Time. Commitment. Knowledge. Skill. Talent. Vision. Punctuality. Follow-through.
Confidence. Trust. Dedication. Personality. Joy. Experience. People Skills.
What are you paying for?
Let me start by saying that when you hire a professional photographer, you are not purchasing a commodity, i.e. a set of prints. You are purchasing an experience, a service, perhaps even a luxury if the service is done right. You are quite literally purchasing the photographer, which, aside from you, is the most important part of the image creation session. What you get in the end depends on what you pay for.
This does not mean in any way that you should not seek great value for your investment. For excellent, and indeed professional photography services, you should expect to pay good money, and receive great value for that money. To be blunt, if you are seeking a $500 wedding photography experience, a $500 wedding photography experience is exactly what you will get. If I could insert a footnote, here is where I would say: I have never once heard someone say after their wedding, “I am so glad we saved money on photography.” Instead, among murmurs and long-faced moments of contemplation, I have way more often heard “We really regret having Uncle John take our wedding portraits” or “we tried to save money and were so devastated by our wedding portraits we haven’t even printed them or created an album.” I talked with one couple who hired a budget photographer for their wedding 7 years ago, and to this day the bride still cries when her husband mentions their wedding photography.
Photography is the most important service on your wedding day. Let me say it again: photography. is. the. most. important. service. on. your. wedding. day. Nothing else lasts – not the food, not the cake, not the ceremony, not the flowers – nothing but the rings and your wedding day photography images remain the same. A lasting reminder of one of the most important days of your entire life.
Professional photographers do not offer bargain basement prices – struggling artists do, and it is likely in that instance you will get little more than basic event coverage and a disk of images (often referred to as a “shoot and burn.”) 90% of the time, these images, whatever their quality, end up on a disk, perhaps on a computer, maybe in a set of proofs ordered from Costco, and that is the end of the story. It is an all-too common fate of wedding day photography.
Let me tell you the rest of the story.
A professional photographer should make you feel like you just fell out of a magazine. This is your big day, your big event, your portrait session. And it can never be re-created. It literally is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to document your life. The job of your photographer is not just to “capture” your portrait or event or wedding day, but to create a beautiful story for you out of images of your portrait session, event or wedding day. For your wedding day, a qualified photographer will already have spent enough time with you, either through consultation, or a pre-wedding day portrait session, to provide familiarity and a very strong level of comfort to your working relationship. This established trust and ability to relate will allow the photographer to gently shape your wedding day story, through lighting, posing, soft guidance if necessary, while all the while paying attention to people and details, because she already knows you. (Think of it as getting past your first-date gitters). A truly professional photographer is a visionary, a gifted artist with the ability to not only capture but create, and in the process, contribute a lasting testimony to that special moment in your life.
Please consider what is worth spending your money on – a disk of images, or an experience to be remembered for a lifetime through moving, inspired, and unequivocally beautiful images converted into a work of art (i.e. album, canvas collection, or fine art prints to adorn your life). This is your one and only life!
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For further information on pricing, read on!
What exactly goes into pricing for professional photography services?
In this digital age where everyone has digital cameras, scanners and home “photo printers”, when people upload their photos to a local drug store website and pick them up a few hours later, we hear this all the time – how in the world do Professional Photographers charge $55 for an 8×10 when they cost just $1.50 at the drug store?
Here’s why.
Simply put, you’re not just paying for the actual photograph, you’re paying for time and expertise. First, let’s look at the actual time involved. If you don’t read this entire page, at least read this first part.
For a two hour portrait session:
- one hour of travel to and from the session
- two hours of creating images (portrait session time)
- 30 minutes of setup, preparation, talking to the client etc.
- 30 minutes to load the photos onto a computer (2 – 4 Gb of data)
- 30 minutes to back up the files on an external drive
- 3 – 4 hours of Photoshop time including cropping, contrast, color, sharpening, optimizing and saving images for print and a copy for the internet and backing up the edited photographs
- 2 – 3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions directly or via e-mail, receive order and payment, order prints, receive and verify prints, package prints, schedule shipment and drop package off at Fed Ex.
- For local customers, we also print a set of all of their photos, and meet them at our studio or on-location to review the photos and place an order. Meeting and travel time averages 2 hours.
You can see how one two hour session easily turns into more than ten hours of work from start to finish. So when you see a Photographer charging a $200 session fee for a two hour photo shoot, you are not paying them $100 / hour.
For an eight hour wedding:
I won’t bore you with the details, but an eight hour wedding typically amounts to at least two to three full 40-hour work weeks worth of time. Again, if a wedding photographer is charging $4,000 for an eight hour wedding, you are not paying them $500 / hour.
Now for the expertise.
Creating professional photography is a skill, acquired through years of experience. Even though a quality camera now costs approximately $2,000, taking professional portraits involves much more than a nice camera.
Most Professional Photographers take years to go from buying their first decent camera to making money with their photography. In addition to learning how to use the camera itself, there is a mountain of other equipment and skill involved, as well as numerous software programs used to edit and print photographs, run a website, process orders, etc.
And let’s not forget that professional photography services require massive people skills, the ability to communicate (and quickly!), make people feel totally at ease in front of the camera, the ability to work with all kinds of personalities, and pay attention to the details in the meanwhile. And mastering posing and lighting to help people look their best in a photograph is a skill that requires years of practice.
Think of it this way – the next time you pay $X to get your hair done, a pair of scissors only costs $1.50. But you gladly pay a lot more to hire a Professional.
So, are you purchasing a commodity, or an experience? Are you purchasing a set of prints, or are you purchasing trust, experience, vision, skill, a mastery of lighting, posing and communicating? What are you paying for? What are you willing to pay for?
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I am committed to helping clients and potential clients obtain photography services that suit their individual needs, whether that is with me, or another Seattle-area photographer. (I know many photographers to whom I often refer work). I invite you to get in touch to find out whether I can be of service to you. I look forward to hearing from you! 206.696.1941