It costs how much??? Jan31

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It costs how much???

As professionals – we’ve all heard it

“The disk costs what?…but it doesn’t cost you anything”

“A print is THAT MUCH?  But I can get it for five dollars at walmart”

“Wow it would be that much extra”?

“But it’s my wedding…can you throw it in?”

So why is it so much?  I’ll tell you.

When you buy something from someone that is hand made, such as a photograph, more than just the click of a button has gone into that item.  In creating a photograph a lot of things come into play.  The location you are going to shoot at – the photographer usually finds that for you.  Then we determine a session time and usually recommend a time of day that has suitable lighting when shooting outdoors so that we can maximize the light available to us.  Time of day isn’t really a factor when you are working inside a studio.  Be it 10am or 3am you can make the light look exactly the same.  Then of course we have to meet you at the location to take this photograph we were talking about on the phone.  So we either set up our studio or we meet you there, walk around for a bit to find the best small location within this big location we’re at, maybe we do some posing, maybe not, but almost always the photographer is offering some type of direction to you.  “Give them a kiss”, “pick up your son”, “just pretend I’m not even here”, “I’ll hold your bouquet”- these are all instructions to you to help perfect the shot.  While you do this, we look through the viewfinder and decide the best composition for the image from the view of the camera.  Determine the proper camera settings, if we are using some type of lights or filters we make sure those are all placed, and then and only then do we do the simple thing that actually creates the photograph *click* it’s done.

Well, it’s sort of done.

At this point most photographers have a digital file that absolutely nothing can be done with until you process it through a computer and change it into a useable file format.  It’s during this process that we edit your images.  Editing can be many things.  I can mean correcting the colours so everything looks natural, retouching of skin, removal of strangers walking in the background, or simply exchanging the file into a format your computer will recognize.  Without converting the files, you would have no way to view your images and would have to purchase programming costing a few hundred dollars just to see the negative digital image we’ve captured.  Some of this work can be incredibly difficult and time consuming, but it all leads to the wonderful final image we have envisioned.

This process from start to finish takes most photographers 3-5 hours of time for a set of 20 finalized images that you can view and choose to order from.  If we’re working with you for your wedding, chances are we’ll put in at least 60 hours for a finalized gallery of about 450 images give or take a hundred or two.

So keep all of this in mind – now it’s time to buy a print or a canvas, maybe even an album!  No, you aren’t crazy and yes the price tag is higher than you may have been expecting.  But look at all that work that has gone into the image so far!  Now once you say “okay I’ll take 2” and you’ve selected the pictures, back to work we go.  We have to prepare the image or album to look it’s absolute best once it hits the print process.  Every little detail has to be in place, albums designed, canvases prepared and then it gets sent off to the printer to be produced using professional grade inks and papers that are guaranteed to last and look their best for at least 75 years, if cared for properly they’ll last for much longer.  Once it’s ready we inspect it to make sure it’s perfect, exactly what we ordered for you and exactly what you are expecting.  If for any reason it’s not right, we start again.  We would rather ask you to wait an extra week than provide you with a product that doesn’t meet our standards!  Then we package it up in a nice little bag or box, and it becomes yours.  Keep in mind that we’ve hand made all of these items for you, and if it’s an album you’ve purchased, we’ve completed the design by hand too!

But it’s not a print you want, it’s a digital file?  Okay, we can do that!  “But why is it so much, it’s not like the file on your computer costs anything, a cd is 2 dollars”.  Yes, you are right, the visual digital file that is sitting on my computer is not actively costing me money in order for it to exist, and yes, some disks might only be about 2 dollars – but do you remember all of that work that went into creating that digital image?  Much like that professional grade print paper and ink, we use professional grade disks that are guaranteed to outlast any of the technology available for you to use to view the contents.  These cost much more than $2.00, and we use these to guarantee quality to your investment.  If we used a $2.00 cd the chances of it deteriorating or simply becoming unusable are much greater.

For the sake of comparison, lets think of the craft show you may have visited recently – there is a woman selling blankets.  She’s got about 10 of them.  Much like housing your digital image on my computer, it doesn’t cost her anything to have them there on the table ready to sell to you, she’s already made them, she’s already poured her energy and artistry into the beautiful blanket, she’s already paid for her booth at the craft show and the materials she used for the blanket.  Her asking price is $100.00.  Chances are the majority of you would pay that money for the blanket without questioning the price.  But it’s just a blanket.  Some material, thread and maybe some fringe.  Why did you pay that much?  Because the blanket is hand made, it’s gorgeous, it’s one of a kind! and you love it.  Besides, the woman worked so hard to make it, it probably took her a few hours or more, time away from other things in her life, maybe time away from her husband or time spent going to the store instead of spending an extra half hour with her own kids, she deserves at least a hundred dollars!

