When I meet with potential customers, I always have many things in mind: Are they cool? are they going to have fun at their wedding? Is she going to be a Bridezilla? Do they know what a reasonable price for photography is?
I want to touch on the last one a bit more. It's something I don't totally get myself. I see adds, websites or people tell me about $500 wedding photography packages. Obviously, that's not my range. But I wanted to know how that works, because even though I tried and tried I didn't get it.
I mean, How can you invest 12-14 hours at the wedding, 2-3 at rehearsal or engagement session, 7-8 on post processing, hire an assistant, get the right gear, back ups, insurance, and pay $350 for a decent album while managing to charge $550 to the couple?
So I went to Craigs list and found an ad. $550 for the rehearsal, the wedding day and an album.
I emailed the photographer a week ago, but I haven't heard from her. (funny, isn't it?) Then I remembered my colleague charges pretty much the same. He goes, spends some 8 hours and at the end of the day, he gives the couple a DVD with unedited images.
That got me thinking,
I mean, takes years to get decent at your craft. it takes lots of money to get the gear. Sure, you can get a DSLR for $400 nowadays. but I'm talking Pro gear. Lenses, strobes, stands, remotes, tripods, bags, back up for all of them, a good computer, several back up hard drives, calibrating software for monitors, website, domain, advertising, insurance, photography association fees, education, books, magazines... the list just goes on and on.
So how does a photographer manage to have such low prices?
Well, I've seen a mixture of factors.
Time: as my friend told me "I burn a DVD on my laptop and I'm done" he also refuses to meet with the couple before or after. just adds overhead.He also saves all the post processing time.
Gear: Keep it low price. Entry level gear, and just the bare minimum. I even know people who advertise themselves as professionals who borrow cameras for their shoots.
Overhead: If you shoot from home, you save money on studio rent. If you have no insurance, you save. If you shoot solo, you save on assistant salary. If you do it part time, you don't have to pay your health insurance out of photography. If you don't buy insurance for your business, you save that too, just pray nobody trips on your light-stand or your camera falls. If you don't advertise on the Knot or Perfect Wedding Guide, you save $700 a year.
Album: if you burn a DVD, you save anywhere from $100 to $500 on the album alone, plus the post processing time.
Post Processing time: If you just adjust contrast and coloron your 1000+ images, you are done in a couple hours. If you add filters, layers, crop, clone, dodge, burn, blend, correct, and do the whole nine yards, well, you're stuck in front of the computer for many many hours.
Experience: If your photographer has no experience, but a lot of passion to get into the wedding photography, because popular word is that that's where the big bucks are, chances are He or She will loose money, shoot your wedding for 10 hours, then spend another 10 on post processing and even give you an album, for $500. Just to get decent images for his/ her portfolio, so next time he/she can charge what should've to begin with.
To me, is a matter of what are customers willing to give up.
As in everything,
you get what you pay for. Is the couple giving up experience? or assurance? or back up, or post process? or all?
I just can't do it myself. I even tried for some time the shoot and burn approach. Thank god nobody ever even showed interest.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
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You touch on some pretty important points in this post.
ReplyDeleteMany people with any camera (or some without ONE camera, as you say) claim to do professional photography. This is common these days since it's so accessible with digital. So they "start a business." But the problem, as you mention, is they overlook a lot, and of course I stress A LOT, of details. Personally, I see those people as 'not serious' people and immediately quit when they see ALL that goes into photography (including the money that goes into it for, say, advertising and what not).
I'll note that I am new and fall under this "cheap" category simply for the "experience" factory you mention. I personally don't see how or why someone would pay "normal" price for someone with limited experince. That just doesn't make sense. So newbies have no choice but to be cheap. The downfall, of course, is that now you're sort of labeled as "not good" because you're cheap; people, as you know, tend to associate cheap with not good. But this is why people must look at the person's photography and not the price. Therefore, I don't see anything wrong with being cheap, as long as you work your tail off for the customer and give them what they deserve (and that includes a FULLY edited DVD of images).
Keep doing what you're doing.
Happy shooting!
Thank you for your ideas. I agree with your perspective. We all have to start somehow and work our way up, as long as we are honest with customers and don't create false expectations.
ReplyDeleteGlad you stopped by.
Adrian