She's a girl who blogs/teaches/promotes wedding photography and occasionally shoots one herself.Originally Posted by reaction
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She's a girl who blogs/teaches/promotes wedding photography and occasionally shoots one herself.
The work practices quoted are essentially the same as those used by my niece. My niece does about 35 shoots a year and has been a professional wedding photographer for 10 years. The vast majority of her work is wedding photography, supplimented with a bit of other photography & related income.
Outsourcing seems more prevelant at the top end of the market where the photographer's shooting, organisational and marketing time required to bring in work has a higher relative value. When dealing in a volume situation, outsourcing seems to make sense.
At the lower end of the market where the work is leaner in volume and $$$, then as much as possible needs to stay "in house" to minimise costs and make the business viable. Common sense.
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PeterB666
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I am not so sure. That PS service from what I could glean only does WB fixing, crop, lighting.
That doesn't really sound like much, WB sure, but whose judgement on crop & lighting? High key or low key? What about all those fake flares, fake yellow/pink hues, selective coloring, the ubiquitous vignette that plagues all wedding albums? Skin smoothing, fake texture enhancements, fake sky, etc?
They won't and can't do any of these, so in the end your high end tog either goes generic (not a bad thing imho, fake looks too fake to me) or does these effects themselves anyway.
The original post in this thread is a common source of despair for those who actually try to make some money out of shooting weddings. I'm charging a bit under $2k to shoot the entire day and supply processed images on disc. Based on that I can make money, but you're not getting rich. Sell some albums and prints and it helps, but ultimately there are a lot of togs out there that charge a lot more than me. My costs are low (home office, not much advertising and do my own processing) but I really couldn't do it any cheaper than that and have it be a worthwhile venture.
I am often confronted with clients who have a price from someone who reckons they can do it all for $800. I have no idea how these people make money, other than perhaps just shooting jpegs straight out of the camera and not spending any time processing.
Trouble is they just give the whole industry a bad name.
The point there though is that the people charging 500 or 800 or whatever aren't trying to run a p&l so whether they are in a business sense making a profit is irrelevant
They've now got $800 in their pocket that they didn't have yesterday. That's about it.
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Very true, and good luck to them. I just don't know how you make it worthwhile when you generally leave home before 9am (after prepping your gear the night before) and don't get home until after midnight, so you've already done at least 14 hours work, and then you need to do at least a couple of hours PP, so at best you're getting less than $40ph.
But then I've also seen some places that advertise a price like $800, but then they charge for extras (like actually covering the reception!) and it ends up closer to $2k anyway.
Hmm tell you what
Put an advertisement on AP or any similar site and say I'll pay you $800 for 14 hours work and you'll be flooded
It's still $800 more than what youd get sitting on your Heiny watching oprah or playing FarmVille
What happens though you do a few, maybe 12, then you realise that you're pricing is just not worth it
Or like a couple of guys I know, you work Ft elsewhere and earn a good living. Sitting on your butt at home on the weekend, or spending the day at the pub earns zip/costs you money. You are not an expert with a camera and the PP, but not terrible either, so you do shoot n burn weddings for $1K. You spend 10-15 hours preparing, shooting, editing and then burn the files to disc and hand them over. You have produced an income of $66-100/hr with virtually zero outlay, and that is far more than most people earn in their FT jobs, and not a bad cash earn for 2 standard days work.
Have you made a profit? Hell yes, but not in the true business sense as you havent factored costs, but as Kiwi says, you now have $1K in your skyrocket that you didn't have yesterday. Is it sustainable? Could be, these 2 blokes have been at it for a while...
These days there are lots of people having weddings who for whatever reason can't afford to or don't want to spend alot of $$ on their wedding photography, and the market for shoot n burn is alive and well. Equally, there are cheap photographers ready and willing to shoot n burn for what could be seen as pittance in the wedding photography industry.
Exactly
So there's in my mind three areas here to consider
A) those that charge little as they deliver little, don't know better, don't care and are often NTP
B) those that charge a bit more but just see it as a cash increment to another ft income
C) those that have to charge an appropriate amount due to the need to make a living
Last edited by kiwi; 12-12-2011 at 3:36pm.
No, "they" do not.
"they" (those who charge $800 for a Wedding Coverage), do not give the industry a bad name.
Inferior quality practitioners give the industry a bad name.
Rude photographers give the industry a bad name.
And also what gives quality and professional wedding and portraiture a bad name, are the clients who use the services of substandard practitioners and then complain later about the industry as a whole and further do not understand that "they", (the Clients) had the ultimate responsibility to research and assess accurately, exactly what the would be the quality of goods and services, "they" were buying.
WW
Last edited by William W; 12-12-2011 at 4:37pm. Reason: removed the phrase: "I understand what you mean" - becasue I might not have understood at all.
Yes, I agree William. I was generalising a little too much.
I am yet to see much in the way of good quality images from the cheapie togs though. Doesn't mean there are none... I just haven't seen any. Nice snapshots, that's about it.
Certainly.
But I do not think it was a generalization: but rather the wrong end of the stick
Price is only one indicator of the quality of service and of product: but I was careful not to make a link that low price equals poor quality.
More importantly:
Even if (hypothetically) all $800 shooters produce poor quality images: "they" do not give the W&P industry a bad name, which was my point.
There are poor bakers, and also poor chefs . . .
and bread shops and restaurants go out of business . . . daily . . .
The poor or ill experienced artists selling their wares and services, don’t give anyone a bad name: save sometimes themselves and that is usually only if they are not forthright with their initial claims.
There is room for all, including those learning and charging a fee commensurate with same.
WW
Last edited by William W; 12-12-2011 at 11:43pm. Reason: added "more importantly" para
Wow, where are you getting public liability insurance for $200?
I believe the comment was "$200 and more".
Living the dream...
The $200 came from a previous post, about charging $200 for a wedding. And as per Jase's reply, it was $200 and more. My point was that insurance alone costs more than the amount being charged.
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