 per hour for friends and £100 per hour to strangers. I don't usually print them, I usually give them the images on a disc.

That's a good idea, arse_hat. I'll definitely think about that.

Spock, you're right, I have zero experience with portrait photography or any of the things you mentioned. I'm at college now and don't know of any portrait studios in the area and the one that did my senior photos has since closed. I suppose I can ask my mom if she remembers how much it cost to get them done.

Taz, you make very good points. My friend and her mother are both the kind of people who probably will not take "you don't need to pay me" for an answer.

As for the photoshopping, my friend told me that if it's too much to ask for not to worry about it, so I have the option of opting out but I'm not one to do that without giving it a good try.

That's a good idea about charging for just the photoshopping, but I'm the kind of guy who genuinely enjoys photoshopping and I do it all the time for friends for no charge. Hrm.

Otherwise her point about the money might be that she wants to support you as a photographer by encouraging your early work

I get the feeling that this is mostly the case.

Thank you all for the ideas!

When I sew for friends I at minimum make them pay for materials. So if you get prints or whatever charge for that, or the disk.
Usually I'll tell them flat out "my normal hourly is $X, this will take Y hours, for you I'll do it for 1/3 the normal price." (or whatever)

I do a lot for friends in trade, too, though. So if you're not comfortable asking for cash why not just tell them not to worry about the money and take you out for dinner or something instead?

I found that, when I didn't charge good friends, less close friends would find out, and expect the same. And it became a huge to-do because everyone expected me to work for free. And shit, I gots me a day job, yo!

Just got off the phone with my friend's mom. She wants to send me money "to get me started" and I told her that I haven't had much of a chance to figure out a price so not to worry about it right now. She told me (in a friendly way) that since I want to hopefully have a career involving photography in the future I need to get my shit together, and I laughed and told her that's exactly what I was thinking. She's really pushing to be able to give me money "since [I'm] in college."

She said she's worked out how many prints of what sizes she wants, but it's at home and she'll let me know (she was at work). She mentioned a payment of $200, at which point I tried not to choke on my salad and quickly skirted around it by telling her that I'd need to figure out tbe price of prints and shipping and that it would all figure into it so I wouldn't be able to give her an estimate yet.

Cripes.

Currently googling "senior photo prices" to get a feel for what most professionals charge.