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the $500 wedding photographer, some actual evidence


dmcgphoto

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<p>Okay, it's been debated hotly often, and I do mean often. This however might be helpful to all those who seem to think that there really is a reason for a client to go with a $500 craigslist photographer.</p>

<p>My point is that there is an obvious difference to all but the most....I want to be charitable here......steadfast/thrifty....clients.</p>

<p>As per photo.net's rules I cannot post websites or name names. However I would contend that CL exists very much in the public domain and as such is open to all to see and decide.</p>

<p>Well what I saw was a potential client in Albequerque asking for a $500 photographer......that's not the point here, just wait.</p>

<p>There was a response, and the responder listed their website, again, this is on CL not photo.net, you may research at your leisure.</p>

<p>The responders website, I feel, provides a superb example of what you are getting when you hunt for the ultimate bargain. <br>

I'm sure that any client when confronted with the choice of using their photography budget for better h'ors douvres and skimping on the photography, would opt to just keep with the pigs in a blanket.</p>

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<p>I find it really unfortunate, maybe more like completely unpleasant, that some people here find it necessary to disparage other people based on their finances. What some people can pay, and what some people find necessary in order to secure work, there are posters here that find it necessary to attack these people (while pretending to be "fair" about it) because they are somehow better.<br>

<br /> I have been to weddings that cost under $1000. Even $500 for a photographer is a wild extravagance for some people.</p>

<p>Well excuse me for knowing them. Anyone who doesn't have enough several thousand dollars for a wedding photographer should be kicked and beaten, publicly on a web forum.</p>

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<p>If you (the photographer) can shoot a wedding with 80 or 90 images <strong>total</strong> , and provide a 5x7 album of 16 to 20 prints, a two-hour wedding at $500.00 is not going to harm your bank deposit. If, for some reason, you need 2,000 to 3,000 images to get your ideal wedding covered, than the $500.00 wedding is not going to be kind to you (the photographer.)</p>

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<p>The general assumption (not always, but the forbidden broad brush that is being used here for a reason) is that everything about a wedding will be perfect. This goes for the photography as well, whether it's a $5,000 photographer or a $500 hobbyist who just bought a Rebel with the kit lens advertising on CL. It's reasonable for a bride to want everything to be perfect and as much like a storybook wedding as possible, and I think it's very fair to attack that assumption when it comes to hiring the churn & burn photographers with questionable abilities, equipment, and experience.<br>

I both agree and disagree with the disparaging attitude toward low-budget weddings, but I only disparage when it comes to actually hiring a photographer. In reality, that money is probably better saved for other purposes with photos from relatives and friends being used for the album unless they literally win the CL photographer lottery if the total budget is low enough.</p>

 

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<p>I'm a bit baffled by posts like this. What purpose does it serve?</p>

<p>You aren't influencing bargain-hunting brides to spend more money on a photographer or place a higher priority on wedding photography because brides don't read this forum.</p>

<p>The only point seems to be "look at how lousy these cheap photographers are." So what? Looking at the work of lousy photographers doesn't make your work any better. Being better than $500 photographers is meaningless unless you're also a $500 photographer who is directly competing with them. Do you think that successful chefs are talking about how lousy the cooks at McDonalds are?</p>

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<p>The link is not difficult to find. Search the Albuquerque CL for 'wedding photographer'. You don't need to specify a category (results are in 'event_gigs').</p>

<p>The wedding portfolio of the photographer in question consists of five pictures of a couple posing for the camera. They are not all that bad, as far as I can tell, but they are posted on the web at very low resolution, so it's difficult to see. A couple of pictures have problems with busy backgrounds/bad composition. I'd say that the client gets a pretty good idea of what to expect. A lot of people probably can get a friend to do that sort of thing for free (at least if the friend is willing to sacrifice to some extent enjoying the wedding).</p>

<p>I love the way the photographer has named the packages: 'Starving Couple', 'White Collar' and 'Executive'. I imagine that would turn quite a few people off (hmm, why not 'Trailer Trash', I wonder...), but I think it's at least preferable to the inane silver-gold-diamond.</p>

<p>This conversation seems to be never-ending, and it was there before digital, too. I suppose the elimination of film costs has made it somewhat worse, but I remember this sort of thing happening in the 90s. People didn't necessarily call themselves pros, but they'd do $500 weddings for friends of friends and such. There just was no web to put a site on or forums where the pros could complain endlessly.</p>

<p>There's not much point in complaining, other than possibly the fact that a lot of people call themselves professionals when they obviously are not. I suppose it doesn't matter so long as the bride and groom know what they're getting themselves into. The people on this forum have much more trained eyes and sophisticated tastes for pictures than the average bride. A lot of people simply want pictures where they can see themselves on the big day and don't necessarily know or care about what they might be missing.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>If you (the photographer) can shoot a wedding with 80 or 90 images <strong>total</strong> , and provide a 5x7 album of 16 to 20 prints, a two-hour wedding at $500.00 is not going to harm your bank deposit. If, for some reason, you need 2,000 to 3,000 images to get your ideal wedding covered, than the $500.00 wedding is not going to be kind to you (the photographer.)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I have never understood why 2,000 to 3,000 images are needed for a wedding. The 60 or so in my album are more than enough for me and if a couple are getting married on a low budget then a value for money (I didn't say cheap!) service which provides an album with 50 to 100 pictures will be more than enough to provide memories in later years (which is what it is all about really). <br>

