It was during a little chat with my husband about how the business is going that I realised, I have only a few times actually been paid full price for my services! Now I know that is my own doing as I have given people the discount that they wanted, because for me, I would rather be doing some work than waiting around for people who will pay full price! :P
So I thought I would just share a few reasons why photographers charge the prices they do and so why you really should pay them their full rate! :)
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Photography is a Very Expensive Craft
Just the equipment alone will cost thousands of pounds. My first proper DSLR camera cost me £700 for a very basic entry level camera, and that is still the camera I am using now. The camera I have my eye on at the moment costs nearly£3000! That is just the camera alone along with a rather snazzy lens. There is no point having a camera without a decent lens! And most photographers will need at lease 2-3 different lenses for all the different types of images we need to produce. To give you as rough idea, a lens can sometimes cost almost as much as a camera itself. So that is the basic equipment a photographer needs to start up with. It is then a VERY good idea to have back ups! Especially shooting weddings, it is very risky relying on one piece of equipment to capture such a tremendous occasion! Just recently I was on a shoot and dropped my lens! Sure enough it stopped working and I had to make do with a different lens - at least I had another one handy! Even if it wasn't the ideal lens for the occasion.. Ideally you need two of everything - just in case! That should be the bare minimum to expect from a photographer. The next tool you need to do your job well is editing software. Now there are so many different things out there and each photographer should be completely happy with the results they achieve from their software. The most popular is Lightroom and Photoshop. I personally am a Photoshop fan an paid £650 for the latest version (discounted at the time!) So those are the basic equipment costs, but I'm sure you know that's not all the equipment that photographers use. I am not going to list it all or this will be a very long and boring post! Hopefully you now understand how expensive it is to be a photographer.
Photography is Very Time Consuming
Another point that most people don't realise is how much time we spend before and after your shoot preparing and perfecting your final product! I usually let my clients know not to expect their images for at least a month after (depending on the scale of the shoot of course!). There is a lot of time and care put into your photographs and as I'm sure you know, time is valuable!
Running a business costs money too!
Putting the photography costs aside, the general running if the business costs money too. I have been very careful since setting up officially this year that I am not draining our personal income into the business - as we are newly married and only recently got used to living by ourselves! So in order to run my business properly, I need to be making money in my business! Some of the biggest costs are advertising, insurance & printing. And then the normal every day things such as paper, ink, transport etc.
So there is a very brief outline of the costs of running a photography business! Hopefully now you understand a little bit more as to why photographers can't charge you £20 for a photo shoot :) I would be very interested to hear from other photographers and get your views and opinions! And just so you know, it's totally okay to disagree with me ;)
Have a Happy Wednesday! :)
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