This is part two of photographic fees blog to explain and justify the costs of employing a professional photographer. From previous blog continued:

There are a number of reasons why there are so many cheap photographers out there. Here are some of the most common ones:

The lack of knowledge of the market. Some amateur photographers enter the market, confident of their photographic skills; naively start trading without knowing the fundamental elements required to be a photographer. Most professional wedding photographers are running a business as do corporate and commercial ones alike. And with any type of business there are many costs involved in running it. However, due to their lack of experience and knowledge of the industry, amateur photographers do not realise how much they need to invest to start a successful photography business. The mindset is that as long as they cover their material costs they will be fine. As a result their prices are a lot less than a professional who has done it as a full-time job for years.

Low quality of work. You then have photographers who have been in the industry for a number of years but still charge very little. Less than the newcomers because their quality of photography and service are so poor that nobody sees any value in their work.

Many armature and newcomers are still trying to build a portfolio of work. If they charged as much as a professional though being extremely talented they would not get a foot in the door and therefore never gain experience.

So why is wedding photography so expensive. Not only the photos themselves, albums and other products offered photography is not a solely commodity business. It’s a mixture of many. Firstly photography is an art. A skill and a service. Then a photographer has to be a good sales person.

For a wedding photographer it’s not just a case of turning up and taking a few well composed shots and then handing you a disc. There is a lot more involvement in creating the perfect memory of your wedding day.  One of the most important things is the labour. An average wedding can be 6 to 8 hrs in length. Photographers most often arrive well before hand to capture small detail before the event. During the actual event they will be on their feet throughout the entire period, capturing those special moments and will have taken between 800 -12000 frames from the day. That is physically demanding.

A great deal of people are not aware that a photographers job does not end when the event ends. It is not uncommon for people to think that it’s a simple job of downloading images and putting to disc or uploading to a web site. In fact images from cameras need to have what is called ‘post production’. This is to sort to categories, delete shots that are not wanted and to spend time enhancing with sharpness and contrast and levels to produce the final image. This process on a large job with many images can take a good few hours per day, over say three or four days. So if you were to spend time at an event say 8 hrs also time spent with the preparation perhaps 3 hrs and then over a three day period 4 hrs a day. This photographic session is now turning into 23 hrs and then its not finished there because of archiving and other services that may need attention. So the rate assumed at 250 per hour is now decreased to 70 per hour. This is still good money to earn but its not all profit as you will read in Part Three coming soon

The subject of professional photographic fees needs to be discussed and looked at in more detail. I have clients, not ones that I have previously worked for, but new enquiries when discussing their requirements to be amazed at what is a fair and accurate cost or fee to accomplish what they want from a photographic session. There is a sense of what you should be charging is relative to only what someone in a job should be earning per hour be it six ,eight even12 pounds per hour and not look at the bigger picture that professional photographers have to have and address to do the job to a high standard.

It is true that no one moans or is surprised when a washing machine or household appliance repair person being self employed or working for a company charge a call out fee just to attend and diagnose a fault at ninety pounds and then more cost to actually repair the issue. The call out usually give you the first hour of labour. This is also at their convenience on what part of the day they want to arrive while you wait in. How many operators like this can you say to I want a specific time for you to arrive. No, they give you a day when they can come; you have to wait possibly more than half a day for them to call. And still you pay the heavy call out fees without fuss.

In my experience my clients or perspective callers don’t say could you possible mosey over when you feel fit and etc. No the call is more positive with firm times and direction. The event is then and at a time and I want you to be there until and this has to happen and I want images back by this time etc etc. The whole employ is of a different nature and has the costs that come with it. An article written by a wedding photographer Jay Hoque outlines why the fees that are charged by professionals are justified and what we have to be and do in this profession. It is written with great accuracy and I want to share some of the information with you to explain why the fees are what they should be.

Why Wedding Photography is not as expensive as you think.

“Why is wedding photography so expensive”

“They’re only there for a few hours! It’s a rip off to charge that much for a few photo’s!”

 These are some of the questions and comments you might hear from people who have just received the quote from a wedding photographer. When a wedding quote for £2000 for an 8 hour wedding shoot is presented, the immediate assumption is that he/she is earning £250 per hour. But if you take a closer look at what goes on behind the scenes and see what really goes on then you will realise that wedding photographer make nowhere near that kind of money.

Contrary to what people believe. The disheartening fact is that most wedding photographers are not actually as expensive as they seem.

“You are kidding me right?” I hear you say. Well instead of asking why the expensive photographer is so expensive, ask yourself this,

“Why is the cheap photographer so cheap?”

What corners are they cutting?

Are they insured?

Are they using the right equipment?

How much experience do they have?

There are a number of reasons why there are so many cheap photographers out there. Here are some of the most common ones:

TBC in part two soon.

As I have previously mentioned in my blog the importance of what to consider when booking a corporate photographer in London. Apart from the working style and the individual capabilities of the photographer it is also a comfort that he or she has knowledge of their own equipment needs to produce a good service.

All photographers should be aware that you do need to use good brands of equipment like Nikon or Canon etc to be able to stand up to the demands given in every day life on a shoot. It is also vital that you never go to a shoot without backup pieces of equipment should something fail on you.

In my years of being an event photographer in London I can count on one hand the failures that have happened with either a lens or body. Even using some of the best equipment available it can still go wrong. But always I have to hand and often already set up to go a back up piece that I can carry on with and finalise the job in hand.

This responsibility of having back up is a sure difference between an experienced professional and someone who is not. A professional would ‘have in the bag’ two camera bodies, various lenses, two flash guns and a stock of batteries. So if anything went wrong another was close by.

Often now at shoots the client would need images quickly and having a laptop computer to hand is essential. Here too having one that is quick and efficient is a must. To reduce any risk to your quality of service a backup of software needed to post produce images should be carried. It is probably unreasonable to have a second computer to hand out in the field but software to download images from camera cards and programmes to do production is easily carried using USB pen drives or even having the programme saved to be re- installed if needed. It has been known that as long as you have the software with you to borrow another computer to get you out of a jam is a possibility. I have even gone to the extent to carry a spare computer hard drive and have a mirror image DVD of it should a main drive on a desktop computer fail at an assignment.

All this’ paranoia’ gives a trusted security to the client who has commissioned you to obtain the results needed for their use. They have more faith in you as a professional and a relationship of trust grows.