HELP, Couple wants ALL photos from wedding, HOW MUCH!!!

Hi, I'm new here to this forum so I appologize if this question has been

answered before.

 

I just shot my first wedding and I don't know if I made a mistake or not. I

invited the couple over to look over the photos from the event(over 500 of

them). I had chosen 100 of the ones that I thought were the best and had

negotiated 50 shots that they would recieve. After they looked over them they

decided they wanted all 500 or so of them.

 

My question is how much should I sell them for?

 

As a note, I had negotiated the initial 50 to be put on a CD for $50. They

don't want to spend a lot and I don't want to break them, at the same time I

want to be fairly compensated for my work. Also I shot the wedding for a low

price.

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you

I don't know what you should do, and I'm sure you will get all kinds of answers, but here's my opinion.

 

You negotiated a price of $50 for 50 images (plus whatever you charged for shooting the wedding). What were you planing on doing with the other 450? Did you hope for additional sales, or were you just going to scrap them? If you weren't planning on making much of your profit on the rest of the images, then you might as well sell them now for whatever reasonable price you can get. Personally, I think something between another $50 and $450 would be reasonable for the remaining 450 images. I'd probably lean closer to the low end of that range.

Are you talking about Photoshop hours or just the principal? Photoshop hours are easier

to explain...no one will really care about your principals :)

 

jmp

If you are photoshopping all of the pictures, charge a flat-ish rate per photo. This means that $450 would be reasonable to ask for, as, frankly, anything less than $1 per edited shot is ridiculously cheap.

 

But, as you said, you shot the wedding for little money, and your future clients don't need to know what they paid.

 

If you won't be PSing them, perhaps something in the $125-175 range would be okay.

 

I'm shooting a "wedding on the cheap" this weekend (Getting some experience - did a couple free ones, now I'm charging a bit of cash), and in the agreement, I'll be giving the couple 2MP unedited JPEGs of everything I take (as "proofs"), and will give them a set 50 edited 8MP images (Included in the wedding cost), with extras avalible at an additional cost. I also add the "editing" fee to any prints they want to purchase from me that are different from the included photos (and I give them the file, too). 2 DVDs with all of the RAWs on them, however, will be more along the lines of what I'm charging for the wedding itself (DVDs of the low res JPEGs are cheap) - but I've made the couple aware of the difference in the files, too.

 

Next time you go in to this, no matter what, work out a pricing plan so that you know what to charge the couple if they want anything extra, and show it to them before you sign the contract.

I usually try some sort of sales technique offering the comlete set if they at least buy a large album or 2 parent albums, a big enlargment, or something. Just a thought. If they buy all of the proofs plus an album I think $3 a print is fair. $5 a print if they don't.

A little too late now, but I never show, offer, give, or even let them know how many shots I take. I offer all exceptable shots to them.

 

NEVER let them see all the shots. "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link". You are only as strong as your weakest photo. Every photographer will have bad shots durring a wedding shoot.

 

Basically I take xxx amount of shots. I delete any unexceptable shots. I then give proofs to all of the exceptable shots. I don't guarantee a set number of shots. I think this is stupid. I'm not going to guarantee, lets say, 250 images. I only take 220 exceptable shots. Now I have to put in 30 shots that look like c rap.

 

Now when they, and others, look at these shots they'll be thinking Uncle Bob could have taken these.

$50 / 10 images = $1 dollar per image.

500 iamges x $1 = $500.00

 

Is basic math that hard? Isn't your time worth anything? You have to think of the value of your

photos from your client's point of view.

Thanks for all the responses.

 

To follow up. I only photoshoped the 100 that I thought were the best to initially show the client. Most of the work was just basic color correction and sharpening. I did more extensive work on about 20 or so(cropping, B/W, Filter type effects, recoloring, etc).

 

The only problem is that I never planned on taking that many photos. The D.J. was late so I just walked around taking candids until the ceremony started. I had already taken all my "planned" shots prior to the ceremony.

 

J.C.- Thanks for the input. I will definately not show all the photos next time. I am going to go through them again and get rid of the ones that I basically wouldn't want other potential clients to see.

 

Oh, as a side note. After going back and forth about getting prints from me, they finally decided they were not. Should I not give them full res pics as this portion was not discussed. I just don't know if it is standard to ever put full res images on a cd for a client.

 

Again, thanks to all who responded. All the input will be put to great use next time.

"Ellis Vener , oct 12, 2006; 10:15 a.m.

$50 / 10 images = $1 dollar per image. 500 iamges x $1 = $500.00

Is basic math that hard?"

 

Apparently for you it is :)

Thanks Brandon,

 

I was just thinking the same thing. Gotta love the rude people who look dumb trying to be a smart A and make their own mistakes.

 

If I wanted to charge that much for the pictures I wouldn't have posted on here.

Thanks Brandon & Andre! That was a dumb goof. Basic math isn't my problem. Typing toofast

and not proof reading definitely is!

Andre -

 

You would do well to read all of Ellis Vener's posts.

 

In my 9 years on photo.net he's easily be the most helpful, and one of the five most knowlegable, contributors to this site.

 

If there was an MVP award for photo.net, Ellis would be it, along with Phil Greenspun.

 

So, again, I suggest, read all his posts.