Q. Why are Professional Photographers expensive? 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 $xx for an 8×10 when they cost just $1.50 at the drug store?
A. Here’s why.
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 for a two hour portrait session:
- 30 minutes to one hour of travel to and from the session
- two hours of shooting
- 30 minutes of setup, preparation, talking to the client etc.
- 30 minutes to load the photos onto a computer (2 – 4 Gb of data) and edit the selection
- 30 minutes to back up the files on an external drive
- 3 – 4 hours of Photoshop time including cropping, contrast, color, sharpening, saving a copy for print and backing up the edited photographs
- 2 – 3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions, meet at our studio to review the photos, receive their order and payment, order their prints, receive and verify prints, package prints, schedule appointment for pick up.
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.
A six hour wedding can easily amount to 40+ hours worth of time depending on which package and what products are chosen by the clients. Again, if you are paying $2500 for a six hour wedding, you are not paying your photographer $400/hour.
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.
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 $xx to get your hair done, a pair of scissors only costs $1.50. But you gladly pay a lot more to hire a Professional.
What about the cheap studios at the mall?
Professional photographers and the chain store studios are not the same quality. Professional photographer will spend all the time needed to make the picture perfect, versus big mall chain are mainly on large productions. A two hour photo shoot at a professional session might be 15 minutes at a mall studio and not to mention they won’t come on location. The old saying still goes you get what you pay for.
We hope that those who have taken the time to read this page will have a better understanding of why professional photographs cost so much more than the ones that you get from your local mall studios.
Q. Do you have backup equipment in case your camera would break?
A. Yes, I do have extra equipment in case a camera, flash or any other equipment would break down. Any professional photographer should always have extra equipment.
Q. Do you work alone or you have an assistant to help you?
A. Yes I always have an assistant with me.
Q. If I hire you as my photographer, when it comes to the day of my wedding are you going to send someone else?
A. No, you will not get anyone else but me, if you decide to hire me. I only take one wedding a day, so that I can concentrate and devote all my time to your special day. You will be dealing with me from the 1st day we meet until the last day.
Q. Why should I hire a professional photographer because I have a cousin with a fairly good camera?
A. When you hire a professional photographer, you hire them for their creativity, experience in different situation like park location, different weather environment, knowledge of photography equipment. The professional photographers have experience with different lighting and how to properly balance colors. There is nothing wrong to have other people taking pictures, but on this special occasion that will only occur once, a professional photographer should be your first choice.
