Do you make a living as a wedding photographer?

Well, at least we're in good company! ;-)

--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com
"no_name" wrote in message
m...
uw wayne wrote:

What a shame to have to move those images off the website. Your work is
about as obscene as the sculptures in Greece and Rome. By the time
the"arts police" get finished we will have every sculpture or print
look like a tour inside the Vatican...Photoshop a fig leaf on
everything. This certainly ain't the age of enlightenment.


FWIW the censorware lists also block pictures of those Greek & Roman
sculptures. The Vatican's art collection too.

In article ,
says...

Several factors that you're missing with the above figures (and this
is from someone who did it as a sideline income and isn't motivated to go
"pro")...

First off, 25% for costs is way low. Digital or not, you're going to
get the prints done at a lab, and a trustworthy one at that, because two
screwups and you're behind schedule, and unhappy clients have this problem
with paying (not to mention lawsuits). So the pro lab costs alone push a
typical print package into the $200 to $500 range, depending on package.
Sure, digital takes film and processing out of that - $7.00 a roll,
typically. Ain't much of a drop.

Eh? How much are you paying for a print and how many prints does the
average US wedding photographer supply to the bride & groom? Based on
our local figures, if you are supplying say 120 5x7's and 10 8x12's
with an album Henzo you shouldn't be paying more than $150. Surely?

--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

On 2005-12-06 19:20:34 -0800, no_name said:

Proconsul wrote:
On 2005-12-06 16:53:53 -0800, said:


http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com


Funny. I tried viewing your site at work. Look at what the smart
content filter brought back.

Access denied by SmartFilter content category
The requested URL belongs to the following categoriesNudityPornography.


Funny, indeed - I tried the site and found nothing pornographic on
it.....mostly wedding pictures....

PC


Google SmartFilter & find out how it selects sites for its databases.

Then go back and really look around the Shadow Catcher site.

Click on the link for "Fine Art", you'll find the WORD "nudes", which
is apparently sufficient to get them black-listed as a porn site.

No need - my point was simply to point out that the site is benign,
regardless of what SmartFilter says.....

It's SmartFilter that folks should be taking issue with.....

PC

In article ,
says...
And you have the fiscal aspects totally screwed up. You do not just gross
$7500 a month for a few days work and call it income. Or $10,000, whichever
figure you choose. You have an investment of thousands in equipment. You
have invested many hours in learning. You have office and studio and
location expenses that are appreciable if you're getting an artist's price
for weddings.

Show me a business, any business, where there are no initial capital
investments or overheads? You don't need an office or a studio to be a
wedding photographer. You need a computer and a desk at home. Most
people have those already.

For a good photographer, I'd expect a $2500 wedding to cost him about $1000
by the time albums are delivered. And for the remaining $1500, he can figure
in equipment amortization and similar expenses for office and studio and
advertising that add another $500 to the total. That leaves him making an
immense before tax profit for "a few days' work" of a grand or so. His few
days' work start with designing ads, business cards and similar little
whatnots that are part of today's business world. Oh, yeah. And paying for
them. Then he has several phone calls to field while setting up a wedding to
shoot, starting with call #1, running through contract signing time and
engagement photos (if any), and going from there to the wedding a few hours
early, where he unpacks and prowls around to make sure he has all the sites
still in his mind from his attendance at rehearsal.

Then he spends two to four or six hours shooting photos to the best of his
ability, and goes back to the shop to spend whatever time is needed making
those photos as close to perfect as possible...maybe two more days, on top
of at least two days work.

So we're looking at something like a before tax profit of a grand, for 4-1/2
days a week of hard, creative (one hopes) work.

Not bad. 52K a year, from which you get to buy all your bennies, pay Unka
Sammy taxes (and both sides of Social Security, which amounts to 15.3% of
the after expenses total). Walk around bucks MAY be as high as $750.

