That’s a great question, and a fair one. I’m glad you asked. Allow me to start with this scenario.
It’s your anniversary. You want to do something really special to celebrate. You’ve carefully researched your options and chosen the finest restaurant in town. As you enter you are surrounded by the beautiful ambiance, and are ushered right to your own table. As you sink into the plush seat, a waiter immediately appears with water and menus. You enjoy the soft music as you peruse the menu, and then the waiter returns to answer your questions. He can explain the difference between each cut of meat, and the ingredients of each dish. When your main course arrives it is perfection of perfection. The fillet is tender and juicy. The vegetables are perfectly seasoned with an unbelievable béarnaise sauce. The bread is crusty outside and tender within.
When the check arrives, since it was a very special occasion, the total is around $100
Now the question - Which of you would look at it and call the waiter back to say- “Hey, wait a minute!
Why is this $100 when I could go to Food Lion or Walmart and get a bag of frozen vegetables and grill my own steak for under $10?
I’ll venture to say not a one of you would. You knew when you picked the restaurant that the cost was not about the beef and veggies. You knew it was the ambiance, the experience and the excellence of everything. You understood that they pay top dollar to build the fancy restaurant, keep the lights on, the water running, the grills hot, hire the best chef, and those gracious servers who truly know their menu like the back of their hand. Of course there are chain restaurants where you can get it for less.
But hey, did you really want to celebrate your anniversary at McDonald's where they
HAVE to serve junk food to thousands of people a day to make any money?
The Investment
Photography is much the same. Just like the restaurant has to invest thousands before the first customer walks in the door, so does the photographer. A professional photographer can easily invest $30,000 to $50,000 in professional equipment and software. Let’s say he has a $6000+ camera body and backup camera body and batteries and backup batteries that are $200 a piece, to say nothing of expensive lenses and all the bags, tripods, flashes, computer, backup hard drives, Photoshop, Lightroom, website and hosting, and the best developing lab...... okay, you get the general idea.
Now of course a good chef could make you a tasty meal out of almost anything. And a good photographer CAN create an attractive image with a point and shoot or lower end camera. But just imagine that restaurant again - what would you think if the waiter came to you saying “uh, sorry it’s taking so long. Our knives take FOREVER to cut and the grill is having its difficulties again... so uh, please be patient while we work out the kinks.” You know, you expect them to have what it takes to do their job right, and well. While low-end or point and shoot cameras CAN create nice images, they limit the kinds of situations you can shoot in, and how crisp and sharp the pictures really are. Professional gear, like the pictures, comes at a premium.
The Cost of “Keeping the Lights On”
Did you know that 85% of photography businesses fail within the first three years? While there will always be your uncle Bob who is just starting and charges beans for his work, it is impossible to stay in business and serve clients long term on his pricing model. There are taxes, insurance, cost of good, packaging, web hosting, marketing, etc. If any equipment breaks or shows signs of failure, it must be immediately replaced. It can easily cost $10,000 a year to keep a business running.
Whatever you pay your photographer - Uncle Sam will claim about a third of it, cost of business another third, and the last third? Well the photographer must make the decision whether to invest more in business or, you know, put food on the table? When your uncle Bob finally figures this out, he must either raise his prices too, or go under.
Okay, so it’s expensive to be a photographer? So what? What are you really getting for your money? Why not just DIY or go to the mall?
Three reasons
- The Custom Photographer lavishes you with time and attention.
Chain mall studios are like McDonald's. They count on cramming in as many clients as possible - get you in and out just as fast as possible. How else are they going to make any money? Many actually use the studio as a loss leader, just to get you in the store. This means they actually lose money on the pictures, but they make up for it in the stuff you buy while you wait your turn.
What we really want to be more like that 5 star restaurant. We want your photography experience to be luxurious, fun, and beautiful. We want to create photographs that are uniquely you, gorgeous, long-lasting, heirloom-quality works of art. Thus, the actual time spent on at a session is only a tiny fraction of the full custom session.
