Wedding Photograpers--Look out!

[Mark McCall]

Few, if any, photographers look at this issue with a business brain instead of an artist heart.
And most photographers associate 'selling the CD' with someone who's working cheap.

Selling the files can be more profitable than prints/albums/add ons, if careful analysis of your business model is applied, all while keeping the client happy.
Create a profit/loss statement from a wedding. Start with gross sale. Deduct production cost, even hidden cost like employee time. Add back in your average post wedding sale. Find a price per hour your making by selling prints vs. CD.
If your selling the CD at a higher price per hour rate than if you sell prints, I'd say your on the right track.

Article on the front page of USA Today about a month go: "Consumers no longer want tangibles like music, movies or photos".
Movies and music are now downloaded (hence the fate of Blockbuster and others).
And images sold on CD are rarely printed. Instead, the consumer wants them for social media.

No business model is successful for a long period of time. The most successful businesses adapt to the marketplace.
5 studios closed in my market area last year. Only one of those offered the CD as a purchase option.

Nothing wrong with being an artist and keeping those files/negatives. For some, the artist in them is more important than any amount of money they'd receive in exchange.
I've never heard of an artist who died affluent.

[Ed Shapiro]

It's true! You must operate your business as a BUSINESS not some kind of snobby-hobby affair. You must service your market to create a following of clients who will recommend your services to others and themselves become loyal clients. I also believe that the product must be very desirable, interesting and timely in order to create a good and loyal customer base. Today's consumerism demands that we, as professional photographers, deliver good value for the fees that we charge.

I have a firm sales policy- I don't call myself an "artist"- that word ain't in my business card or any of my advertising or stationery. I do, however, promise to create an artistic impression or interpretation of their wedding day. I also believe that if you "take away" something or do not include something in my services, I have to replace it with something of equal or higher value. Hence, if I don't offer printable files, I have to create a commodity that will overshadow that "problem" in the clients' minds and eyes.

If the customer call me an artist- good on me, If not, so be it.

Those policy will not bring me dozens of wedding bookings but it provides good solid contracts from clients who like what I do and how I do it. If I depended on weddings only. this attitude of mine would not be viable and my business would have been gone long ago. Fortunately enough, I have developed a commercial business which keeps the cash flow gong and is lucrative. The senior portrait business here in Canada is nothing to write home about nothing like what is going on in the U.S. so that specialty only accounts for 10% of my business- I get the kids who rejected their "school photographers" work and wants more of a customized and comprehensive sitting.

Sometimes, on the forum, I get a little flack from photographers who are of the younger set who just about admonish me for NOT maintaining a web site, being all over the social media, shooting and burning. That is their impression of what a pro should be doing. Well - I respect their view as long as the are making money and living a decent life. If my business was not structured as it is, perhaps, I would be out there doing exactly what they do- in spades! In my particular business, for the last 20 years, all of my new business comes by recommendation and my booking rate is decent enough. I would rather do some of the high end stuff that work on volume. Many photographers don't realize that different localities bring different clients with a wide variety of buying motives and not everyone can operate exactly the same way.

All I can tell you is that I am businessman enough to monitor my business very throughly and carefully. I look at a monthly Profit and Loss Statement and if profits are taking on a downward trend, I start troubleshooting the problem with the same zeal that I would track down and fault in my computer or color lab or an effective piece of gear. I try to nip problems in the bud and not wait until my business is on life support.

I still use lots of albums- it does not look as if the old established album companies are suffering or will go out of business any time soon.

The only thing I tend to mildly resent is when photographers who do not earn the bulk of their income through their photography become dismissive about problems that can affect the folks who totally depend on their photography businesses. I never negatively criticize people who have different business models that are indeed successful for themselves and do earn the bulk of their income from photography.

Good luck and much success to everyone. We all work hard and deserve a decent living from our good work.

