The problem with tracking photography work
Your work doesn't fit a timer:
- A shoot day with 6 hours on location plus travel
- An editing day with 8 hours of Lightroom and culling
- Gear rentals, location fees, props, parking — all on the invoice
- A wedding that's 12h on the day plus 40h of editing across two weeks
- A small commercial gig priced flat-rate but eating your week
Timers don't capture shoot days well. Spreadsheets are tedious. Most freelancer tools don't speak "photography."
That's the gap Frency fills.
How Frency works for photographers
You write a brain dump in plain English. Something like:
"Shoot day for Acme product line, 6h on location + 2h travel. Studio rental €200, parking €15. Tomorrow editing all day."
I read it and produce:
- Time entries with client, project, and duration
- Expenses for studio rental, parking
- Clients and projects auto-detected
- A report card showing what I parsed
Real brain dump examples for photographers
Brain dump 1 — Shoot day
"Shoot day Acme product catalog. 8 arrived studio, shoot 9-15 (6h), lunch on set. Studio rental €200, parking €15, light bulb replacement €30. Drove 80km."
Frency understood:
- Acme: 6h shoot + 2h prep/wrap = 8h
- Expenses: €200 studio + €15 parking + €30 supplies, all Acme
- Mileage logged: 80km (recoverable)
Brain dump 2 — Editing day
"Full day editing Acme product shoot. 7h Lightroom + culling, 1h client delivery prep. Renewed Adobe CC €60."
Frency understood:
- Acme: 8h editing day
- Expense: €60 Adobe CC, monthly subscription (overhead)
Brain dump 3 — Wedding recap
"Bianchi wedding job: shoot day Saturday 11h (10am-9pm). Editing across two weeks: roughly 25h total split as 5h Mon, 4h Tue, 6h Wed, 5h Sat, 5h next Mon. Bought new memory card €80 for the job, drone rental €120."
Frency understood:
- Bianchi: 11h shoot + ~25h editing = ~36h total wedding project
- Expenses: €80 memory card + €120 drone rental, both attributed to Bianchi
What you get with Frency
- Brain dump → time entries in seconds
- AI client and project detection — no setup first
- Expense capture in the same brain dump (gear, rentals, locations, props)
- Credit-based wallet — €1 = 100 credits, pay only for what you use
- Free tier with about 10 brain dumps a month after signup
- Phone + desktop — log from a shoot location or back at the desk
- DP Hours timer included if you want classic timer mode for editing blocks
How this compares to your current stack
Most photographers I talk to use one of these setups:
- Lightroom + Excel — editing in one place, billing in another
- Bonsai or HoneyBook — full freelancer suite, designed for events
- Pen and paper — receipts in a folder, time in your head
- Nothing structured — guessing at month-end
Frency doesn't replace Lightroom or your booking system. It replaces the "log shoot hours and recover expenses" step that you keep doing badly at month-end.
Try it without signing up
I built Frency so you can try it before committing anything. No signup. No credit card.
Three brain dumps free without signup. If you like it, create an account to keep going on the free tier.
Frency is built by DPLab, a software studio shipping solo with AI agents.