Breakdown of Time:
- Scheduling and in-home pre-session consultation and paperwork 90 min- 2 hours + 30 min travel to and from
- Location scouting, travel to location and scouting out the best spot to make your session uniquely you. 1-3 hrs.
- pre-session prep time ( 1 hour, includes equipment and back up equipment checks + vehicle checks)
- Call to confirm - up to 30+ min
- Half hour travel time TO session
- 15-30 minutes prep time at client's home
- 90 minutes-2 hours with photographing client
- Half hour travel time FROM session
- 30-1 hr uploading time from digital cards from camera to computer
- 30-1 hr spent backing up the original images
- 3-5 hours sorting, editing and retouching images to make them shine
- 2-5 hours prep time getting ready for ordering - making proofs, custom design options, etc depending on the clients needs
- 2-4 hours time with client for ordering images and making revisions
- 1- 2 hours sorting images, checking and rechecking order
- 30 min-1 hour prep time for delivery
- 30 minutes- delivery
Total time: 20-30+ hrs
(This is if you’re not ordering an album – if so, add another 10-20 hours for layout and design)
The session really represents only 6 - 10% of the time spent. And what a difference all the extra time and care makes! Reducing the session from 2 to 1 hours does cut time cost in half, since almost all of the other time commitments remain unchanged. So if we charged less, and crammed in more clients to compensate, what should we sacrifice? Individualized session preparation, secure backups, careful retouching and editing? Being available to answer questions? If we cut out any of these, it would drastically change the experience and outcome.
When you consider that the profit for the photographer is only about a third of your check, and really represents nearly a week’s work, it is much easier to understand why we must charge what we do
2.Unparalleled experience and results
In an un-rushed 2 hour+ session, amazing things happen. You can only give so many fake, stiff smiles before you finally start to loosen up and be yourself. That’s when the images really become more of who you are every day. That’s when you start being a family, laughing, joking, playing, snuggling. Those spontaneous loving moments can’t be forced or posed. But with an un-rushed session they unfold naturally, and can be captured through the eye of the photographer, with his lens and creativity. That special smile that lights up your child’s face as they spot a butterfly or toad, the loving look, and quiet embrace of a couple still in love after 10 years together, the sweet peacefulness of a new mother rocking her little one to sleep in her own cozy nest. These beautiful moments are happening around you all the time, but are difficult to capture in their fleeting-ness. A professional photographer can help you capture them to be celebrated and cherished forever.
Plus, we will be there for you, both before and after this sweet experience. We will gladly help you to prepare with experienced advice on what to wear, what location will best suit your tastes, answering last minute questions. After the session when the best images are selected and handcrafted to perfection, we will help you to chose the perfect size for your needs. How confusing is it anyway to look at a list of sizes and try to understand the real difference between a 16x20 and 16x24? And how will it look on your wall? You don’t need to rely on guesswork or just grab the 8x10 and run because that’s all you really know for sure. We will help you from beginning to end to create and then use your images in beautiful, striking ways.
3.The Photographer’s huge investments of time and money actually do directly benefit you.
There are some things that can only be learned by working with scores of children and adults and shooting thousands of photographs. A professional photographer has this experience and countless hours in the world of Lightroom and Photoshop confronting and correcting mistakes, learning from them for the next time. When he isn’t shooting a client, he is inventing projects to practice and polish his skills. One of the real tragedies of a new photographer that goes out of business, is that he never had a chance to become a real craftsman. The more sessions a photographer has done the more able he is to see the best image and go about creating it. He can see the light and use it to make your image shine. He isn’t worried over your cantankerous kids, because he knows how to help them to have fun and enjoy themselves, then he waits for that perfect moment, ready to capture it when it comes. He knows how to set people at ease even if they don’t like having their photo taken. It’s his job to think about how you look so that you don’t need to but can just enjoy being with the people you love.
A Final Thought
Custom Photography is a large investment, but anyone who has had a memorable custom photography session can tell you that the resulting portraits are well worth the cost and will be treasured forever.