The point is – photographers are charging for their art, they are selling you a work of art that they have poured energy, sweat, quite possibly blood (trust me, it’s possible!), and time into and it’s made by hand.  Even though the “final” image created by almost all photographers in today’s day in age is “digital” that doesn’t make it worthless.  That doesn’t mean it didn’t cost someone money, and time, passion and energy to create, produce and perfect!  It doesn’t cost the woman at the market anything extra once the blanket is made either, the money and time has already been spent.  Our photo files now a days may be digital, but they still start as a digital negative inside the brain of our cameras and aren’t worthless either!

When you purchase a disk instead of purchasing prints – you are getting multiple images.  I would say on average, 20 images (if it’s your wedding day, this number is probably 300-700).  With the exception that we only had to meet you at the location once, each and every one of those images has been shown the same love, care and attention to detail as the last.  They’ve all been hand perfected and inspected to make sure they are up to our standards and ready to be delivered to you as a proof image.  This also explains why you don’t see every single image ever taken.  People blink – A LOT, they move, they wiggle, they make silly faces, look away, fall over, laugh, sometimes little kids even run away for one reason or another.  Not every image looks good, some of them – well you might actually decide to not like us if we shared them with anyone instead of just deleting them.  Others are just test shots, and some are 15 shots of the same thing.  If this were a film shoot – there would be no 15 shots, that would be an extra $50.00 in materials!  Trust me – we aren’t hiding anything from you.  You wouldn’t have hired us if you didn’t trust us, and we’ve put the best of the best in your gallery!

Photography has come a long way in the last 150 or so years!  Once upon a time having a family photograph taken was genuinely a once in a lifetime experience.  The cost was so exorbitant just to cover the photographers materials, forget about paying them to do this job for you.  It was genuinely UN affordable – most women way back when stayed at home with their kids or tending to farm chores or preparing items to sell at the Sunday market, while then men earned the majority of the money coming into the home – some families today work quite similarly!

The first publicly available photographs were called daguerrotype’s and in 1843 – one would cost between $2-5 (in 2012 that is approximately $60-140, for one print photograph, probably sized about 5×7 or so)

When most of my generation were kids in the 80’s and 90’s the 35mm automatic film camera became more of a household item, they still weren’t cheap, but much more commonly available.  This meant more pictures around or up on the walls, but not without the expense.  The camera probably cost a few hundred dollars and each roll of film 5-10$ before developing, anywhere from 5-40$ depending on who, where and how you develop the film, and even then you usually ended up with a set of 4×6 prints and a stack of negatives.  Given that this was 20 or more years ago now for quite a few people, those prices are quite a lot more.  I shoot film as a hobby, genuine 35 and 120mm film.  If I went out tomorrow morning to buy a roll of film it would cost me between $8-25 for my film of choice, and an additional $16-80 to have it developed.  So about $25-105 per roll, and 120 film is only 12 frames.

When my family had professional portraits taken somewhere in the 1992 point of history it cost well over $500.00 for a portrait session including 13 people, the photographers talent and a bunch of prints (that no doubt cost extra!) – negatives? (today’s digital files) forget about it.  In all likely hood they weren’t even for sale, and if they were the price was high enough that it wasn’t worth discussing.  By the way, I have one of those prints from that session on my entertainment unit, it’s about 20 years old now and looks absolutely perfect and brand new.  It hasn’t faded or deteriorated over time.  It’s printed with the same kind of professional paper and professional ink I use to print images on for my clients.  I’m sure that particular 5×7 print was probably $50.00 in 1992 – that’s about $80.00 today.

Today the standard in photography, both for a fun night out with the girls or boys and professionally, is a digital format.  This means most negatives are a file on a computer, it can be emailed or put on a disk.  There is no EXTRA film to buy once the initial investment is made in the camera and lenses.  Camera’s are also everywhere.  My son is 4 and he has a digital camera, that takes digital pictures onto a memory card that we put onto the computer, most of us have cell phones that have increasingly more powerful cameras in them as they start to replace the “point and shoot” cameras a lot of us also have.  Consumer level DSLR camera’s (sometimes referred to as “fancy cameras” or “professional cameras”) start somewhere in the $500.00 range including a normal range lens that doesn’t offer much zoom power (nothing at all like a point and shoot camera offers).

