Birthday Weekend
Well I really stayed low key this weekend. Little bummed that I didn't get to go see Peter Tork of the Monkee's! lol But it's all good.. Spent some time with family and friends for MY Birthday!!! Funny how I always have the camera out for everyone's birthday's etc. etc. But never for my own! LOL
Spent some time looking at some new album making software. Great stuff, but I'm to the point of info-overload! I also re-vamped my wedding packages and prices. Hated to, but the cost of doing business is going up. Just some of the software I mentioned for the albums can cost hundreds, although some are free. The free ones usually are from the labs and then they get you in lab costs. Oh well. Many people do not understand everything that goes into the photography business. Even if your a freelance, like myself, there are a lot of costs involved. The most ironic of it all is that the photographer is the "artist" that is going to be charged with creating long lasting memories, and the first person to be asked to cut their price. Like I say on my website[ www.mwsphoto.com ]...Your going to eat the cake and the food, and we know where that is going to end up. The flowers will wilt and get tossed out, the candles will melt. High percentage is that you will never wear your wedding dress again. The tuxedo's will see many other weddings and proms, but the photo images will hang on the wall or be displayed in an album for generations. Amazingly, the photographer is the first person everyone wants to get a "deal" from. Last I looked, none of the other service people bargain prices. When you tell the best bakery in town that you can get a 4 tiered cake to feed 200 people for $50 cheaper down the road, they usually tell you..."Hit the road!" "oh, I don't want to spend $2,000 on that designer wedding gown. I'll give you $500, that's the price I saw one on the rack at J.C. Pennys!" Next thing you know, the clerk is taking your complimentary bottle of foo-foo water from your hands and showing you the door. The photographer has thousands of dollars in equipment...equipment that breaks down, wears out or has to be updated. They have learned an art form that turns what would be a snapshot taken by Uncle Ed, into one of the photos you dreamed about when you were thumbing through the wedding magazines planning your event. Is the baker of your cake standing by to interact with your guests? Nope, but the photographer is...or should be. (a point when picking your photographer). Then he/she or they, must go back to submit film to the lab or download hundreds of imagines to the PC. The images, once in the lab for printing, must be picked up and sorted and put into some sort of presentation. If it is an album, we are talking hours more work. Your 4/6/8 hours of wedding coverage can easily turn into 16/24 or more hours for the photographer. This is not counting that you have had all your planning for your special day come down to a single evening. A pro-wedding photographer does this almost every weekend year in year out, taking from their personal time to have weekends for them and the like. Now don't get me wrong...they know what they are getting into...but this is just one of the many things your paying for. I haven't even touched on the cost of gas, insurance, professional dues, clothes, computers, websites, printing materials, business cards, cell phone...it goes on and on chipping a few pennies away from every earned dollar.
The one thing people do understand is the joy of looking at happy memories. When a bride shows a friend the wedding pictures and the friend goes "Oh you looked so beautiful" and "Oh, that is such a wonderful picture you you & him", then without even thinking about it, the bride is happy she made the right choice in a photographer. The saddest thing to me was when I had a bride come up to me with tears in her eyes and showed me a horrible wedding album from an inexperienced cut-rate photographer. I rarely comment on another photographers work, but this was awful. Bad poses, dark under exposed shots, long shots of the bridal party at the alter where you could hardly see who was who. All I could do is offer her my apologies and be sympathetic, while underneath I was saying to myself...you went for cheap and this is what you paid for. Just a note about cheap. I will go into this more another time, but pick your photographer with other things as the priorities first. Experience, quality of the work, references, personality. Meet with the photographer in person! Then think about the price. Be prepared to pay a premium fee for a premium service. If the average price in your area is $2500 and a photographer is offering to do it for $500, find out why. All the old sayings go here.... "Let the buyer beware"... "If it's too good to be true, it probably is".
Going to head to the other side of the state toward the end of the week. A little business trip. I'll try to manage a few photos! ;}
Spent some time looking at some new album making software. Great stuff, but I'm to the point of info-overload! I also re-vamped my wedding packages and prices. Hated to, but the cost of doing business is going up. Just some of the software I mentioned for the albums can cost hundreds, although some are free. The free ones usually are from the labs and then they get you in lab costs. Oh well. Many people do not understand everything that goes into the photography business. Even if your a freelance, like myself, there are a lot of costs involved. The most ironic of it all is that the photographer is the "artist" that is going to be charged with creating long lasting memories, and the first person to be asked to cut their price. Like I say on my website[ www.mwsphoto.com ]...Your going to eat the cake and the food, and we know where that is going to end up. The flowers will wilt and get tossed out, the candles will melt. High percentage is that you will never wear your wedding dress again. The tuxedo's will see many other weddings and proms, but the photo images will hang on the wall or be displayed in an album for generations. Amazingly, the photographer is the first person everyone wants to get a "deal" from. Last I looked, none of the other service people bargain prices. When you tell the best bakery in town that you can get a 4 tiered cake to feed 200 people for $50 cheaper down the road, they usually tell you..."Hit the road!" "oh, I don't want to spend $2,000 on that designer wedding gown. I'll give you $500, that's the price I saw one on the rack at J.C. Pennys!" Next thing you know, the clerk is taking your complimentary bottle of foo-foo water from your hands and showing you the door. The photographer has thousands of dollars in equipment...equipment that breaks down, wears out or has to be updated. They have learned an art form that turns what would be a snapshot taken by Uncle Ed, into one of the photos you dreamed about when you were thumbing through the wedding magazines planning your event. Is the baker of your cake standing by to interact with your guests? Nope, but the photographer is...or should be. (a point when picking your photographer). Then he/she or they, must go back to submit film to the lab or download hundreds of imagines to the PC. The images, once in the lab for printing, must be picked up and sorted and put into some sort of presentation. If it is an album, we are talking hours more work. Your 4/6/8 hours of wedding coverage can easily turn into 16/24 or more hours for the photographer. This is not counting that you have had all your planning for your special day come down to a single evening. A pro-wedding photographer does this almost every weekend year in year out, taking from their personal time to have weekends for them and the like. Now don't get me wrong...they know what they are getting into...but this is just one of the many things your paying for. I haven't even touched on the cost of gas, insurance, professional dues, clothes, computers, websites, printing materials, business cards, cell phone...it goes on and on chipping a few pennies away from every earned dollar.
The one thing people do understand is the joy of looking at happy memories. When a bride shows a friend the wedding pictures and the friend goes "Oh you looked so beautiful" and "Oh, that is such a wonderful picture you you & him", then without even thinking about it, the bride is happy she made the right choice in a photographer. The saddest thing to me was when I had a bride come up to me with tears in her eyes and showed me a horrible wedding album from an inexperienced cut-rate photographer. I rarely comment on another photographers work, but this was awful. Bad poses, dark under exposed shots, long shots of the bridal party at the alter where you could hardly see who was who. All I could do is offer her my apologies and be sympathetic, while underneath I was saying to myself...you went for cheap and this is what you paid for. Just a note about cheap. I will go into this more another time, but pick your photographer with other things as the priorities first. Experience, quality of the work, references, personality. Meet with the photographer in person! Then think about the price. Be prepared to pay a premium fee for a premium service. If the average price in your area is $2500 and a photographer is offering to do it for $500, find out why. All the old sayings go here.... "Let the buyer beware"... "If it's too good to be true, it probably is".
Going to head to the other side of the state toward the end of the week. A little business trip. I'll try to manage a few photos! ;}
posted by Michael at 11:30 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home