Not bad for a few days' easy work, eh? And, of course, there's no pressure,
no interference, and it's a wonderful life. Nuts. I'd rather shoot rattlers
around my ankles than do weddings. Come to think of it, I've done both, and
the rattlers were easier to control. Just drop the temperature in the room.

I don't mean any disrespect to wedding photographers who look at things
the way you have just described here, but $52k p.a. sounds like a good
deal to me.
--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

In article ,
p says...

Way off target here Dallas...
You won't get the answers you are seeking. Try asking your doctor to justify
his income, you'll have more chance of success. The grass is always greener
on the other side of the fence, mate. Particularly if you live in the desert
:-) Come on down to the tropics and see how bad it gets with all this green
grass.

Er, I think we're near enough to the tropics here.

Behind my 324i BMW, the studio full of expensive cameras and the manicured
gardens I maintain (at a cost of many hundreds of dollars a week) for bridal
and portrait photography - all to impress people into spending money - there
is a huge mortgage, burdening me with over a grand of debt payment every
week for the next 20 years.

Aw gee, Doug. Poor you. I guess you must be the only person in the world
who has expenses.

I pay for it all mostly from the profits I get from other business ventures.
If I had to support this sort of lifestyle out of Wedding photography alone,
I couldn't do it yet to the casual observer, I'm doing well out of it. Same
mistake you are making, Dallas. Read my first post to this thread... Nothing
could be truer yet you choose not to accept it. Your loss mate.

I'm a businessman. I look at stuff with one thing in mind: how much
profit would a business like that yield? Would it be worth investing
one's time and money into it?

I look at wedding photographers and I wonder why, if the business is so
tough and the rewards so sparse, there are so many people who keep on
doing it.

Poverty is relative. When I'm doing it hard, you could be living high on the
hoof. When Goldie Horn is broke, I could pay out my mortgage with a single
month's rent she pays. Why do you want to know so much about other people's
business if you have no interest other than curiosity? Here are a few words
of advise Dallas:

"Ours is but to do and die, not to question the reason why".

Correction: "Yours is but to do or die, mine is to question why." Always
has been, probably always will be. The sooner you realise that we are
not all cut from the same cloth, the easier it becomes to get along.

--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

In article hQplf.65$6N2.24@fed1read06, says...
"DD" wrote in message
...
In article .com,
says...
...(good stuff snipped)...
Why don't you see about getting a concession in a shopping centre
to take kids pics? It's a lot easier.

(applause) - nice post, BigPix..

Frankly, if you are asking those questions, DD, you're not even close
to ready, nor have you done any homework..

And before you ask, yes, I did weddings a for a few years, working for
a metropolitan studio with a very good name, using Bronica MF equipment
in the days well before digital. It was interesting and I learnt a lot
(and had a 3 month apprenticeship while I did that learning under
supervision), but after about a year, it became hard to inject fresh
ideas and be excited by the results. The clients still loved my stuff
(it was fresh to *them*), but I lost interest and found it was eating
into what had been an enjoyable hobby. I stopped before it killed my
photography, and it took a couple of years to get re-motivated.

You need to be an organiser - in fact you will end up running a lot of
the wedding becasue no-one else wants to, and they will quickly realise
you know what you are doing! You need to be flexible and patient, yet
quick to react, you need absolute faith in, and knowledge of, your
equipment (of which you must have two of everything if you are
serious), you need to understand the protocols of churches, religions
and cultures and be able to discuss options in detail with couples and
their families, ministers and celebrants, you need backup areas/plans
for bad weather, you need to be able to diplomatically deal with the
inevitable morons (eg who will set up video lights in the church
without even asking permission, etc) and you need to know your market.
I see little evidence of most of those...

But there is also the 'downmarket'. Plenty of folk couldn't tell the
difference between good wedding photography and their... They will be
satisfied with almost anything - although if your prices are too high,
they will get Uncle Arthur to do it because he has a professional
looking camera and a flashgun..

In case it wasn't clear in the original post, I am merely interested in
hearing from people who do this for a living. I have absolutely no
desire to become a wedding photographer, but I am intrigued by the
amount of money that seems to be changing hands for this service.