Ed

[Tinstafl]

Interesting concept here. I have a couple of pints to add. FIrst I don to shoot weddings. I have shot them in the past but decided not to do it now. Way too much work for the money. I have a friend who was shooting them till this past year. She said that it just does not pay anymore. There are people out there who will shot it and give them the CD for 750 dollars. We usually charged 3500 and up including a couple large prints in addition to the album. We used to put a lot of time into the album and finding that perfect album. It is hard to book a shoot now that pays enough. I shot a friends weeding for them for free. It was my present to them and they got a great disc with the pictures. It does save time as I edited them pretty fast and did not spend a lot of time deciding on order and location and shot for the album presentation. I do not understand why you would want to spend 10 hours or more of work for a wedding and get so little for your time and equiptment. I am doing more portraits and seniors and location events now. Location events are the best as each couple wants a print of themselves.

The new thing is kids birthday parties including a child shoot and a shoot at the party. Parents are willing to pay for milestones like 5 years old and will buy the prints to send to relatives. I also provide a disc of low res social media shots watermarked for them in the package.

I think that the wedding game is changing and while there will always be high end events the run of the mill is not going to be as big in this economy and it has lasted long enough to affect decision for a long time.

[Tinstafl]

Oh an for my own wedding, I got a fine arts photogrpaher friend to shoot it. He gave me the negatives and told me to print them myself and there was no digital back in the stone age... ha.... but I did shot his wedding for him too. I will say he got all the shots on the list and then he did a few neat things too. Now they are old hat but then they were different.

[Ed Shapiro]

If the wedding market in your service area has decorated to the point where there is little or no profit, who's fault is that? The clients?- I think not. I would suspect that it is the local photographers who have poisoned the well. Unless you are operating in a depressed area of the country due to job losses or recession, there are people out there that will buy a superior product and service if the vendors can supply such a product. I don't think everyone wants to mess around with printing their own albums and portraits when a professional service is there to complete the job with expertises and artfulness. The, of course there are the bargain hunters and if you want to serve that market you have to provide bargains and that is where the hard work at poor compensation starts to grow!

Professional photographers are not exempt for the basics of business. If you are the one who provides "the better mouse trap" you are the one who is gonna get the lion's share of the business. I look for the clients who don't want to trap their own mice- they hire professional exterminators to do the work properly.

Underpricing you work is self destruction of your business. If you shoot and burn, that's OK too as long as you are properly and commensurately compensated for your time and talent- after all the photo lab which eventually does the job is gonna make more profit that you for a potentially lousy job. Some clients are penny wise and pound foolish.

Also I notice that you mention folks being in and out of wedding work- more or less like an extension of a hobby. Problem is that getting into the higher end of the business requires long term dedication, hard work, ongoing education and business acumen. I'm feeling is that PROFESSIONAL wedding photography has no place for the dabbler or the faint of heart.

This is my opinion and approach because part of my business is based on income from wedding photography. If you think otherwise and are making a go of it- God bless you! It's a free enterprise society out there and I guess that there is a photographer for every client. and a client for every photographer.

Much success to all.

Ed

[E]

At a Sandy Puc seminar she said she'd sell digital images - at $750.00 each! That's for each digital file (a per photo charge), not for a set from each shoot. She said she has only sold 1 image so far that way. Nothing like pricing the client into reality

[Mark McCall]

Sandy isn't selling her files for that amount as a profit puncher. It's a deterrent.

[E]

Originally Posted by Mark McCall

Sandy isn't selling her files for that amount as a profit puncher. It's a deterrent.

Yup.... still gives the client a good dose of reality or something else

[scatterbrained]

Originally Posted by E

Yup.... still gives the client a good dose of reality or something else

What reality? There are plenty of quite talented photographers out there that eschew print sales. My wedding photographer delivered a CD of high res, edited images. Her company was no fly by night outfit, or CL lowballers. They handle weddings for the wealthy and famous in central Florida, and have been featured on TV and in magazines. The lack of album sales or print sales doesn't seem to have cost her any lost sleep, she simply prices accordingly.
The paradigm is shifting.

[Mark McCall]

I agree.
The demand for tangibles has been declining for years.
While I feel there will always be a need and a market for wall portraits, many clients nowadays simply do not want/care about prints. They want the images for social media.
The balance of demand is changing.