This is great. For those of us who are just breaking into the realm of professional photography and weddings this is priceless information. Thanks for posting!
The problem with this is that so many people are extremely confident about their ability when they can't even tell the difference between an F-Stop and a Bus Stop! Too many charging when they need to spend their time LEARNING and acquiring a skill set.
Wow. I really enjoyed this , done multiple weddings and I’ve been struggling with how to appropriately charge ,makes much more sense after watching this. Thanks.
Wow, this is great! I learned so much from this video! I am just starting with photography because i'm starting to get sick of my 9-5 job. I didn't even know where to begin charging people. This helped a lot! Thank you!
20:15 you are exactly right there! Learn to put a cap on the number of weddings you accept and leave yourself some breathing room. We try to close the wedding schedule around 32 weddings per year. When you find your schedule full and that you're turning away many wedding requests, then consider raising the price point on your work. I personally just wouldn't be comfortable at all asking someone to pay, even if they would, 3-5K for my photographic services. I still have to feel that I'm providing a decent value for what I'm doing. This is a very helpful video tutorial, there are indeed photographers who are pricing themselves right out of the profession with high package prices. Be careful there, inching your prices up year by year is better than having to fall back and lower them later on. If people say wow, I remember when that photographer only charged $300.00 for a wedding and now it's $2,050.00... good for him/her. BUT, if you used to charge $5k for a wedding and now you've fallen back to $1,500.00 to make ends meet, it's a different message that may send clients to other shooters! Thanks guys, lots of great points!
For the 2008 downturn in the economy Joe Buissink said he had to lower his prices to keep an income coming in, so there are circumstances where you have to lower your prices to keep making a living.
When I first picked up a digital camera (Nikon 5700 power shot) I wanted to shoot what ever I could to make a few dollars on the side... Soon after hearing how so much money could be made by shooting weddings I was all "ears" on how to...Then I decided "No way!" All it would take is to mess up a few shots and that's it...your reputation is down the tubes!" Several years later, a real DSLR and some serious lenses within my arsonal, I am reconsidering this style of photography.. After listening to your rant, I have taken a few more serious thoughts about it. Not having a base price or charge on what I would charge, listening to you say a few key words, I feel a bit more confident. Thanks for your video - Awesome stuff!! :) :)
As a self employed architect, excellent business advice. Rarely do I see anyone give advice so honest and strait forward AND useful! Most of the time the advixe is so generic that there is no value. It is much to vague. Your advice applies to many service style businesses. Great stuff!
Hey Lee, this information help me a lot, I'm recently moved in to NJ from Brazil and I trying to find myself about how much to charge, and now I have a better start point....great job you are doing on Fstoppers.
If you're going to sell/give away digitals, have a logo in the corner and encourage them to share them on social media but not print them. You get all the printing money without them doing it themselves and messing up your work, leading to others judging you based on creative decisions/mistakes made by the client. But you also still get the free advertising of social media sharing
This was an excellent tutorial. I learned a lot because I do struggle with pricing. You have given me the confidence not to feel bad for charging because I do put my hear and soil into an event trying to capture every moment. So thanks again. I will be implementing many of your suggestions
I added a 2 1/2 hr package after a number of requests, for a budget option, for coverage of the ceremony, some group shots, & bridal party location shots. I found i had to change the way i worked, to speed things up, & this has helped me with full day shoots when things dont go as planed & i am asked to do a location shoot in 30 min. When i was asked to do a 2 hr package i thought, really? thats not enough time to shoot a wedding, but i am glad i did. Be cheaper, be better or be different, if you offer something different you will have less competition. :)
Hi this is Sam from remote country side of India where I am the only guy with a command on english. I enjoyed your frank-n-transparent advises. Good luck 🍀
thank you so much guys ,,you are serious in busness . i can see we are still playing here in south africa ,, with this facts i think its time to change things in my busness .
Thank you very much for this video. I wouldn't call myself a professional nor an amateur. I definitely am skilled behind the camera so I definitely feel I must increase my price. In the country I live, people are unwilling to break the bank for photos but I am taking the courage to build my price and hopefully it does work out better
This was amazing. Not everyone is cheap- some people go into debt for this day. And some people make more in a day than I do in a year. So don’t cheapen yourself! 👍🏼
This was incredibly useful to me. I've shot a couple weddings and have been struggling to book more. Thank you for sharing your experience in the industry.
