Just a wee vent about photographer costs.

Lirin

In regards to training, I trained as a photographer for years. I have qualifications, which largely don't matter except for commercial contracts. News and mag jobs care about the price, the customer cares about the price.
I have noticed a huge drop here, and an adaptable shift in working. Initially, I did a lot of news and magazine work, with the odd wedding. I would now do a lot of studio and specialist work.
I am competing against people who have recently bought a camera and really do think it's point and click. Sure, I've seen some great shots happen like that, that have captured perfectly. But.... I'm equally doing both photography myself and repair jobs on a £200 wedding with awful photos, where a point and clicker has been hired.
I do think though that some quotations can be obscenely high- the days when very few had a camera are long gone, and photographers need to reflect this.

vikingaero

Lirin wrote: »

In regards to training, I trained as a photographer for years. I have qualifications, which largely don't matter except for commercial contracts. News and mag jobs care about the price, the customer cares about the price.
I have noticed a huge drop here, and an adaptable shift in working. Initially, I did a lot of news and magazine work, with the odd wedding. I would now do a lot of studio and specialist work.
I am competing against people who have recently bought a camera and really do think it's point and click. Sure, I've seen some great shots happen like that, that have captured perfectly. But.... I'm equally doing both photography myself and repair jobs on a £200 wedding with awful photos, where a point and clicker has been hired.
I do think though that some quotations can be obscenely high- the days when very few had a camera are long gone, and photographers need to reflect this.

I agree with Lirin. Before the advent of decent digital cameras I was very much an amateur photographer. I didn't have the patience to sort out settings, exposure, framing etc let alone the wait to get stuff developed. Now with digital cameras I've very much improved. I mainly take pictures of my caving activities using long exposures and LED torches for illumination.

Some photographers do charge the earth and some clients still use them believing that those who charge a high cost must be good?

I actually think £17.99 isn't that bad for a digital download. This leaves you free to print whatever size and however many copies you want. Most wedding 'togs will charge that for one 8x10 print!

When the DD's were at nursery they used to have a photographer come around to take pictures of the children. You could buy prints but we ask for a high res CD. The 'tog charged £50 for the CD with 18 shots. Bear in mind that of the large number of photos taken and sent out as samples, a significant proportion will be wasted and not sold.