Lately I've been receiving inquiries about a session or photo restoration, give a price quote and then never hear from the potential customer again. Sometimes I even hear that my prices are too high or they'll ask if I can go lower. I feel the need to explain why my prices are the way they are so you all know exactly what you are paying for.
The photos below are references to help break down my pricing...
Here is a link to my
pricing.
On average a photo shoot lasts about 2.5 hours
The average pay for those shoots are about $169
So total to do these shoots I'm making roughly $68 an hour (sounds good huh?)
That does NOT account for:
Gas - $65 to fill my tank
which is 18 gallons
I get on average 16.5 miles per gallon
which equals roughly about 300 miles
to get anywhere that I find acceptable for a photo shoot is about 5-20 miles away if not longer
Hard to estimate the total for this one because it varies because I can't even account for the amount of time spent driving around finding potential places for a photo shoot.
CDs - about $20 because it needs to hold an insane amount of memory.
total = $20 = $.20 per CD not including taxes
Camera Gear - My camera cost $600 because my husband bought it on Black Friday a few years ago, it came with two lenses and a camera bag. Retail it's about $900
I sold my two lens (about $225) to upgrade to a specific lens that meets all my needs which cost $800.
I bought a used Tripod for $65 and another Tripod for $30
a light reflector for $50
flash for $250 which takes batteries that I spend about $50 a year on (yes I know I need the rechargeable ones) that's about $.40 a shoot
I've also bought numerous SD cards: I have a 2GB ($5), 2 8GB ($10 each), 1 16GB ($25) and 1 32GB ($35), and two 1 TB hard drives ($90 each)
total = almost $2,000 not including taxes + shipping
Photoshop AND Lightroom - I bought Ps CS6 which was/is about $1,000 and Lr 5 about $100
total = about $1100 not including taxes + shipping
Internet - $85 a month = $20 a month
Power - average of $118 = about $40 a month
Computer - over $700, NOT including maintenance
Business Cards - Can't afford them even though they're only $.03 a card
Labels for CDs - Can't afford these either, $.05 a label
Ink for a Printer - Don't have to worry about either of those as well because I can't afford it, $.05 for each print
Labor - this is almost one of the hardest to put an accurate number on, but when I first received Ps and Lr I was way in over my head. SO over my head that I lost count of how many times I rage quit. But I became persistent to give my clients what they wanted, to keep doing what I love. Only now recently will I start charging for editing pictures. It needs to be held account of because it's so time consuming. I spent roughly about 10-20 minutes per photo (depending on what I'm doing). From here on out I will be charging $14 an hour for editing. Why? Because that's what I feel I have earned and what I'm worth. Plus I spent hours of my free time coming up with new ways, ideas and filters to make a photo stand out.
So let's add this up shall we?
I've spent in the last couple years well over $3,100 for my photography business to improve it (NOT including the amount of power, internet and computer maintenance I've spent or the CDs and gas I've given without charging).
I haven't even come close to making back half of it.
Which means I lose about $90+ per shoot (that's NOT including editing, with editing I'm losing about $350+ per shoot), and at this point I'm just guesstimating because it's personally hard to see the proof right in front of me. Nauseating really.
Now think about something for me: a personal photographer is expensive, you definitely should get what you pay for, as to say for a franchise that you can get photos for cheaper or by someone who doesn't know what they're doing for less with limited options but is it really what you want? No.
Could I lower my prices? Yes but I'm not going to. After seeing the numbers I'm thinking about increasing them.
I'm not your typical photographer. I didn't go to school for ANY of this. I taught myself EVERYTHING I know and I definitely didn't take the easy route and use other photographers editing techniques/actions because I want to be different. I don't want my work looking like someone else's. I've worked hard to get to where I am. It may not seem much to you but it means the world to me. I seriously need to start respecting my time and talent enough to insist on being paid for what I'm worth.
