How Many Pictures to Give

[sfdgs]

Lately, in my area at least, couples seem to be wanting more images than I am

willing (or able)to provide. I live in what could be considered an industrial

town and not everyone can afford a $1000 and up wedding photographer. That

said, many of the weddings I shoot are 3 to 4 hours of my shooting time. I can

comfortably give them around 200 images that are well shot and composed. But

four out of the last five couples I've met with in the past two weeks have said

that other photographers are offering 500-800 pictures for around the same

price and amount of conracted shooting time that I'm quoting. Am I missing

something here or are others just offering more than they can really produce?

[jc5066]

Quality, not quantity. Yes, I shoot about twice as many images as I give. Why? I delete the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc...shot of the same thing. I'm not going to give a customer 2-5 shots of the same thing. Pretty stupid. I'm also not going to waste my time processing 2-5 shots of the same thing.

 

Sell your quality. Would you want a bunch of crappy pictures or a few good ones that you will cherish?

[picturesque]

Those others CAN produce more--it's easy. Just shoot a lot, regardless of whether there is a good reason for shooting a lot, and give everything to the client, including 10 frames of the same thing. One of the results of digital disease. There ARE good reasons for shooting a lot, but not many have good reasons.

 

You basically need to decide if you are going to mimic the others or try to educate your prospects/clients re quality vs quantity. It's that simple.

[bdp]

I could only shoot for somewhere between 200-400 images if I were to seriously take my time before I fire each shot. But, with larger groups in each shot, I shoot a bunch to hopefully not have to edit faces if someone blinked. So that right there easily adds 100 pictures.

 

One of the nice things about overshooting that I find is, that you will get the occassional, totally unexpected shot, a little bit easier, as I'm almost always in the lockedNloaded shooting position.

 

Like Nadine and Jon said... Quality vs. Quantity, and educate your couples as to why they don't want that.

 

Could I give the blinks, sure, but would I be happy with them? No.

 

My thought is that if you're willing to give them everything, don't expect them to think of you as a great photograhper... people will classify you as mediocre at best.

 

Bob

[William Michael]

>>> You basically need to decide if you are going to mimic the others or try to educate your prospects/clients re quality vs quantity. It's that simple. <<< (NO)

 

 

Or put another way: you basically need to decide what your business model is based upon: quality or quantity?

 

 

You specifically mention a (town = small) community.

 

 

Think of your community as pie eaters: and there are 13 pie shops in town.

 

 

Personally, I would rather have the one pie shop producing 4 quality types of pies (like a boutique) than be part of the 12 other shops (like a franchise store) producing a cheap range of 200 different pies.

 

 

Obviously then when offering a boutique service amongst `more is better merchants`, there is no DIRECT competition offering exactly the same fare as your own.

 

 

Also there are reverse economies of scale for a Sole Trader: often the smaller and simpler the offer of sale, the better and more easily controlled..

 

 

A basic premise of the boutique business model is to spend TIME (perhaps at the initial consultation?) explaining what your product is, and why it is, what it is.

 

 

Explained correctly the prospective client will themselves come to the realization that yours is a product more suitable to their needs.

 

 

Moreover, during that meeting, there should be opportunities to show the extras, from the `basic coverage`, that your business offers.

 

 

WW

 

 

 

 

Aside: `One of the results of digital disease. There ARE good reasons for shooting a lot, but not many have good reasons.` (NO)

 

 

 

Great sentence: really great sentence.

[pete_s.]

In addition to the other excellent posts there is also the possibility that a business modell based on quantity really is the best for you. Sure everybody wants to be The Artist but money in the pocket might be better.

 

Peter

[pete_s.]

I think the number of shots you offer also depends on what your product is. In my business I shoot for a coffee table book and not prints. I average about 100 shots per hour of coverage and I'll include about 20% of those in the book. That's about 200 images for a full day and it wouldn't make much sense for me to go beyond that as I couldn't fit it in anyway.

 

Peter

[shawn_mertz]

I guess I might fit into the shoot more camp I shot 43 photos of cutting the cake, available

light, with flash I would not do that. They are certainly not all works of art, I deleted some. I

was also at a wedding the next week as a guest He only took 2 of the cake cutting. I saw

them on line neither was good, a low volume does not necessarily make the image better.

[William Michael]

>>> In addition to the other excellent posts there is also the possibility that a business model based on quantity really is the best for you. Sure everybody wants to be The Artist but money in the pocket might be better. <<< (PS)

 

 

 

Yes. A possibility, I agree 100%.

 

 

 

Also, when evaluating which business model to adapt, it is best practice to consider all the possibilities, and cull from that point.

 

 

 

However, to be quite clear: the premise of my previous post was 100% from business motivation, based on the limited but precise information concerning a smaller business sector and the theory of going against the `trend` to secure a larger portion of the pie, by creating a USP, and certainly not for want of being `The Artist`, as such.

