"...you can skimp on the food, the dresses, the flowers, but never, ever skimp on your photographer. Pay the price for a good photographer--your pictures are your lasting souvenir of the day--the event cannot be recaptured at another time".
David and Marie Newell (happy clients)
You can see how one 2-hour session easily turns into more than ten hours of work from start to finish. So when you see a Photographer's fee for a one or two hour wedding, divide the fee by 10 to get an idea of the true hourly fee earned.
For an eight hour wedding:
I won't bore you with the details, but an 8-hour wedding typically amounts to at least 2 to 3 FULL 40-hour work weeks worth of time. Again, if they are charging you $4,000 for an eight hour wedding, you are not paying them $500 / hour.
Now for the expertise.
Shooting professional photography is a skill, acquired through years of experience. Even though a quality camera now costs under $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 involved, as well as numerous software programs used to edit and print photographs, run a website etc.
And let's not forget that you actually have to have people skills, be able to communicate, make people comfortable in front of the camera - and posing people to make them look their best in a photograph is a skill all by itself.
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. It is true, "You get what you pay for". There our more stories than you could count of dissatisfied or angry brides who can never replace the images of that special day.
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 8x10 when they cost just $1.50 at the drug store?
Heres why.
Simply put, you're not just paying for the actual photograph, you're paying for time, expertise, creativity, passion and solid personal skills.
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 2 hour portrait session:
30 Minutes meeting with the client (phone or in person)
Minimum of 1 hour of travel to and from the session
30 minutes of setup, preparation, talking to the client etc.
2 hours of shooting
30 minutes to load the digital images to a business computer.
30 minutes to back up the files on an external drive (1 of 3)
3 - 4 hours of editing using the latest version of Photoshop, including cropping, contrast, color, sharpening, saving a copy for print and a copy for the internet and backing up the edited photographs
2 - 3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions, receive their order and payment, order their prints, create their online gallery, create their online slide show, receive and verify prints, package prints, schedule shipment and drop package off at Fed Ex.
WHY HIRE A PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER?