I’m starting a new piece on my blog to supplement the pictures called Corey Talks.\u00a0 In it I plan on talking about various topics about weddings, photography etc.\u00a0 Feel free to comment and submit questions or tell me I’m crazy.\u00a0 I figured I’d start with the topic that gets lots of debate in the wedding world.<\/p>\n
Why Photographers Charge So Much<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 There are many things that go into our hourly pricing and below I’m going to highlight a few of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Eye<\/strong>\u00a0 Most important in my opinion when hiring a photographer is their eye.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Sounds simple enough to frame a picture but in reality it isn’t.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Often, the people have moved by the time your camera is ready for that shot.\u00a0 We also have the ability to see angles that most people don’t see.\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n Editing<\/strong>\u00a0 This is the biggest reason for the hourly rate.\u00a0 Back in film days, photographers based their hourly rate on the\u00a0time it took to develop the film and print it.\u00a0 Digital is no different than film – we just use a computer to develop our pictures instead of chemicals.\u00a0 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).\u00a0<\/p>\n Equipment<\/strong>\u00a0 Many people come to me complaining about their digital point and shoot and the delay\u00a0between the time they press the shutter release and when the picture actually gets taken.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 That is why professionals typically carry a DSLR and typically a higher grade one.\u00a0 The cameras are not cheap to own and need to be replaced as they get outdated and worn out.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Another element in this topic is lenses.\u00a0 You are paying a professional, with high grade lenses to take portraits.\u00a0 Most of these lenses actually cost MORE than the camera bodies themselves because of the grade of work and glass that goes into them.\u00a0\u00a0This also enables the photographer to take pictures\u00a0in low light situations (chapels that do not allow flash and reception halls to name a couple) where many people cannot normally get an image.\u00a0<\/p>\n Data Storage<\/strong>\u00a0 Just because film isn’t used anymore doesn’t mean that the cost of storage for your images is free.\u00a0 For a high speed data card from a quality company, it can cost up to $25 a gig to store files.\u00a0\u00a0 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).\u00a0 Even though they may be reused they still do wear and tear like any other piece of equipment and will need to be replaced.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Every bride has to make the decision on what is important to her when dividing out her budget for her wedding.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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!\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m starting a new piece on my blog to supplement the pictures called Corey Talks.\u00a0 In it I plan on talking about various topics about weddings, photography etc.\u00a0 Feel free to comment and submit questions or tell me I’m crazy.\u00a0 I figured I’d start with the topic that gets lots of debate in the wedding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1782,389],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corey-talks","tag-corey-talks","tag-pricing"],"yoast_head":"\n