A true professional level DSLR camera starts at about $2500.00 for a camera body, that means no lens is included, those are extra.  The lenses the average professional photographer shoot with range in price from about $350.00 – $3000.00, for one lens!  We often have 2 or 3 on hand for a typical session, maybe 5 or 6 for a wedding.

So even though I don’t have to spend $10.00 for a roll of film and $40.00 to develop it every time I take a picture for you – I do have to pay for the following things in order to create, develop, share and display each session that is captured digitally.

My internet connection – in order to upload your images, share your online gallery with you, your family and friends.  I also need this to communicate with you through email, facebook or other online mediums.  This used to be done with a set of printed proofs that the photographer would create from your negative images in order to share them with you.

Web hosting and web services – without these I cannot share my work with you.  Your galleries are hosted on my website, which is hosted on the internet.  Because the images are digital I can’t put them into frames or folio’s and come over and share them, even if I shared them with you in person, this would take place on a computer or tablet.

I have to buy programs to process your images, in my case the two main programs are Photoshop and Lightroom.  While it isn’t necessary, I opt to always have the most up to date version of programming, this means I have access to the latest and greatest tools to both make my job easier, and your pictures more incredible.  I’m not complaining – there is far less brain cell destruction in digital processing than processing with chemicals!

Computer maintenance and upgrading is a must as well, for this is my darkroom.  I’ve swapped developers and bleaches for photoshop and and a graphics tablet.

I have to pay my printer to produce prints, albums and canvases for you, or to produce the professional grade disks you may opt for.  And don’t forget the artist behind all of that, it’s true – I get paid too!

So while photography is no longer film and there is no “additional” cost each time I snap a picture, to do this type of work on a professional level, it takes tens of thousands of dollars in equipment, computers, programming and online services to produce each and every image I take.  It takes hours, and thousands more dollars spent on education, training, workshops and various bits and bobs that add the extra “je ne sais quoi” to each image.  Each image your professional photographer takes starts as a thought and then becomes a digital negative inside the camera (just like a negative imprinted on film), it has to be digitally developed, perfected, adjusted and converted to a usable file – this has replaced the dark room chemical and film printing process of days gone by, while some of us still do this for fun, it’s no longer considered the industry standard.

So in the end, you are right, it’s expensive when you think about spending $300, $500, or even $3000 on a wedding package all in one day for only a few hours of time.  After all, very few of us either have a budget, or a habit of spending these amounts of money on any given day other than grocery, rent or mortgage payment day, so naturally we want to cringe.  There is nothing wrong with saving and waiting to be able to afford this type of investment.  Most of us don’t wake up on a Tuesday walk to futureshop and buy a brand new tv – we save for 2 or 3 months to make sure we can buy the TV we really want, the TV that makes us happy, the TV that we know we’ll be happy with for years to come.  Hiring a professional photographer is exactly the same thing!  And hopefully the images we create for you will long outlive that tv!  It’s an investment, an investment in your family and in your memories.  There is nothing wrong with feeling it’s expensive, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with waiting an extra few months to hire someone who’s work you really love and know you’ll be happy with.  We aren’t going anywhere, just give us a call when you are ready to book a session!

If it’s your wedding and you’re worried, that’s okay too!  Wedding photography is not inexpensive!  It’s not inexpensive for a reason.  Remember those 60 hours I mentioned, and the fact that we are capturing a once in a lifetime event which means there is no redo – everything has to be in place so that nothing goes wrong, and if something does we’re the only ones who know about it because we are prepared for it.  We’ll have spent countless hours consulting with you before and after your wedding.  Once your wedding is said and done and it’s all but a memory…those pictures are the one and only thing (okay and probably your dress!) you’ll have left from that day that capture it in time.  The food will all be eaten, the flowers wilted and the decorations discarded.  Friends will have gone back home, and the gifts are all put away – those pictures will be there any time you want to relive your wedding day, to share with your kids, your grand kids, and probably even your great grand kids!

Remember, you are buying talent, art, an experience – and in the end you have beautiful pictures.  Does it still seem as expensive as you thought?

If you ever question the importance of professional photography, just think of the days you’ve spent up in the attic or the crawl space digging through old boxes of family pictures, wondering who these people are, commenting on how beautiful your great grandmother was, or remembering the long lost simple days of the past.  What will you leave your grand kids to look at in 50 years?