I want to address a common misconception that many people may have about photographers and our pricing. When we charge say $100 for an hour session, we are not making $100 an hour. Here is a break down of the actual time that goes onto an hour session. Anywhere from two weeks to a month before the shoot, Im scheduling with the client. The back and forth it takes to decide on a time, date, location, and outfits will usually take an hour lets say. So now Im at one hour. Next I brainstorm ideas, poses, props, and think about shooting in various weather and lighting conditions. Add another hour. So two hours now. Most photographers will travel up to about a half hour away without charging a mileage fee. We are more than happy to take the money out of pocket to pay for the gas to get to you. Half hour there, half hour back. Three hours now. Now, Im addressing a scenario for an hour shoot, so one more hour for posing and shooting. But sometimes we give the client a little over an hour for example: shooting finicky kids (shooting kids sounds kind of bad eh?) but Ill still call it an hour. So thats four hours now. Once I arrive home it will take about a half hour to transfer the files from the SD card to the computer and back them up to an external hard drive. This process takes this long because any professional photographer will shoot in RAW mode. This means a bigger file size that preserves all the data in an image without compressing. Four and a half hours. For a one hour shoot I probably spend two hours, going through the photos, picking out the perfect ones, and editing the images. Six and a half hours. The time really starts to add up doesnt it? Next I export the files to my external hard drive. This takes about a half hour. So now Im at seven hours. I then meet with the client to let them pick their prints, or create a Facebook album for them to select which prints they want. Whether I drive a half hour to them and a half hour back, or upload them to Facebook, this is usually another hour. Look, now Im at a typical eight hour work day. Next I upload the photos they selected to a professional printing lab and order the price for the client. Uploading huge files to these sites will usually, from my experience take another hour. Im at nine hours now. Once I receive the photos, I drive again to the client thats a half hour away and hand deliver the photos. I want to make sure first hand that they are pleased with the work they are paying for! So over all a one hour shoot will take roughly ten hours to complete from start to finish. Give or take a little. $100 / 10 hours = You guessed it! $10 dollars an hour. For some this may be too long to read, but if you got this far, I applaud and thank you :) Have a great night!
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 02:52:11 +0000