You discounted the value of this video when you said it might not be the most exiting one. I have a better handle on the technical issues than the ones covered in this video. You've confirmed some of my theories that I was afraid to test out on my own. Thanks.
This is all great advise and the advise that he is giving is extremely business minded and will help with growth and development. I did things like this in another business venture and my business sored, especially having set prices, which allows negotiating if you choose, if you stutter when quoting a price, you sound like an amateur, which leaves the door open for people to think they can get the price even lower or question your ability. Having a website is a must in this business. For Video, Pre wedding video are a great service to offer and add depth into why the couple are getting married in the first place and they love this along with their families and friends. They get to see themselves in a cinematic type setting. Regular video for both the wedding and reception are great services and a combination of the Wedding, Pre Wedding Video and Standard Video and offering Blue Ray or Dvd and uploading services (photos) to Face Book or having a server set up so that the client can download the images, you can easily charge the kind of money that this guy is talking about without blinking. Remember all brides want their wedding to be the best and the more services offered, especially with references and a website, the more money that you can command. Your reputation is everything and can get you potential work at the wedding, while you are doing work at the wedding!!! This guys mindset is great because he is looking at and has already thought about how little he will lose on Smug Mug and editing services like Bay Photo and he has balanced it (looking at it as a business expense) with how it will free up more time for him to be creative and take on more customers. Editing photos and or videos is extremely time consuming, but in the beginning you must do it until you can afford not to. Insure your equipment. When this business is good enough for you that you have paid off all of your equipment and can buy new equipment that you need or want with out hassle and still have money in the bank, you are growing. I can't afford to do Smug Mug or Bay Photo at this time, but I'm working toward it. This guy isn't off the mark when it comes to prices and you must offer services that make you stand out. The more you can do and offer, the less likely you are to be asked about your prices. Have a written contract drawn up with what was stated along with 25-50 percent down, I do 50 percent with the photo release paperwork. Your mindset should always be on your craft first, and growth and development second and you should ask question like, how can I grow my business by 10-20-40 percent the next year. A lot of people can be good photographers, but not a lot have the ability to be good business people and the combination of the both will make you successful. Remember this guy isn't talking like a person that takes great photos or does this as side work, he is talking like a business man, running a successful business, which might sound harsh to some, but is the reality of the game.
Absolutely loved this truly thinking about buying the tutorial because I want to make the jump from my M-F 9-5 job and I believe weddings are a great avenue to start! Love the channel guys keep it up!
I know my services here in San Diego are worth it (the starting price of) $2100 for 7 hrs, shoot to burn, but the competition is outrageous here! My skill and work ethic are worth that alone, but I've always had trouble upping my pricing. I guess I'm in a saturated market, but I have over 600 weddings under my belt and I still have trouble asking for more.
Thanks for this! I’ve been wanting to shoot families and weddings since I started photography. I’m always intimidated by the people that charge less for so much but didn’t realize that they were only hurting themselves in the business aspect of things
Also with a matter of stress, when you charge high you can afford to hire more assistants and buy/rent the gear that you need. Having solid assistants who can get adequate coverage and set up lights and take them down, BIG stress reliever.
I'm an Italian wedding photographer , and i was just thinking the same, here in the north of Italy things are so different, couples do not want to spend nearly nothing for the photography at their wedding.... I am jealous
i was thinking the same! i live in uk and also a photographer and i cant even imagine charging 50k or £39K in pounds... i charge too little (hence why im watching this video) but here in the uk not many people even spend that for the whole wedding haha. i recently got married and our whole wedding cost 7k. we had a posh venue and got married there. we spent £680 on our photography but he was amazing!. so each to their own i think
With all types of photography I've found there are 2 types of people. For low priced wedding photography, the people WANT what they pay for. For high end wedding photography the people will PAY FOR WHAT THEY WANT. This is true with every purchase of services and items. And thanks for this video, it's great.