I looked at a few US Wedding photographers sites and the average price
for a wedding seems to run at about $2,500 per date. Assuming the
photographer books a minimum of 4 shoots of this nature per month, that
rounds out at $10k gross. Take off about 25% for costs (being generous
here given the output that seems to be offered) the "average" wedding
photographer should be grossing in the region of $7,500 per month. Is
that not an above average income for working only a few days per month?


You'd be right if it were only a few days a month that we work. But it
takes several days to postprocess and edit a thousand or so images
(presuming an 8 hour wedding, two photographers) and then there are albums
to design, prints to order, etc. It's about 30-40 hrs per week, exclusive
of the wedding. Still not bad, but more hours than most people think. And
then there's promotional work, meeting with prospective clients, bridal
shows (we just did one last Sunday), gear to maintain, and so on.
We have about 20 weddings booked for the next year, already. And they
average about $2000 per. After Jan. we will probably book the rest of the
year, the holidays are a prime time for proposals.

That's pretty good money, don't you think?

Personally I wouldn't take 1000 photos at any event, but I suppose there
are two sides to every coin.
--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

In article ,
says...
DD wrote:

I looked at a few US Wedding photographers sites and the average price
for a wedding seems to run at about $2,500 per date. Assuming the
photographer books a minimum of 4 shoots of this nature per month, that
rounds out at $10k gross. Take off about 25% for costs (being generous
here given the output that seems to be offered) the "average" wedding
photographer should be grossing in the region of $7,500 per month. Is
that not an above average income for working only a few days per month?

Your estimate of expenses is woefully low, and your estimate of time
spent working is laughably low.

Charge $2500 for a wedding, and do it well, and you're barely scraping by.

Well, can somebody show me the income statement and balance sheet of the
average wedding photographer so as to justify what you are saying here?

Scraping by my ass...

This thread is not intended to be about whether you are good enough or
whether you can deal with people. I am interested in the financial
aspects of running a wedding photography business ONLY.

You might as well be interested in the financial aspects of being a plumber,
if you're going to compare what they charge to what a person makes in a
normal salary. That has very little to do with running a business.

What's your point, Jeremy?

--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

DD wrote:
In article ,
says...
DD wrote:

I looked at a few US Wedding photographers sites and the average price
for a wedding seems to run at about $2,500 per date. Assuming the
photographer books a minimum of 4 shoots of this nature per month, that
rounds out at $10k gross. Take off about 25% for costs (being generous
here given the output that seems to be offered) the "average" wedding
photographer should be grossing in the region of $7,500 per month. Is
that not an above average income for working only a few days per month?

Your estimate of expenses is woefully low, and your estimate of time
spent working is laughably low.

Charge $2500 for a wedding, and do it well, and you're barely scraping by.

Well, can somebody show me the income statement and balance sheet of the
average wedding photographer so as to justify what you are saying here?

Scraping by my ass...

I am with you one this one, at $2500 / week you should be doing a lot
more then scraping by.

Scott

In article .com,
says...

Well, can somebody show me the income statement and balance sheet of the
average wedding photographer so as to justify what you are saying here?

Scraping by my ass...

I am with you one this one, at $2500 / week you should be doing a lot
more then scraping by.

I'm beginning to think its a form of subterfuge employed by wedding
photographers to dissuede more people from entering this lucrative
market!

--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

DD wrote:

Charge $2500 for a wedding, and do it well, and you're barely scraping by.

Well, can somebody show me the income statement and balance sheet of the
average wedding photographer so as to justify what you are saying here?

Scraping by my ass...

Yeah, a lot of business fail because of such assumptions.

You might as well be interested in the financial aspects of being a plumber,
if you're going to compare what they charge to what a person makes in a
normal salary. That has very little to do with running a business.

What's your point, Jeremy?

That "charging $2500" is not the same thing as "making $2500".

--
Jeremy |