the $500 wedding photographer, some actual evidence

[neilambrose]

<p>Shawn - good for you.</p>

<p>I haven't looked at your site and have no idea about your work or how you're marketing yourself. But I do know that you've taken a lot of grief that you didn't ask for, and you've had the grace to come here and respond, even when you didn't need to.</p>

<p>For that you have my respect.</p>

[dave_wilson1]

<p>Daniel, I'm not sure this was such a great way to express this, singling out, using enough clues, Shawn and putting him up on a poker like this is really unreasonable. All folks in all price levels have the right to hire and offer services to fit various markets. I vote for posting in poor taste. Good for you Shawn, just keep moving foward. I agree with Jennifer, I thought the pics a little hard to navigate. My first thought was if they were a little bigger? Sorry I am totally website challenged, so I can't help with any techno advise. I also think the link to your personal blog is maybe not the best idea. I would focus on a photography blog and keep things photography and business related and upbeat and positive. So, as I already said, keep moving foward and I look foward to your next endeavors.</p>

[nishnishant]

<p>Lots of people mentioned Shawn's flickr page - could someone post the link to it please?</p>

[shawn_brandow]

<p>flickr.com/photos/deartistzwei</p>

[shawn_brandow]

<p>Thanks to everyone who has shown me support on this matter, and I thank you all for your insight and suggestions for improving my website. <br>

For the next few hours the site will be down for maintenance as I make a few changes. </p>

[nishnishant]

<p>Thanks.</p>

[george_peng1]

<p>The market will bear what it can bear. I think the issue pro photographers have with the $500 wedding is twofold - it devalues what they do in the eye of the consumer, and since doing $500 weddings is a difficult business model, that photographer can do some damage to the market for the brief time he/she stays in business.</p>

<p>Given all the costs of being a photographer, including equipment depreciation, skills accretion, time on PS, travel, the actual per-hour rate, and a number of others, you have to wonder how $500 for a 6 hour wedding makes any sense at all.</p>

[cherubinphotography]

<p>Come on Mark T....I never said I include advanced retouch work. : ) However, thanks to Lightroom2, I can pop through 1000 images in just two to three hours, make any necessary "tweaks", select those to be presented, and move on.<br>

I am not stating that all $500 CL photographers are equal to full-time pro wedding artists. I am only saying that there is a market for $500 weddings, and there are qualified artists willing to do the work. Besides, it takes a lot of skill to be good at this business but it also takes a lot of repetition and practice. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to work my way up from the bottom.</p>

[wedding-photography-denver]

<blockquote>

<p>Manuel said<br>

"after they quit promoting buy American made, I guess cheap sold better than made in America;-)"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I quit shopping at WM in the early 90's after they were caught lying about where their products were actually made (China, etc.). Not that I mind buying goods from China, but I do mind supporting a business that lies about its terms of business.</p>

 

[gr]

<h2>the $500 wedding photographer, some actual evidence(Category:Unarchived)</h2>

<p>I am glad that I got to see this discussion as this has started giving me ideas. You see, I have never been a professional photographer but I have been shooting for the last 15 years or so. I am my biggest critic and my daughter and wife are the biggest admirerers of my photos.<br />It's my hobby and I wanted to keep it that way. But recently I started thinking about starting a side business and photography came to mind because this is something I enjoy doing and I am fairly confident in my abilities of doing a good job. However, I do not have a portfolio. I thought about being some established wedding photographer's assistant or second photographer. What I have read so far about being assistant tells me that my chances of getting a willing and established photog as a "mentor" in Minneapolis is low. So, I was thinking about offering my services in the niche market of "starving couples" for around $500. $500 for 5-6 hours of shooting and 2-3 hours of Lightroom work to burn a CD is better than doing the same thing for free for myself.<br />Once I have done 3-4 weddings, I will have a good collection of photos for a portfolio. I was in the Como Conservatory the other day and saw some "professionals" shooting photos. If they get paid for doing what they were doing and how they were doing it (believe me, I know the difference between good lighting and bad) , I asked myself, "Why can't *you*?"<br />So, like it or not, here I come. I am going to offer my services as a wedding photographer, child photographer, "I will go to your house and shoot photos of your grand parents" photographer.. etc. etc.<br />The point is I will be knowingly underpricing my services in the beginning because I need to build my portfolio and if I see that the needs of my $500 clients are being met, that they are happy with my service and word of advertising is bringing in more business I will take that too. As it is, I do it for free but Canon doesn't sell L lenses cheap.</p>

[botchow_c]