I am more of a videographer but these are definitely some good tips. Thing about photography, is that I find it so easy and simple compared to video. Video is so much more creativity involved and captures so much more emotion and takes more skill. Photography seems like the easy route imo, and nowadays people can take pictures with their iPhone and make it just as good as some of the poor photographers out there
You had me until the idiocy of your last statement. Go find the average good pro and give them an iPhone and see how that fares since weddings are often held in dimly lit churches, for starters. Video absolutely does NOT involve more creativity (and I've done both professionally). They're "different" creatively. Video takes a bit more pre-planning but that's the only thing that's "more" with video.
We payed 400€for our wedding photographer, and to us it was a lot back then. The guy was amazing, spent like 15+ hours on our wedding and even did a lot of editing on the photos. I still see him every now and then and he has become a very succesful photographer who travels a lot for big magazines. The most expensice wedding photographer i ever heard about, was 1200€ (in germany).
Hey I really enjoy watching your videos ! I wanted to get your tip if you don’t mind. I use Nikon D750 with 24-70mm 2.8E and 50mm 1.8G . I really want to start doing some engagement shooting and move on to wedding photography. Make that any sense that I’ll buy next DSLR and objectives for DSLR or should I start looking for mirrorless system ?
I am working on my videography business at the moment. Just graduated college. And am beginning to book a lot more weddings for wedding videos. I have found that wedding photographers in my area(central Cali) are a everywhere. Everyone has a camera and everyone can snap a picture and edit it with their computer. I just find filmmaking so much more fulfilling and difficult. I feel like wedding photography and videography are about the same price, but it takes much more skill to do wedding videos. I am charging $1100 for wedding videos as my skills are getting better the more weddings I do. As a wedding videographer I need to have quite a bit of gear: multiple lenses, cameras, audio, mic up the groom and speakers. And then editing a video is way more complex. When I see a photographer at the weddings I am somewhat frustrated bc they are getting paid more than me and all they do is walk around with one maybe two lenses and click click click with auto white balance and then edit their raw photos in Lightroom in a few hours(guessing, not really sure how long it takes). Let me know if I’m completely wrong or off about my take on wedding photography in comparison to videography.
Not at allll, the time you took for the video was just 35 minutes and you shared a experience of at least 5 years of any professional. Great stuff, up to the point, a very wise stuff for every new photographer. Lastly loved it alll
I find it interesting that there is no mention of the actual business of pricing. Sure, finding out what the local competition charges is an important bit of information, but what about figuring out how much it actually costs to shoot? There is photo equipment, lighting, computers, repair and replacement costs, likely a car that needs to be deducted for travel, insurances (business, car, liability, etc) Then you need to figure in your hours shooting, editing and in sales and business administration. On ttop of that you also need to live, so you need to factor that number, which will be different for everyone, into the mix. Then, since your "middle of the road" wedding number in Charleston is apparently around $2000 - $2500 you need to determine how many weddings per year you need to shoot to cover the numbers and leave a little profit for retirement, vacations, etc. I think I'm pretty good so I'm going to charge $20K is no way to determine, in a business-like manner how to price a wedding. Sorry, this video is geared to weekend warrior shooters where your wedding income amounts to "play money", not people trying to build a sustainable business.
I would agree and it's even worse in Wedding videography. People get excited by all the cool gear and learning the tricks and being artistic, and go out and do weddings very cheap. Their results are hit or miss. The market is now flooded with amateur to pro-sumers driving prices down and making it harder for anyone to really earn a living doing it. Starts to make you realize why people become 'teachers' of this stuff instead.
Indeed. My biggest competitors are people doing it on the side or for almost free. They have a full time job, buy the full set of gear, know the basics and might be actually good at it, but charge about 500-1000 euros for a wedding. They see it as an extra. Sometimes money straight into the pocket. It can be frustrating. Especially when one of those come to me or send me an e-mail for tips and advice. Luckily, most people have the rationality to look for a full time photographer.
What is the benefit of a full time photographer when you can get as good as a result for a cheaper rate from a hobbyist? Why don't you think about your customers for a change, they have lives too, they don't want to pay more than they have to
If everyone stops hiring professionals and only go for "equally good" hobbyist for a fraction of the price for every job everywhere and all the time, the lives of everyone - including the customers - wil be over.
