To proof or not to proof?

I charge about $250 for my negatives... which works out to about $245/hour... well... less than an hour, since its just burning cds. :wink: all in all, i work 1.5 days a week and come out with more money than i do in 40 hours at my day job. actually... more than i make on an average paycheque for 2 weeks. I guess for me... as long as I can make good money, i'm more than satisfied. I've noticed that the generation that is getting married right now, being able to get the negatives is a major selling point.

I guess its all preference, Weddings are the cash cow... but I'd rather spend the rest of my days expanding my business or taking pictures of things i want to... than be running out to the lab all the time.
 
green said:
I've noticed that the generation that is getting married right now, being able to get the negatives is a major selling point.
We got our negatives back. I think, "packages" these days include the negatives.


green said:
Weddings are the cash cow
I think Advertising is where the real money is. The 5 grand a photographer makes for a wedding is small change when compared to a real commercial work.
 
Solarize said:
Some very useful points from all, but I have a tricky one.

Say you are primarily a black and white wedding photographer that processes and prints all images in the darkroom (potentially very uneconomical I know).

Do you offer proofs (would take a long time to make loads of darkroom proofs), do you offer a contact sheet (easy and economical but the images are small) or do you just put together an album with the prints you have edited and think look best.... perhaps with the couple able to make alteations afterwards?

How would this apply if you were doing portrait sessions, again, offering an exclusive service with hand prints/framing etc?

Hmm, you could scan the negatives in a dedicated negative scanner and make contact sheets from that that would be larger than if you did it from the negatives itself. 12 per 8X10 instead of 24 or something like that. You could now print these digital veresions as 4X6's, but that wouldnt show what they would look like if they were done in the darkroom probably.

My boss has a negative projector system that hooks up to the tv and inverts the colors so it looks like what the printed result will, which he can use to show the customers the pictures if he chose to do it that way. You could do something like that to show the clients, but they woudlnt have anything to take home with them.
 
Oh, forgot to comment on this page's stuff, hehe.

$5k for a wedding? :0) I think most people around here dont charge more than a thousand or so. I think the professionals in this area rarely charge more than $2.5k Cdn for thier larger packages.

Ive been told that a wedding takes about 40 hours of the photographers time, with the meeting with the clients before hand, the actual wedding itself, sorting and organizing the pictures, cleaning the pictures up if necessary, then meeting with the clients after to show them the pictures and to get them to choose what they want, if you do it that way, and then pieceing the album together, then meeting with them again and giving them the final result. Then theres wedding insurrance to cover yourself incase the pictures dont turn out, incase the bride gets hurt when your directing her to do poses. The cost of the film, or depreciation of your digital equipment, cost of the album, prints. It ends up being around $5 an hour or so apperantly. You could smooth things out and save money here and there, but the $245/h above doesnt seem realistic, hehe.
 
I guess thats who the millionares like to hire. The people that feel they gotta spend to much money for something for it to be worth while to have. :0).

Hmm, perhaps I should try to target that market. :0). $50,000 for a wedding which includes just 2 hours, its $10,000 extra per additional hour, hmmm. :0) But the taxes on that, ouch.
 
I think the average package around here is closer to $2000. My buddy is getting hitched in February and he said the first guy they saw pitched them a $6000 package :shock:
 
I'm not a big fan of shooting weddings but I do about 5 or 6 a year through word of mouth. I charge $700 - $1,000 depending on how long they want me. This includes three meetings, introduction, the wedding and delivery of the package. This includes 8-12 rolls of 24exp film, a set of 4x6 prints, a cheap album so they can view them easily and the negatives. I number the backs of the prints so they can easily order prints themselves. That is it, call me if you need me to shoot anything else.

I like to keep it simple and don't feel like running around for a few prints. I will take a few and make them b/w to show them how they look and if they were very nice to me and my wife and offered us dinner at the reception I will do a couple of 8x10s as a surprise. Total cost under $200.

Eric
 
AIRIC said:
. I will take a few and make them b/w to show them how they look and if they were very nice to me and my wife and offered us dinner at the reception I will do a couple of 8x10s as a surprise. Total cost under $200.

Eric

LMAO....free food is good :) I was shocked at our first real wedding that our name was on the program and we got our choice of meals!!
 
Out of all the weddings ive been to this summer, only one gave us food before the wedding. :0) I thought it was part of the package at first, hehe.
 
Food is free in these parts!
 
My wife and I have been very lucky. Any time we have been hired to stay for the reception we have been given a dinner. We are sometimes sat with the guests or in another room with the DJ and such. Have never asked for it, just been offered. I always ask for a time out at a certain point, usually a half hour breather.

Eric
 
green said:
Weddings are the cash cow

I think Advertising is where the real money is. The 5 grand a photographer makes for a wedding is small change when compared to a real commercial work.

by that i meant MY cash cow. :wink:

granted, thats not necessarily true if my latest business venture works out

*crosses fingers*
 
Green,

That is why I do not refuse weddings. Don't like shooting them but love the money. $1,000 for the day and about $200 for expenses, plus my wife takes her cut :D I know I can make more off the reprints and enlargements but with a full time job and shooting aircraft on the weekends I just find it to be to much work.

Eric
 

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