I’m starting a new piece on my blog to supplement the pictures called Corey Talks. In it I plan on talking about various topics about weddings, photography etc. Feel free to comment and submit questions or tell me I’m crazy. I figured I’d start with the topic that gets lots of debate in the wedding world.
Why Photographers Charge So Much
If you go to any public forum where vendors and brides can both post, there is always the debate on why photographers charge so much. Many brides think that $200 (for example) an hour is an awful lot of money to charge for “clicking a button a few times” and don’t get how we can charge such high fees for our services. Keep in mind I am only discussing why we charge what we do hourly – later I may explain why we charge what we do for products (albums and the like) that are often in packaged rates. There are many things that go into our hourly pricing and below I’m going to highlight a few of them.
The Eye Most important in my opinion when hiring a photographer is their eye. I am sure every person here has that picture that Mom took when you were a kid that you would have loved… if only your entire head was in the picture instead of just your chin. Sounds simple enough to frame a picture but in reality it isn’t. Face recognition is starting to help some of this problem in the newer cameras but weddings are VERY fast paced and those functions take time to focus. Often, the people have moved by the time your camera is ready for that shot. We also have the ability to see angles that most people don’t see. From my own wedding, there are pics of us cutting the cake that the photographer took and the ones from the guests are not as great because they didn’t focus in on us and you could see random people peeping in and out of the edges.
Editing This is the biggest reason for the hourly rate. Back in film days, photographers based their hourly rate on the time it took to develop the film and print it. Digital is no different than film – we just use a computer to develop our pictures instead of chemicals. For an 8 hour wedding I can have up to 40 hours of editing work which takes us from $200 an hour down to $34 an hour (40 hours + 8 hour wedding).
Equipment Many people come to me complaining about their digital point and shoot and the delay between the time they press the shutter release and when the picture actually gets taken. With a digital SLR, that is not as much of a problem (although sometimes it will be slower due to data being written to the media card). That is why professionals typically carry a DSLR and typically a higher grade one. The cameras are not cheap to own and need to be replaced as they get outdated and worn out. Part of what you are hiring is the ability to shoot continuously so that an essential second (the kiss is a big one that can be missed without a camera that can take pictures in a rapid fire fashion) is not missed. Another element in this topic is lenses. You are paying a professional, with high grade lenses to take portraits. Most of these lenses actually cost MORE than the camera bodies themselves because of the grade of work and glass that goes into them. This also enables the photographer to take pictures in low light situations (chapels that do not allow flash and reception halls to name a couple) where many people cannot normally get an image.
Data Storage Just because film isn’t used anymore doesn’t mean that the cost of storage for your images is free. For a high speed data card from a quality company, it can cost up to $25 a gig to store files. Some photographers do reuse their cards, but many purchase new for each wedding (personally I do not yet but plan to in the future for extra security of files). Even though they may be reused they still do wear and tear like any other piece of equipment and will need to be replaced. I take upwards of 100 images an hour per event and need to have enough storage on me to contain all of those files because sometimes it just is not possible to dump images during the day onto a hard drive and reuse a disk that day.
Every bride has to make the decision on what is important to her when dividing out her budget for her wedding. Some choose to spend the bulk on the reception, some choose photography, some choose flowers – it is all in what you are more about personally and I’m not trying to say that photography is the most important or what you should choose. However when making your decision, I hope this helps you see that what I do goes beyond just pushing a button during the day – there is a lot more to it!
- The Christy House Wedding with Ashley and Stephon - March 11, 2024
- Peninsula Wedding with Colleen and Eric - March 10, 2024
- Winter Inn Walden Wedding with Julia and Walter - February 29, 2024
Great article. I was just thinking about this the other day, and how it would be great if there was someone out there educating brides about such things … There are other things too – the time and money spent on marketing, consultations, sample materials and albums, insurance, professional memberships … wow, the list goes on and on!
I’d love for you to write about what to look for in a bona fide wedding photographer too – or maybe I will get around to it at some point. Having insurance, backup equipment, looking through full weddings … etc. There’s a lot of educating that needs doing!
Kate: Just like you’re going to get to our Vegas pics someday right?? 😉 Just kidding! I have a huge list of topics I wanna do. Maybe I’ll do it every Sunday… who knows. That is a good idea though about the bona fide photographer. We just had a really bad one here that took a lot of money and pictures and ran. 🙁
Great points! I think another reason that people don’t think about is how hard it is to be constantly creating. I know you know how you feel by the end of a wedding. You have to be giving 100% of yourself throughout the entire day. There aren’t many other jobs that requre you to be giving giving giving for that long. Even if you were sitting in a wheelchair, having someone push you to all the lcoations you wanted/needed to go, you would still be exhausted by the end of the day!
Anyway, just my thoughts…