The big take away for me was confidence. Whatever you decide to charge, be confident in the decision. Thanks for sharing.
This is great. For those of us who are just breaking into the realm of professional photography and weddings this is priceless information. Thanks for posting!
The problem with this is that so many people are extremely confident about their ability when they can't even tell the difference between an F-Stop and a Bus Stop! Too many charging when they need to spend their time LEARNING and acquiring a skill set.
A bus stop is when the bride is a fatty, right?
@@AimingAtYou helpful comment...thanks
Wow. I really enjoyed this , done multiple weddings and I’ve been struggling with how to appropriately charge ,makes much more sense after watching this. Thanks.
I've been shooting weddings since 1995 and EVERYTHING these two are saying is absolutely true!
Wow, this is great! I learned so much from this video! I am just starting with photography because i'm starting to get sick of my 9-5 job. I didn't even know where to begin charging people. This helped a lot! Thank you!
20:15 you are exactly right there! Learn to put a cap on the number of weddings you accept and leave yourself some breathing room. We try to close the wedding schedule around 32 weddings per year. When you find your schedule full and that you're turning away many wedding requests, then consider raising the price point on your work. I personally just wouldn't be comfortable at all asking someone to pay, even if they would, 3-5K for my photographic services. I still have to feel that I'm providing a decent value for what I'm doing. This is a very helpful video tutorial, there are indeed photographers who are pricing themselves right out of the profession with high package prices. Be careful there, inching your prices up year by year is better than having to fall back and lower them later on. If people say wow, I remember when that photographer only charged $300.00 for a wedding and now it's $2,050.00... good for him/her. BUT, if you used to charge $5k for a wedding and now you've fallen back to $1,500.00 to make ends meet, it's a different message that may send clients to other shooters! Thanks guys, lots of great points!
For the 2008 downturn in the economy Joe Buissink said he had to lower his prices to keep an income coming in, so there are circumstances where you have to lower your prices to keep making a living.
This was the best video on weddings and pricing, period. Thank you for sharing your knowledge
This was AMAZING, Lee and Pat!!! Holy cow!
Even almost 5 years later, all of this advice stands true. Love everything you guys said.
Ive been shooting weddings for 10+ years, and this vid is 101% on the mark about everything! great share...
When I first picked up a digital camera (Nikon 5700 power shot) I wanted to shoot what ever I could to make a few dollars on the side... Soon after hearing how so much money could be made by shooting weddings I was all "ears" on how to...Then I decided "No way!" All it would take is to mess up a few shots and that's it...your reputation is down the tubes!" Several years later, a real DSLR and some serious lenses within my arsonal, I am reconsidering this style of photography..
After listening to your rant, I have taken a few more serious thoughts about it. Not having a base price or charge on what I would charge, listening to you say a few key words, I feel a bit more confident.
Thanks for your video - Awesome stuff!! :) :)
This was a great video! So much great insight and really helped me think about pricing in a totally different way
As a self employed architect, excellent business advice. Rarely do I see anyone give advice so honest and strait forward AND useful! Most of the time the advixe is so generic that there is no value. It is much to vague. Your advice applies to many service style businesses. Great stuff!
Hey Lee, this information help me a lot, I'm recently moved in to NJ from Brazil and I trying to find myself about how much to charge, and now I have a better start point....great job you are doing on Fstoppers.
Great points. Thanks for sharing. No need to apologize, the length of video had a lot useful info.
Thanks for making this video. You really put all the things in perspective and in a nice way... Thanks again
If you're going to sell/give away digitals, have a logo in the corner and encourage them to share them on social media but not print them. You get all the printing money without them doing it themselves and messing up your work, leading to others judging you based on creative decisions/mistakes made by the client. But you also still get the free advertising of social media sharing
This was an excellent tutorial. I learned a lot because I do struggle with pricing. You have given me the confidence not to feel bad for charging because I do put my hear and soil into an event trying to capture every moment. So thanks again. I will be implementing many of your suggestions
See the entire tutorial, LOTS of great info and ideas to implement.
Great info! I gained a lot by just watching the video alone! You guys are awesome!
This was perfect! Just what I needed. Thanks for being real and explaining everything so well.