Not everyone needs a big production computer generated album and DVD slideshow with synchronised music.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>...If you (the photographer) can shoot a wedding with 80 or 90 images <strong>total</strong> , and provide a 5x7 album of 16 to 20 prints, a two-hour wedding at $500.00 is not going to harm your bank deposit...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>... and I'd like strongly to dispute this point that the value of a set of wedding photographs, or what a photographer charges for them should be based around the quantity supplied. Imagine quoting $2000 (or $500) to photograph a wedding - then being asked by the client "well we can't afford that, shoot half as much and we'll give you $1000 (or $250)."</p>

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<p>There is a lot of chatter on this subject because times are tough for a lot of people. I've said this over-and-over on other threads.</p>

<p>Of all of the unemployed folks in the entire USA, over 1/2 of them are here in Michigan where I shoot. So I'm seeing it more than most.</p>

<p>Out of work people are shooting weddings to help pay the mortgage ... so $500. looks pretty darned good to them. </p>

<p>Many of the clients are in the same boat ... and having a photographer doesn't mean cutting back to Pig's-in-a Blanket, it means NO appetizers, a "City Chicken" entree, and ice water.</p>

<p>I have empathy for these good people and wish them all the luck in the world. </p>

<p> </p>

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<blockquote>

<p>The responders website, I feel, provides a superb example of what you are getting</p>

</blockquote>

<p>One website that you sought out is "actual evidence" and a "superb example"?</p>

<p>If that's the standard, I can state I found one website of a much more expensive photographer who displays work that appears substandard and claim it is "actual evidence" and a "superb example" showing that people who pay that amount of money on a wedding photographer are wasting their money.</p>

 

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<p><em>"Of all of the unemployed folks in the entire USA, over 1/2 of them are here in Michigan where I shoot. So I'm seeing it more than most." -Marc</em><br>

<em></em><br>

While it may feel as if half of them are in Michigan, the actual number of people unemployed is much higher in California (rate = 12.4%) than it is in Michigan (rate = 14.6%) due to a much higher total population number. I agree with the sentiment that many people in this economy are hurting though and deserve some empathy.</p>

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<p>Maybe this is a failure of vocabulary. If you're talking about a wedding for a hollywood star, presumably such a photographer needs to be very skilled with a camera, probably have assistants, be a superb diplomat and organizer, have high end equipment, takes thousands of pictures, does a huge amount of post processing, produces very high quality artifacts, etc. $500 for all that seems ridiculous.</p>

<p>But then suppose you are on a shoestring. You know you can't spend that kind of money for a photographer. But maybe you want a few semi-decent pictures of your wedding and reception with a few group shots and a small, modest wedding album. The photographer need not be as skilled. He needs no assistants. His gear need not be so high end -- maybe he has a couple of middle range DSLRs and a couple of lenses. He produces a CD and/or a small, modest wedding album and maybe a couple of framed pictures. Shouldn't there be a place that couple can go to get much more modest service? Can't you envision such a service for $500? After all, it's just a few hours of his time and a few after for post processing right? He's not doing Angelina and Brad's wedding.</p>

<p>You guys tell me. Don't different classes of weddings require very different levels of service? What is the total time you spend on a small wedding with friends and family and a small reception (and include the post processing too). What SHOULD such a small modest wedding cost to document in a modest way? I know you need to spend money on equipment and I know customers are paying you for your skill, and you need to recover that investment, but I'm a pretty well paid engineer and $500 sounds like a lot relative to my hourly rate. Would you say someone wanting such a modest service SHOULD be asking a friend to shoot it because it's basically not worth a real wedding photographer's time?</p>

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<p>I'm curious. Does the argument for a higher priced photographer assume that the wedding book and photos will be valued keepsakes that will be looked at for years after the wedding? In my own experience, wedding books are looked at for a few months and then take their place on a bookshelf, seldom to be consulted.<br /><br />I suppose if you are paying premium prices for a "perfect wedding" then you might not want to skimp on the photographer. But, given that the "perfect wedding" that gets its adjective by paying premium prices can cost what a downpayment on a house costs, that seems like an unnecessary extravagance to an awful lot of people who may chose to define "perfect" in terms that have smaller numbers to the left of the decimal point.<br /><br />I have only photographed one wedding, for a young colleague of my wife. I was happy to do it for a bottle of good scotch and the couple was very happy with my work.<br>

<br />If I was in the biz, I would probably go for the lower price end of the market, let the couple select a number of RAW images that I would edit and provide them with a disk so that they can make their own copies.<br /><br />But I am not in the biz, and don't rely on photographs to pay my light bill. If others can provide satisfaction at low rates and take away enough to keep body and soul together, more power to them! They provide a wonderful service!<br />Alan</p>

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<p>Given a choice between making $500.00 doing a bare bones wedding, or getting $0.00 doing nothing, I would take the bare bones. Work is work.</p>

<p>The market is driven by the consumer. No longer are photographers required to have film processing skills and that alone changes the metrics. Digital has changed everything. Not only is the processing easier using a computer, the intelligence of the cameras when on P mode are really quite remarkable. You also have to consider cell phones and P&S cameras and the quality of the images that people are used to seeing from these cameras. To them that is the norm.</p>

<p>You may be the slickest photographer in the world. But if some chap is doing 20 $500.00 events while you are only doing one $5,000.00 during the same time period who is making the money?</p>

<p>I try to charge what I can but sometimes have to accept what I can get.</p>

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