<p>These kinds of posts just makes me upset.<br>

This website, Photo.net that is, comes out as very snobbish and seems like lots of mean, snobby "high end" photographers likes to sit around here chatting about "those low end"photographers.<br>

The thing is, that you gotta start somewhere.<br>

I am too going to advertise on CL. And I'm going to offer my cheapest option at $800, just until I got the money so I can invest in a better camera, more lenses, and more experience. After that, hopefully after 2-3 weddings, I'll raise my prices...and hopefully one of these days I can pride myself of charging $2500 or even more for my weddings. One thing is for sure. I will always be humble about my work.</p>

<p>By the way. How many photographers websites I've surfed onto, that charges $2500 and up, that completely sucks!!! THESE photographers are worse than the $500 CL photographer because these guys actually is ripping people off! 2500 bucks for lousy photos?? In one way its good for me, because It makes ME feel good about myself, and really dare to get out there and think "I can do better than that"</p>

<p>So, Yes, I will be a CL photographer for a while. But I know I've got talent. And one day I'll get there.</p>

[shawn_brandow]

<p>I've made some changes to da-bull.net following some of the advice submitted by you guys. Specifically changed is the gallery, which now features a "full screen" mode where the images (pulled directly from my flickr account) can be seen in all their high resolution glory. <br>

Thank you for the suggestions and the kind emails. </p>

[botchow_c]

<p>Thumbs up for G. Raychaudhuri!</p>

[alin_daju]

<p>I can so tell the americans are starving, are jobless and start acting weird with the financial crisis. At least so it looks from here the aussie land.<br>

$500 wedding = a joke, i'd rather do it $ free.</p>

[tom_boston1]

<p>Hey Shawn, I just want to add to the chorus of "More power to you!"</p>

<p>A few observations that I don't think anyone else has made -</p>

<ul>

<li>Getting your own gig on Craig's List isn't really any worse than working for Bella for $500.</li>

<li>Paying $500 is better for some brides than paying $1600 to Bella. Yes, I know there can be some advantages for the bride such as the way Bella can provide backup photographers and does a minimal amount of certification. But Bella doesn't service Albuquerque which is probably a hint at what the market there is like. </li>

<li>Paying someone $500 bucks is better than asking Uncle Bob to shoot it for you and lets him enjoy the wedding</li>

</ul>

<p>Again - good luck to Shawn. In time he'll learn to do things like get written contracts and pay for liability insurance, errors and omissions insurance. Maybe he'll even become one of those $5000 photographers someday.</p>

 

[picturesque]

<p>Johanna, if I looked up your posts since 2008, I see that I and several other photo.net members answered your questions and helped you out. I think this fact makes my point that not all photo.netters are the same, just as not all people are the same. It is unfair to label all of us snobby, don't you think?</p>

<p>Frankly, your attitude is multiplied by the hundreds among the newcomers to wedding photography. If you have the desire to and feel you can succeed, that's fine--go for it. But don't make the mistake of letting overconfidence blind you. You will need your eyes, ears and brain--believe me. Anyway, your comments don't sound very humble to me.</p>

[mark_t5]

<p>in some sense i kind of compare to the sudden rise in the number of "pro photographer" in the 2000s to the sudden rise of realtors in the 90s...</p>

<p>everyone wants to make "easy money"...in the 90s it was the housing boom and suddenly everyone wanted to be a realtor since it seems they did little and made pretty good money.</p>

<p>now that that well dried up, everyone flocked to the next thing..they see wedding photographers charging a lot of money and all they seem to do is just walk around and click a button and say.. "hey..i can do that too".. cheap good cameras further cut down on the barrier to entry and now you got everyone and their uncle thinking they are all professional photographers.</p>

<p>hey..if you are indeed good at photography then more power to you, but i think after a while most of the wannabes will realize it is not as easy as they thought and will simply move on to the next "easy money" thing.</p>

<p>i even know of (not personally) some former realtors that are suddenly now "wedding photographers"</p>

[brian_m.1]

<p>I like to know how many realtors became wedding photographers!</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>Mark, where is your wedding web site so we can see where you are coming from? I'm with Brian, I know a lot of realtors and not one has become a wedding photographer.</p>

[botchow_c]

<p>Nadine.<br>

I did not say <strong>everybody</strong> here was snobby. That of course would not be fair of me to judge all of you like that. (as little as its fair of pro photographer to judge all the newcomers but that many of you seem to do)<br>

Since you commented on my post, Did you feel affected by what I was saying?<br>

Im just saying that posts like this, and some other postings Im reading around this website, are very snobbish and not very helpful at all. It makes you kind of feel like just because you are starting out you are not worth anything and can be made fun of!<br>

