Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/09/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]derek wrote: > > >>I really don't understand why a photographer wants > >>to be in the print selling business rather than in the photography > >>business. > >This doesn't make any sense to me. > > It makes a ton of sense to me, and I've even structured my pricing that > way. > > It's easier if you look at the weddings used to be priced: > > 1) Brides shop around looking for a photographer. > 2) Brides are somewhat cost-conscious once they get a feel for what the > entire wedding will be costing them. > 3.1) Joe Photographer has learned that he needs $x,xxxx per wedding to > stay in business, but competes with other photographers based on price, > by offering a not-quite-sufficient package at an "affordable" price, > planning on making the rest up on reprints, additions to the album, etc. > 3.2) Alternative: Joe requires a "creative fee" of > some-fraction-of-$x,xxx, working a-la-carte so that the bride will > purchase whatever images she wants later. This looks much cheaper to > the bride than paying for everything all at once. > 4) Bride later has more money, but it's not like she can go anywhere > else once the wedding has taken place. > > On paper, what you're seeing is photographers charging cost of materials > (or less) to show up on the wedding day, with something like a 1000% > markup on reprints. That worked well, for a long time. Now though, > brides scan images and create their own reprints, and photographers are > seeing much less in the way of reprint orders. So the market is > changing. > Derek I've got two big issues with this from my experience with shooting about 150 weddings over about 25 years which may be what you shoot on a three day weekend. IN the past you could not charge so much up front because you knew the print orders would be far more than anyone could predict - the ones doing the budgeting. Parents of the bride and groom can place very large print orders into many hundreds of dollars. IF you did a GOOD JOB. But nowadays everyone has flatbed scanners. I'm sure the print orders have shrunken. It's best to make your money up front. Have a very large minimum print order. Let them have fun copying those. (Not with your permission). Now ones more broke than a newlywed. They will typically be more broke after their wedding having come back from their honeymoon than any time in their lives. And THIS is when you want money from them! (Oh i see you're onto the scanning thing.) I think people hire me because of how expensive i am, not how cheap i am. People don't plan weddings with money they've got in their checking accounts. They get loans or have had a wedding account piling up for years like a trousseau. They don't want what's cheap they often want what's expensive. Weddings are a time when people who normally don't spend money, spend lots of money. They do see this as the most important moment of their lives not accounting getting born and dying. "Dying is easy! Getting married is hard!" They hire me because they recognize the people in my wedding print stack and they admire them and want to do things they way they did. Which is to hire me. And believe it or not i actually get hired because of the quality of my work. And they hire me because both on the phone and in person i don't act like a complete idiot. Wedding photography is less competitive then other forms of photography when you get right down to it. Most wedding photographers you would hope would not be anywhere within miles of your wedding. Oh and it's not the brides which scans all the pictures and proofs its their little brothers! :) Mark Rabiner Portland, Oregon USA http://www.markrabiner.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html