How much is the doggy in the window?

I am a professional. I work at what I do and try to maintain a level of professionalism and approach each project with a strong work ethic and an intense desire to exceed expectations.

A few days ago, I was given a referral that a smaller group of professionals needed some new headshots (to be made during their weekly meeting) so they could have some marketing materials printed up.
A simple enough request. On the surface.

Let's dive deeper, shall we?
What you get:

1. my time to take your portraits.
2. set up of portable studio.
3. my equipment to take your portraits.
4. my expertise and talent.
5. planning time.
6. retouching time.
7. file archival.
8. copyright transfer so you can legally use the image I create.
9. And all the overhead, insurance costs and other "overhead" costs that are written into the price.

So, when I say that my "one off" portrait creation fee is 125.00 per person, I mean that for one portrait I create, I give you at least 4 hours of my time, space on my hard drive and ultimately in my archived files. Since doing things 1 at a time is generally less efficient, I can usually get the price lower when I create many portraits of people at one set up.

So color me surprised when the director of these professionals was less than thrilled with the price I quoted. When I said, with the spirit of negotiation, that I could get the per person price down under than 100.00 since there were going to be around 25 people photographed, it was as if she was insulted. She mentioned that she would consider 25.00 per person. I laughed! I can't leave my studio for that! I mentioned that I have a photo booth set up, that I would be happy to come to her luncheon, set that contraption up and allow her people to take and retake photos until they were happy with their images, but there would be no retouching and no retakes. I would need to charge not less than 35.00 per person (still equipement set up, insurance, and archival costs). She said  that she thought if I could come and give a presentation to the group, I could just take the photos. She didn't even offer to pick up lunch. (I would have turned that down too).

I have a question. I don't know what business she is in. But if her widgets cost 15.00, does she EVER let them go for less?

Say I call a plumber: His hourly rate is 65.00. He is there for 2 hours. I figure I need to pay him for the materials used and 130.00.
Unfortunately, we had the need to hire an attorney to represent us. His hourly rate was 600.00/hr. Did we want to negotiate him lower. Yes! Did we even attempt it? No!

Either we are professionals or we are not. If I have a service that you need to avail yourself of, please do not negotiate. It will be worth the money in the long run. It will definitely be worth the good will gained if you don't insult my professionalism.