Lifestyle photographer| Clovis|Are professional photographers expensive ?

Are professional photographers expensive ?

I’ve been in the photography industry for a total of four years. I participate in a lot of photography community groups and forums. Within those forums and groups I come across comments of potential clients often complaining or disagreeing with photographers pricing. I hear and see a lot of photographers are too expensive nowadays. I’ll go ahead and do it myself. So I want to share my experience as a professional photographer and share a little bit of background information on my side as well. Take again I want to clarify that I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinion and therefore it should be respected. I come from humble backgrounds I know sometimes hiring a professional photographer can be a luxury. Sometimes having extra money to hire a professional to capture these memories for you isn’t an option so doing it yourself sounds like a perfect idea. I can’t disagree with that.

The cool thing about this industry is that there is so many different type of photographers who offer different services. You might find a photographer who is priced lower than the other. That does not mean one is less than the other it’s just how they want to run their business. The photographer who is priced higher is not trying to rip you off they probably have higher business expenses than the other photographer or provide different qualities that perhaps the lower budget photographer does not. I think that ourselves as consumers we should ask ourselves what we are looking for and that way we can find a photographer that fits our needs.

Professional vs. amateur

I feel like I can speak freely on both the professional and the amateur side of things as I’ve been in both the waters at one point. When you are a amateur photographer you’re most likely looking to build your portfolio so you might charge lower for your photo sessions. The plan is to eventually rise your prices to make an actual living out of Photography. You might not have all the experience or knowledge on photography but you will learn as you go and that will justify your price increase. As you gather experience and knowledge you’ll find out that you need more than just a camera to be a professional photographer. You’ll require of editing software‘s ,delivering photo services ,printing software‘s and many more other services to simply keep your business running and providing the best service for your clients. As a professional you have taken the time to master your skill when it comes to lighting editing posing and customer service. The quality work of a professional should be distinguished versus an amateur. I also wanna point out that every professional started as an amateur. There’s a journey to this we all go through.

Hours that go into photography

I think that the misconception of how a photo session is priced is based on the length of the photo session. When in reality if we’re only looking at time spent to make this photo session happen for you it’s more than you actually think it is. When you first messaged your photographer for inquiry and you had questions and you wanted to make sure that they were a perfect match for your needs this took the photographer some time. How you discovered your photographer took time. The marketing the photographer had to put in for you to discover them took them time to create. For example, I’m an outdoor photographer, I love the outdoors and this is my niche. This requires me to drive to my location that also takes time. Editing takes a lot of time in the process. Let’s also include the time it takes for the photographer to send and deliver the photos to you and help you get them printed and all of that. If a total of the drive time to the photo shoot, time the edit, and the time it takes a photographer to upload and deliver and print your photos is a minimum of four hours does that make the price more justified for you?

Does equipment make a difference?

I will always be someone who stands behind the idea that a great photographer does not need the best equipment. With that being said they don’t need the best equipment but in reality is equipment does make a difference in the quality of a photograph. You can have an amazing photographer with the cheapest equipment take a great photo but if that photographer had top level equipment the quality of that photograph goes up 100%. Often clients don’t consider equipment to be part of why photographers are priced a certain way. This means the quality of product you’re getting is better and it obviously cost them more.

Let’s talk props

I personally do not work with any props but I have many friends in the industry who do. They always talk about how much time, effort, and money they put into their props looking amazing for a photo session. Like I mentioned before with equipment this took the photographer time and money to create therefore could probably be a reason why the pricing is the way it is.

Knowing all this insight on what really goes behind the scenes in a photography business I hope can bring some clarity and understanding to why photographers are priced the way they are. I want to also make clear that just like anything in life find what fits your needs best and serves you best. If you still believe that a photographer is not priced correctly there is so many out there. I’m pretty sure you can find one that fits you.