Are you considering making an investment by hiring a Professional Photographer? I break down my photography business workflow and the personal reason why I consider my photography services an investment and I hope you will, too.
Lately, I’ve been thinking over the value that I want to provide clients on their wedding day, and on an “ordinary day” for portraits. I want people to see wedding and portrait photography as an investment in moments and memories that are captured in professional photographs. It isn’t just an hour or a few hours with me as your photographer that you’re investing in. It’s more than that.
1) It’s the experience of the photography session. I’ve had clients tell me how empowered and beautiful they feel. I’ve had clients say that they had fun with me and with each other. Couples have confessed to me, beaming, how they haven’t shown public affection like that in a while and how nice it felt to just openly flirt with their significant other. Sometimes they get so into the shoot and each other that they forget that I’m there photographing them (I’m blushing behind the lens! 😉 ) In that split second, I’ll snap my shutter to freeze a moment in time. Those kinds of moments produce photographs that hopefully will grace their walls for years to come. The personalized art and your enjoyment endures long after our shooting time.
2) Consider the time the wedding & portrait photographer spends working with you before and after the session. I’m constantly refining my workflow to work smarter, not harder and to deliver top-notch customer service. I’ve found that I spend about 12 or more hours on a 1-hour photography session doing the following:
- Consulting and getting to know clients and their expectations of me as their photographer via email, phone, or in-person: 2 hours
- Preparing quotes and contracts: 30 minutes
- Preparing for the shoot and getting my equipment and any props ready: 30 minutes
- Driving to and from the photography location and arriving early (I am super punctual and will arrive 15-30 minutes early to scout the location and be ready to shoot by the time you arrive) : 1-2 hours
- Shooting: 1 hour
- Transferring large files to computer and backing it up for safekeeping: 15 minutes
- Culling the best images from the shoot: 30 minutes
- Converting image files in the proper format for editing: 30 minutes
- Retouching/editing every single image with tender, love, and care: 2-4 hours
- Burning images to a DVD and packaging the images for mail delivery: 30 minutes
- Packaging, then driving to the post office and mailing the package: 30 minutes
- Not to mention certain add-ons like creating an online image gallery: 30 minutes
- Printing services: 1+hours
- And creating custom-designed albums: 8+ hours
There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that a wedding and portrait photographer does. The above is just for a 1-hour shoot. Wedding photography requires much more time and effort, since it is a momentous, all-day event.
3) Wedding & portrait photography is an art, but it’s still a business. I almost struck that line from this post, but I’m boldly going to keep it in. (Don’t shoot! 😉 No pun intended, I promise.) The investment in the professional services of a wedding and portrait photographer includes the creativity, time and talent that a professional photographer has to offer. I consider myself as much an artist as a business person. The hubs will remind me often that in order to run a photography business, I have to make sure that I cover my expenses (and top-of-the-line photography equipment and current software is NOT cheap.) A business won’t last very long unless it is profitable. Unlike most services, like getting a mechanic to service your car, the mechanic’s work stops as soon as they fix it and hand you back the keys. For a photographer, that just isn’t the case. Work doesn’t stop after the shoot–we keep on truckin’! Oh boy, the puns just keep coming. It’s also important to remember that:
Good & Cheap won’t be Fast
Fast & Good won’t be Cheap
Cheap & Fast won’t be Good
My hope is that this information gives insight to my workflow. There’s a lot of “behind the scenes” thought and work that goes on in a custom photography session. I pour the energy and time into what I do because I enjoy this creative profession, and I want clients to cherish the images and the experience of a custom photography session. A decadent chocolate or a great glass of wine comes close, but I still believe that there are few things more delightful than capturing a fleeting, blissful moment, and granting it permanence in a photograph for people to enjoy. Times like that are truly priceless.
I hope to play a part in capturing the art in your your life’s milestones!
XO,
Kristine