I feel the same way about "all you pro photographers" practically Saying that ; if you charge under $1000 for a wedding and advertise on craigslist, then you are a bad photographer and not really interrested in photography at all. Many pro's are labeling US.</p>

<p>Not everybody has a big budget or comes from a rich family. Some people actually has to work hard to ge somewhere here in life. I'm one of them.</p>

<p>My intentions about photography is serious, and I admit that there are lots of people out there who just does it for "some extra cash" and are not interested in art at all. But dont go thinking that all of us newcomers are like that.<br>

That was the point of my posting. Maybe it came out as if I was upset with everybody here; Im not. But threads like THIS, makes me upset.</p>

 

[botchow_c]

<p>And besides. I don't think anybody is more humble than I am. If I would not be so humble, I would probably be charging couple o'thousands by now and started my photography business years ago. But I AM shy, and don't think that I'm good enough sometimes.</p>

[gr]

<p>Bullet points help sometimes, so here it goes:</p>

<ul>

<li>Wedding photography is not easy. Actually, it is very difficult.</li>

<li>Going to the moon was and still is very difficult.</li>

<li>We went to the moon (and more importantly returned safely) 40 years ago with an on board mainframe whose power was probably less than the laptop most of us carry - but we did it. However, we did prepare to do this.</li>

<li>Everybody has to start somewhere - some get lucky breaks, some work as an assistant or second shooter, and some start on their own shooting weddings in the so called "starving couples" niche. There is nothing wrong with it.</li>

<li>We should not be jumping into wedding photography without proper preparation and research</li>

<li>If you can do it with your talent and gear, so can others and let us not forget that people have been taking great wedding photos long before high end digital cameras and L lenses became available</li>

<li>Granted there are many great wedding photographers who deserve the price they are charging</li>

<li>The entire market is not served by these great wedding photogs - so for other photographers there are some slices of the same pie</li>

<li>Need to understand that wedding photography business is like any other business in the sense that the market decides who stays and thrives and who doesn't</li>

<li>If we treat it like a business and satisfy the need of our clients we will have a place in this business</li>

<li>I am probably a fool for saying these without even a booking a single wedding </li>

<li>I don't think snobbery in photo.net is rampant. </li>

<li>With credits to Senator Smalley - "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, <strong>and Doggone It, People Like Me</strong>!: " So, why not me?</li>

<li>Remember: <strong>The market decides who stays and who goes - not you.</strong></li>

</ul>

[john schroeder]

<p>If I were shooting a $500.00 wedding I would provide the couple with a DVD of the images in RAW and JPG format. The majority of the JPG's would have a minimal amount of processing while a few shots would be given full attention to detail. I would still the absolute best job possible. Just because a couple is on a tight budget doesn't mean they deserve unprofessional results. It just means they need to think carefully about what they do with the images. If they want a photo album then they can print it themselves later when their budget allows. I would make darn sure that everyone knew exactly what they were and were not getting. I'm sure a lot of you professional wedding photogs out there might not agree with me. Would you shoot a $500.00 wedding? I bet you wouldn't. Are you really loosing any business to the beginners/amateurs who will? </p>

[gr]

<p>@John Schroeder: Agreed on all points. A professional delivers. Nobody held a gun to my head to do a $500 wedding, I did it on my own and it's my responsibility to deliver for what I am getting paid.<br>

Now, do all professional wedding photographers (males, of course) wear a tux? Serious question.</p>

[mike_hollander]

<p>@Shawn</p>

<p>I think it was a very good idea to remove the link to your blog when you revised your website. The explanations of the dreams you'd had the night before etc. were a bit... much for a business site.</p>

<p>The gallery looks much better. People like to dismiss Flickr, but I think their gallery/slideshow thing actually works a lot better than many of the Flash galleries on pro photographers' sites.</p>

<p>@<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=151237">G. Raychaudhuri</a> <br /> "We went to the moon (and more importantly returned safely) 40 years ago with an on board mainframe whose power was probably less than the laptop most of us carry - but we did it. However, we did prepare to do this."</p>

<p>This is completely off-topic, sorry. You're rather overestimating the 1960's computers. The typical laptop of today is likely more powerful than any single computer anywhere in 1969. The pocket calculators and cell phones of today are a lot more powerful than the Apollo flight computer was (which certainly wasn't what computer people understand by the term 'mainframe'). In fact, even the Space Shuttle was stuck with a computer design from 1970's for a shockingly long time. I think they flew for all of the 90's with a flight computer that had much less computing power than any PC of the day.</p>

<p> </p>