Wedding photographer?
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 at
11:29 pm
Is there any way to hire a wedding photographer and just pay for the electronic prints and print them ourselves own cost? I just don’t see the point in having them print a 0 album that I could do myself for much cheaper. How much on average is a good photographer?
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A wedding photographer is akin to any contracted provider of professional services. What is the hourly contract rate for a mechanic? A programmer? An Electrician? Probably anywhere from $100-175 per hour.
How many hours will the photographer be working? 4-8+ hours on the day of the wedding. 2 hours for an engagement shoot. 2 hours to meet with the client. 1-minute per image for post production (download, adjustments, etc.) at 1,000 – 4,000 images per event. Travel time…
I beg to differ from the previous answerer; taking the photos is not "the easy part." Shooting weddings is hard work, generally speaking. Sure, some weddings are easy, but the tough ones far outnumber the easy ones. A wedding is outwardly a happy, special day. Inwardly, it’s very stressful. I now very good photographers who wouldn’t shoot a wedding at any price. Then you’ve got the skill factor; you said a "good photographer." As in, someone who can shoot creatively and artistically – not just a friend of your uncle Joe taking snapshots of the event.
Quality photography equipment is very expensive. Camera body: $2000; 3-4 lenses: $1000 each; Flash: $500; computer: $2000, fast storage cards, archival storage, camera bag, tripod, batteries, back-up body, back-up flash. You get my point. The photographer has to pay for all this equipment.
When is your wedding? Summer is peak season. Would it surprise me to see a photographer adjust pricing by season, much like a hotel? Not at all.
How personable do you expect your photographer to be? You will spend more time with your photographer on your wedding day than your spouse. If the guy is good, he’ll know how to work the family and guests. Otherwise, a poor photographer will be unorganized, and you will not get all the shots you want.
Does a "good photographer" want his name on a sub-par product? In other words, your photographer will use a professional lab for prints and will maximize the quality of his work, whereas if you take the CD down to Wal-Mart, the quality of the prints will be less than the highest-possible quality.
A wedding photographer is an area of your wedding where you will probably get what you pay for.
A $500 wedding dress vs. a $4,000 wedding dress will not be as good of a long term investment as the difference between a $500 photographer and a $4,000 photographer, generally speaking. That’s not to say you should go spend $4,000 on the first photographer you can find, and that kind of price doesn’t guarantee you a good photographer, but on average….
Hope this helps you in making your decision.
The snapping the pix is the easy part. The retouching and color balancing, etc is where a professional’s work really makes it worth the price.
That being said, you can surely find someone willing to take the pix and sell you the disk of pictures.
A good photographer here in NY is about $2500 – $3500 average. You could find a mediocre one for about $1200 average.
Obviously prices vary by region though.
Sometimes photographers will offer a smaller package or an "economy" package where you pay for a few prints and a disk of the images along with paying for the photographers time.
Also, if you are looking to book a cheaper photographer, I would check out your local craigslist and colleges for students or people looking to add more weddings to their portfolios. Even with these cheaper vendors though, you should still ask for references and to see past work.
With this sucky economy, you can do a lot of wheeling and dealing.
(a)
Ask if the photographer is willing to give you the *original* files on CD or DVD.
(b)
Request that the files be RAW, not JPEG format. Preferred is RAW +JPEG.
If the photographer is really good, you won’t need any color balancing, sharpening, etc because he will have set the camera so as not to have to do those things.
The key to any good photography is to get it right at the camera level rather than wrong and then have to retouch *all* the photos with a computer and Photoshop. It takes forever to do retouching.
(c)
Most importantly: Get it in WRITING!
Look at these horror stories on Y!A:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AqDFOKSXZV2tfKb08qHVl1EjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20091021233113AARelVR
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ap8H9bfrLqGw0BqIAdOT1FgjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20091027115520AA33k8p
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AsBcBTleon25oyv6urhmGX0jzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20091013193156AABpVBv
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AnIrTHEA0gAQFXmtqT_D9XwjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20091014181745AAL7nHe
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=As19Ni4dK2.gT2ZYrZTFO3YjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20091012161754AA3HAbM
Good luck.
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