I added a 2 1/2 hr package after a number of requests, for a budget option, for coverage of the ceremony, some group shots, & bridal party location shots. I found i had to change the way i worked, to speed things up, & this has helped me with full day shoots when things dont go as planed & i am asked to do a location shoot in 30 min. When i was asked to do a 2 hr package i thought, really? thats not enough time to shoot a wedding, but i am glad i did. Be cheaper, be better or be different, if you offer something different you will have less competition. :)
I was surprised how much useful content this video has! Thanks for this.
Hi this is Sam from remote country side of India where I am the only guy with a command on english.
I enjoyed your frank-n-transparent advises. Good luck 🍀
Excellent video, very informative! Thanks for sharing your knowledge and understanding of wedding photography.
This was a great confidence booster for me and everything you said was on point.
thank you so much guys ,,you are serious in busness . i can see we are still playing here in south africa ,, with this facts i think its time to change things in my busness .
Thank you very much for this video. I wouldn't call myself a professional nor an amateur. I definitely am skilled behind the camera so I definitely feel I must increase my price. In the country I live, people are unwilling to break the bank for photos but I am taking the courage to build my price and hopefully it does work out better
This was amazing. Not everyone is cheap- some people go into debt for this day. And some people make more in a day than I do in a year. So don’t cheapen yourself! 👍🏼
This was incredibly useful to me. I've shot a couple weddings and have been struggling to book more. Thank you for sharing your experience in the industry.
This is amazing! I wanted this for so long! I was so lost! I’m on track now
Great information as usual. I am on the edge of going back to wedding photography and I have followed you often. Thank you.
I am videographer for 9 years, this is great video and much true!
Thank you so much for the great advices
You discounted the value of this video when you said it might not be the most exiting one. I have a better handle on the technical issues than the ones covered in this video. You've confirmed some of my theories that I was afraid to test out on my own. Thanks.
This is all great advise and the advise that he is giving is extremely business minded and will help with growth and development. I did things like this in another business venture and my business sored, especially having set prices, which allows negotiating if you choose, if you stutter when quoting a price, you sound like an amateur, which leaves the door open for people to think they can get the price even lower or question your ability. Having a website is a must in this business. For Video, Pre wedding video are a great service to offer and add depth into why the couple are getting married in the first place and they love this along with their families and friends. They get to see themselves in a cinematic type setting.
Regular video for both the wedding and reception are great services and a combination of the Wedding, Pre Wedding Video and Standard Video and offering Blue Ray or Dvd and uploading services (photos) to Face Book or having a server set up so that the client can download the images, you can easily charge the kind of money that this guy is talking about without blinking. Remember all brides want their wedding to be the best and the more services offered, especially with references and a website, the more money that you can command. Your reputation is everything and can get you potential work at the wedding, while you are doing work at the wedding!!! This guys mindset is great because he is looking at and has already thought about how little he will lose on Smug Mug and editing services like Bay Photo and he has balanced it (looking at it as a business expense) with how it will free up more time for him to be creative and take on more customers. Editing photos and or videos is extremely time consuming, but in the beginning you must do it until you can afford not to. Insure your equipment. When this business is good enough for you that you have paid off all of your equipment and can buy new equipment that you need or want with out hassle and still have money in the bank, you are growing. I can't afford to do Smug Mug or Bay Photo at this time, but I'm working toward it.
This guy isn't off the mark when it comes to prices and you must offer services that make you stand out. The more you can do and offer, the less likely you are to be asked about your prices. Have a written contract drawn up with what was stated along with 25-50 percent down, I do 50 percent with the photo release paperwork. Your mindset should always be on your craft first, and growth and development second and you should ask question like, how can I grow my business by 10-20-40 percent the next year. A lot of people can be good photographers, but not a lot have the ability to be good business people and the combination of the both will make you successful. Remember this guy isn't talking like a person that takes great photos or does this as side work, he is talking like a business man, running a successful business, which might sound harsh to some, but is the reality of the game.
Thank you for this! It answered so many questions I had and addressed many concerns I had. This is definitely something helpful for me.
Absolutely loved this truly thinking about buying the tutorial because I want to make the jump from my M-F 9-5 job and I believe weddings are a great avenue to start! Love the channel guys keep it up!
