Where's the Wedding togs?

[markbarendt]

if I'm printing photos myself I expect to be paid a printers wages not a £100+ per hr photographer. If I don't have time, it gets sent out to the lab, but as long as I retain quality control.

That is perfect, my biggest concern for anybody in our business is that they get paid properly for every task they do.

What I saw in the digital realm was a tendency for people to give away the post-processing by never figuring it into the real costs. That's tougher to ignore when using film because of the hard currency paid to a lab or to buy supplies.

I don't think the change in technology should have provided this self-printing idea to emerge.

Actually this is exactly what companies like Canon promote. For years they have essentially been screaming "Buy our camera, buy our printer, do it all yourself, you don't need a pro photographer or a lab, digital is free!"

This revolution only became practical with digital, a darkroom in every home was never feasible, but a camera, a computer, and a printer in nearly every home is.

Plain and simple technology and the hard-goods suppliers that make those goods and the software companies that piggyback on that mass market created the self-printing revolution.

A hi-res file is the original whether it's on film or pixels. Back in the day were you one of those photographers who would hand over the negatives?

I still am depending on the job. Here's my business logic for this on weddings.

With the exception of a celebrity wedding, the entire market for the images I shoot at a given wedding consists of the Bride, the Groom, and the immediate family. My only practical hope for making more beyond that is from referrals that lead to more work.

There is a certain amount of profit I can reasonably expect to make on a given wedding in a given market. If I can out-do that normal amount of profit by "giving" them the negatives, I will.

From a business perspective they can either let me reduce my costs or pay me extra, to get me to that point, I don't care which. They also get full disclosure with regard to self-printing issues.

I learned this the hard way when post started kicking my tail. The more I shot and the bigger the album the harder I got kicked. People wanted big albums but weren't willing to pay fairly.

I make more real dollars now with my "shoot and proof" product because the cost is really low, my time commitment to a job is low, and it's something my market is willing to pay for.

Good luck, at least we are not travel agents. Do people still use them?

That is exactly my point, there are still a few but from what I can see it's a real niche, the market for their services is limited, same with portrait painters.

I believe that most brides do not care about how we make our art, what really matters to them is the style and the look.

What we can get paid for well is things that they can't or don't want to do. Where we can show that we are different artistically or practically we can be paid nicely.

 

[wendy g]

"Where's the wedding togs?" I'm here! I'm relatively new to APUG.

Started shooting film when I was 13.... it became an obsession. Many years later I became a wedding photographer using film. I added digital (the immediacy and overly saturated colors were addicting) and in 2007 became all digital. Two years later I kissed digital capture goodbye and decided film was for me.

Many of the statements in this thread are interesting. I also agree that digital technology and those who sell it have created myths (among pros and among consumers). That it's free. That it's easy. That it's a great way to make easy money. That "having more control" (being a photographer AND a color corrector or lab) is true freedom. That it's the camera that makes beautiful images. That it's the number of megapixels that makes beautiful images. That it's one manufacturer or another (Nikon v Canon). In fact every facet of digital imaging is sold as the ONE THING that will make your images beautiful. The camera, lenses, storage media, printer, software, computer, imaging software, imaging software actions, etc, etc. The understanding that the PERSON capturing the image matters has been obscured. Some wedding couples understand this but the average consumer who has no real visual vocabulary doesn't. They bought the hype.