 

 

 

My premise (and bias) is outlined here, (extract from my bio page):

 

 

`I realized, very early in my career, that many skills, other than photographic, were necessary to make a living with a camera. (. . . ) I took business classes, to become a better businessman. I would rather sell a quality print to a client than have it on show or awarded a prize in a competition, but I have entered a few competitions and judged some also.`

 

 

WW

[sfdgs]

Thanks for all the replies, and I see where each of you is coming from. My goal is to tell the story of the couple's wedding day. I do that by including all the photos necessary to document this story with as few distractions as possible. And this is how I sell my business and it seems to work well for me up to this point. I do shoot many more than the 200 pictures I provide, but I don't want them flipping through 50 pictures of the exact same thing.

 

"Sure everybody wants to be The Artist but money in the pocket might be better."

I agree, but I don't want bad pictures getting out to keep money from being in my pocket later from 'mediocre' references.

 

William, I've read in many previous posts, along with this one, where you've stressed the business side of photography to be successful in this field. That is so true and is part of the reason why I'm actually taking 2 business classes right now. You can't successfully sell yourself or your business if you don't know how!

[mreul]

i probably come up w/ about 600 - 800 on the average...now really - who needs this many photos? it's friken crazy if someone is really about "i need atleast 800 photos"....so maybe come up w/ reasons why you don't need this many...

 

the usual album doesn't have 800 photo

do you really want to store that many photos in some box that will get out of order...will probably also get stored in some basement somewher?

an album that is nice - which tells a story is much more effective and that can easily be done w/ 250 great photos

 

also - it just seems wedding photograhy might not cut it too much money wise in a small town so i wouldn't get too caught up in slaving over this...

[sfdgs]

BTW... I grew up in Chicago, but the town where I live now is about 80,000 people, plus nearby cities that generate business. I just seem to call anything under a million people a 'town.'

[William Michael]

>>> but the town where I live now is about 80,000 people <<< (JS)

 

 

I too would refer to that as a `town` as opposed to a `city`: though I am sure used as a technical term, a population of XXXX makes a `town` into a `city`.

 

 

P.S. RU the same Jason Lange who takes those lovely pictures on his travels around the world for his friends and family to enjoy?

 

 

Cheers and cheers to the business courses too,

 

 

WW

[susanne_beerli]

Weddings offer SO much visual material that I doubt 200 "good" images are enough to do a 4-hour event justice. I have seen "professional" wedding photographers on the job ignoring so many scenes and details just begging to be captured, very sad.

 

Perhaps you need to "look" more.

 

think about improving yourself rather than blaming the client. [especially if 4 out of 5 clients have complained!!]

[david_schilling___chicago_]

People want quantity and quality,....and they want it cheaper, easier, and quicker. I suggest you look at your competition to guage the differences between your work and theirs rather than asking the question here. Today's photographer is competing with the established pro studios and all the Craiglist "churn & burn" shooters.... and "the times are a' changin".

[justin_hall]

I refuse to quote a number of photos they will receive and with a certain amount of arrogant creative flair announce "you will get what you get".

 

Some shoots I get 60 decent shots (maybe from 400), others 25, others 80.

 

Wherever possible I am brutal in my final selection, only trying to show the really great shots (not that I'm Rankin or anything).

 

It's all about integrity, reputation and quality... A recent portrait shoot resulted in just 8 shots - yes 8!

 

Why? Because the kids were playing silly buggers and I ended up with 15 minutes to shoot anything decent. It's just as much down to them as it is down to you.

 

If a customer demands Zillions of photos then I say no thanks and show them a yellow pages, they'll probably be a pain in the arse anyway!

[picturesque]

I would say that in the face of the trend toward quantity (regardless of content), you might consider doing slightly less aggressive editing of your work, so you end up with a little more than 200 but not repetitively so. I don't want to sound like I am against quantity, because there are some very good shooters who shoot quite a lot, but the majority of what they shoot is not repetitive for the sake of pumping up the numbers, or unedited. Plus, people who have multiple shooters will naturally have higher final image numbers. As I said, there are good reasons for shooting a lot. However, of the photographers following the trend toward quantity, most don't have good reasons. Unfortunately, to buck a trend, you will have to do a lot of explaining, nevermind the right or wrong of it. Also, just because something has worked up to this point doesn't mean it is going to continue to work. In business, one must always be fine tuning the product in the face of a constantly changing market.

[sfdgs]

"P.S. RU the same Jason Lange who takes those lovely pictures on his travels around the world for his friends and family to enjoy?"

 

No, that's not me, but he does have some great pictures on his site!

[cjogo]

Generally :: I tell the B&G--1 photo for each guest attending and 3 photos per wedding party and families. We occasionally shot digital and the numbers are 10% more. No PJ --no random shooting.