You should never be pressured into paying more than you can afford to pay for wedding pictures, but you shouldn't assume they are a rip-off or some kind of scam. After the guests have died, the gifts are opened and the honeymoon is over, aside from your marriage, your photos are what you have gone. Good professional photographers offers you photos worth becoming part of your family's history. To learn more about our wedding photography support visit our wedding page.
Photographers do much more than just turning up and taking pictures. Below is a list of just a few factors that are highly relevant to ALL professional photographers.
Expenditures Incurred by Most Professional Photographers
Advertising - While it is fine to obtain referrals from existing customers, typically that don't bring in enough revenue to aid a sustainable business. Marketing is http://edition.cnn.com/search/?text=photo expensive. Web advertising can range between $100 per month for a small photographer, up to a few thousand https://b3ssvyg560.wixsite.com/johnathanwbca417/post/15-upandcoming-nj-nyc-photographer-bloggers-you-need-to-watch dollars per month for a larger photography company. Other advertising costs include print advertisements, ads on event planning websites and Google AdWords and other pay-per-click advertising. At the very least, you could be assured that 99% of professional photographers spend a significant amount on advertising which needs to be payed for.
Taxes - Just like anyone else, photographers pay out taxes on their income. Not only do they pay tax, there is also to pay sales tax. For school photographers, event photographers and youth sports activities photographers it is actually cut and dried out, you pay sales taxes based upon the tax price for the area in which you shoot. For our studio, that is Temecula, the Inland Empire, Riverside County, Orange County and San Diego County, basically all of Southern California. That takes an average of 8.75% of their charge right off the very best of the sales amount. In some instances, in many areas of the country, California included, wedding photographers must pay sales tax also if they are charging a flat fee because of their service. Many photographers believe sales tax doesn't apply to "photography services", like wedding ceremony photography or event pictures where they receives a commission a flat amount. Generally they are incorrect and can come across trouble with the federal government if they usually do not comply.
Personally, i know of a case where a San Diego event photographer did a lot of her events for a flat fee and thought she didn't have to pay sales tax. When she was audited, she had to pay sales tax for a great deal of her previous occasions, which nearly place her out of business. Consider that when you are considering a photographers price, just as much as 40% in some instances could be getting paid in taxes! So if you are paying someone $1000 fee, as much as $400 of it could be going to the federal government.
Equipment - Professional grade, DSLR camera bodies cost just as much as $5,000. Lenses are typically more of a price for a photographer because they want many of them to have the right shot. There are special lenses for portrait photography, event photography and all sorts of specialty lenses that photographers carry in their bag to ensure they have many potential shots protected. Professional photographers' lenses can EASILY cost $1,000 or even more. Some lenses can price as much as $5000 or more depending on the type of photography they were created for. Professional sports activities photographers' lenses are a small fortune.
This equipment wears down just like any other little bit of electronics (that's what they are nowadays, electronics). High quantity photographers can wear out cameras in a year or two. The average life of a surveillance camera is 100,000 to 150,000 shots. At a big studio, just in youth sports photography and school photography business, studios may photograph as much as 50,000 children each year. At 2-3 shots per child, you can see how fast that may break down equipment. With professional wedding photographers it isn't quite that bad, but a marriage might have as much as 3000 photos taken, which can still add up quickly. Add to all of that thousands in lamps, flashes, tripods, camera bags, storage cards, batteries and the hundreds of other miscellanies items which professional photographers want and you start to get a concept of how costly being a professional photographer can be.
Insurance - For sports and college photographers, liability insurance is a must. It is suggested that these types of photographers bring at least 2 million dollars in liability insurance. Apparatus insurance is a lot more expensive. A big photography business could have $100,000 worth of tools or more, which is a few thousand dollars per year to insure.
Other costs that impact photographers pricing
Product sales and Prospecting - For college photographers and school photographers, the vast majority of their period is spent is sales, marketing and prospecting. This involves considerable time. Simply finding prospects that they can market to takes hours from every day. Once a prospect is available, time is then spent trying to make get in touch with and set a gathering to present their products. Driving to the meeting and meeting with customers can take an entire day. For wedding photographers, period is certainly spent with the client before the wedding then again after the wedding ceremony showing the finished items. If you add to a custom wedding album, you can view that most professional photographers' time is spent carrying out everything but capturing.
After a shoot, many photographers hours color correcting, editing and touching up images. For youth sports activities and school photographers, there will be HOURS of data entry of the clients' orders. Unlike photographers who only shoot weddings or senior portraits who typically deal with 1 customer at the same time, youth sports activities and school photographers handle thousands of clients a month in many cases. Additionally, youth sports activities and school photographers possess multiple "layers" of customer conversation. For youth sports activities photographers, their main customer is the league or organization, who makes the decision on which professional photographer to select, but the clients who make the purchases are the parents in the league. A good studio will also assign a devoted client manager to each league or school to make sure they have everything they need to ensure their picture day time is a success.
Talent- Accurate professional photographers are performers. Anyone can find out the ins-and-outs of a camcorder and memorize most of its features. Professional photographers possess a "photographer's eye", which allows them to start to see the correct shot and take it. Excellent images aren't just properly uncovered, they are something to remember.