Great information guys.. what a beautiful job you did putting this video together, straight to the point, and information packed. Bravo!!! Thank you!
love your advice.
I will use it in my next advert
I know my services here in San Diego are worth it (the starting price of) $2100 for 7 hrs, shoot to burn, but the competition is outrageous here! My skill and work ethic are worth that alone, but I've always had trouble upping my pricing. I guess I'm in a saturated market, but I have over 600 weddings under my belt and I still have trouble asking for more.
Thanks for this! I’ve been wanting to shoot families and weddings since I started photography. I’m always intimidated by the people that charge less for so much but didn’t realize that they were only hurting themselves in the business aspect of things
GREAT TIPS. Thank you.
Excellent advice. This video was a huge help to me.
Totally agree with every word! Great video!
Also with a matter of stress, when you charge high you can afford to hire more assistants and buy/rent the gear that you need. Having solid assistants who can get adequate coverage and set up lights and take them down, BIG stress reliever.
You are too awesome! Thanks for all the information. I look forward to meeting you one day.
Great video, guys. I don't shoot weddings, but your approach is good advice for anyone struggling with the business end of photography.
thanks a whole lot guys I really enjoy watching your video I will be checking out your website. you gave a lot of information that was useful
thanks guys very helpful this might just give me the kick in the butt to start
Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!! This made sense and truly appreciate it!
Guys do more videos like this, or "How To Photograph A Beer", etc.
Your channel has great content and I love to watch and learn.
Ty. =)
Best info on pricing I've found
Good teaser for selling the course. Pretty much common sense stuff. Thanks for posting.
Woa, I can't believe how much money Americans are willing to spend on a wedding! Totally different situation here in Europe
I'm an Italian wedding photographer , and i was just thinking the same, here in the north of Italy things are so different, couples do not want to spend nearly nothing for the photography at their wedding.... I am jealous
i was thinking the same! i live in uk and also a photographer and i cant even imagine charging 50k or £39K in pounds... i charge too little (hence why im watching this video) but here in the uk not many people even spend that for the whole wedding haha. i recently got married and our whole wedding cost 7k. we had a posh venue and got married there. we spent £680 on our photography but he was amazing!. so each to their own i think
ikr
wld0 i thought europe was more expensive
So, either provide more value and ask more, or push up your prices...
I learned so much from this video. Thank you guys so very much!
Excellent insights. Thanks for this video!
Thank you. This sharing has given a kind of clarity about pricing.
With all types of photography I've found there are 2 types of people. For low priced wedding photography, the people WANT what they pay for. For high end wedding photography the people will PAY FOR WHAT THEY WANT. This is true with every purchase of services and items.
And thanks for this video, it's great.
Another great video! Thank you !
Thanks, Fstoppers for these inspiring tutorial. :-)
I am more of a videographer but these are definitely some good tips. Thing about photography, is that I find it so easy and simple compared to video. Video is so much more creativity involved and captures so much more emotion and takes more skill.
Photography seems like the easy route imo, and nowadays people can take pictures with their iPhone and make it just as good as some of the poor photographers out there
You had me until the idiocy of your last statement. Go find the average good pro and give them an iPhone and see how that fares since weddings are often held in dimly lit churches, for starters. Video absolutely does NOT involve more creativity (and I've done both professionally). They're "different" creatively. Video takes a bit more pre-planning but that's the only thing that's "more" with video.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! thank you, I love you now. Thanks again
Also, most people won't say a number, thank you so much for saying one!
While I don't care for this guy in general, he definitely has some excellent thoughts and ideas. Great video Lee!! Thank you!!
Man, thank you so much for teaching me this.
great video !!! a lot of information, thanks !!!
Nice video! Learn a lot from it. Thanks!
We payed 400€for our wedding photographer, and to us it was a lot back then. The guy was amazing, spent like 15+ hours on our wedding and even did a lot of editing on the photos. I still see him every now and then and he has become a very succesful photographer who travels a lot for big magazines. The most expensice wedding photographer i ever heard about, was 1200€ (in germany).
I needed to hear this today! Thanks!
Great video.
Awesome dude 😎🤠
This was so helpful!!
Thank you bro!! 🔥
thank you for this video
Excellent Guys!
You guys always slam dunk it!
Nice. I like it
MBA material. Great stuff.
The best video on How to charge for weddings.
Hey
I really enjoy watching your videos !
I wanted to get your tip if you don’t mind.
I use Nikon D750 with 24-70mm 2.8E and 50mm 1.8G .
I really want to start doing some engagement shooting and move on to wedding photography.
Make that any sense that I’ll buy next DSLR and objectives for DSLR or should I start looking for mirrorless system ?
good thanks
Excellent video👍🏼
Thanks a lot.
Very useful. Thanks.
Your right in everything your saying guys
Whats the website, id like to check out this a la carte menu
Thank you very very helpful
THANKYOU...
very helpful thank you
I am working on my videography business at the moment. Just graduated college. And am beginning to book a lot more weddings for wedding videos. I have found that wedding photographers in my area(central Cali) are a everywhere. Everyone has a camera and everyone can snap a picture and edit it with their computer. I just find filmmaking so much more fulfilling and difficult. I feel like wedding photography and videography are about the same price, but it takes much more skill to do wedding videos. I am charging $1100 for wedding videos as my skills are getting better the more weddings I do. As a wedding videographer I need to have quite a bit of gear: multiple lenses, cameras, audio, mic up the groom and speakers. And then editing a video is way more complex. When I see a photographer at the weddings I am somewhat frustrated bc they are getting paid more than me and all they do is walk around with one maybe two lenses and click click click with auto white balance and then edit their raw photos in Lightroom in a few hours(guessing, not really sure how long it takes). Let me know if I’m completely wrong or off about my take on wedding photography in comparison to videography.
Does anyone know the name of the first song used at the beginning of this video and where I can download it?
Excellent advise 😃
Very good .
great info, thanks!
this was incredibly helpful. thank you guys
Not at allll, the time you took for the video was just 35 minutes and you shared a experience of at least 5 years of any professional.
Great stuff, up to the point, a very wise stuff for every new photographer.
Lastly loved it alll
Really enjoyed this video.
Great video 👌
I find it interesting that there is no mention of the actual business of pricing. Sure, finding out what the local competition charges is an important bit of information, but what about figuring out how much it actually costs to shoot? There is photo equipment, lighting, computers, repair and replacement costs, likely a car that needs to be deducted for travel, insurances (business, car, liability, etc) Then you need to figure in your hours shooting, editing and in sales and business administration. On ttop of that you also need to live, so you need to factor that number, which will be different for everyone, into the mix. Then, since your "middle of the road" wedding number in Charleston is apparently around $2000 - $2500 you need to determine how many weddings per year you need to shoot to cover the numbers and leave a little profit for retirement, vacations, etc. I think I'm pretty good so I'm going to charge $20K is no way to determine, in a business-like manner how to price a wedding. Sorry, this video is geared to weekend warrior shooters where your wedding income amounts to "play money", not people trying to build a sustainable business.
not scouting the competition is a little dangerous ....
I would agree and it's even worse in Wedding videography. People get excited by all the cool gear and learning the tricks and being artistic, and go out and do weddings very cheap. Their results are hit or miss. The market is now flooded with amateur to pro-sumers driving prices down and making it harder for anyone to really earn a living doing it. Starts to make you realize why people become 'teachers' of this stuff instead.
Indeed. My biggest competitors are people doing it on the side or for almost free. They have a full time job, buy the full set of gear, know the basics and might be actually good at it, but charge about 500-1000 euros for a wedding. They see it as an extra. Sometimes money straight into the pocket. It can be frustrating. Especially when one of those come to me or send me an e-mail for tips and advice.
Luckily, most people have the rationality to look for a full time photographer.
What is the benefit of a full time photographer when you can get as good as a result for a cheaper rate from a hobbyist? Why don't you think about your customers for a change, they have lives too, they don't want to pay more than they have to
If everyone stops hiring professionals and only go for "equally good" hobbyist for a fraction of the price for every job everywhere and all the time, the lives of everyone - including the customers - wil be over.
thank you.
damn, i've been low balling myself this whole time.