how come this thread is not a sticky yet? :think:
I think it should be, since questions about being a AD fotog will pop up now and again.
I think it should be, since questions about being a AD fotog will pop up now and again.
Points about Photography Business
- Thread starter CYRN
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how come this thread is not a sticky yet? :think:
I think it should be, since questions about being a AD fotog will pop up now and again.
No need.
Actually the 1st thread is more "attractive" then a sticky.
So juz keep the contributions coming.
ROFL if any one did a cost analysis based on costs of prints & album, depreciation of camera, lens, computer, incidental cost for the wedding - rental 2nd body may be a WE lens, transport , food then those photog charging $200 are subsidising the couple big time.
Those charging $500 may be taking back about $200 or less before taking out the cost of your time for at least 30 hour of labour or at most $6.67 per hour or a little more than working at Mac's. So rougly speaking if you cost the value of your time at rates MacD pays then your profit is about $2 per hour or $60 bucks. No very attractive but why on earth do some many young photogs think $500 is a magic figure ?
Do the maths. Also do not make the assumption you will get paid - if there is a screw up then all the figures go out the window. A screw up could be your fault, could be the couple do not like the photos (maybe its not your fault hehehe but guess who bears the pain).
Those charging $500 may be taking back about $200 or less before taking out the cost of your time for at least 30 hour of labour or at most $6.67 per hour or a little more than working at Mac's. So rougly speaking if you cost the value of your time at rates MacD pays then your profit is about $2 per hour or $60 bucks. No very attractive but why on earth do some many young photogs think $500 is a magic figure ?
Do the maths. Also do not make the assumption you will get paid - if there is a screw up then all the figures go out the window. A screw up could be your fault, could be the couple do not like the photos (maybe its not your fault hehehe but guess who bears the pain).
$500 magic figure for failure! Good response and putting things in real perspective. As an aspiring professional photographer, do what the school system does - you don't get a job until you graduate, meanwhile keep learning by paying your school fees and doing all your homework. Aspiring photogs should shoot for FREE instead of charging $500 .. if you cannot bring yourself to shoot for free then how on earth are you ever going to learn without the temptation of money? And when you have "invested" enough in time, effort, mistakes and have a generous portfolio then you are ready in which case you start charging what other pros are charging. Looking at the big picture, clients see more uniformity in rates and the market is protected. Obviously, this is good in an ideal society where people have ethics and play fair.
Jan Shim
www.janshim.com
i fully agreed on wat he said, worked hard, worked harder, cos there's no free lunch in this world
You left out time incurred in post processing.
30hrs sure not enough. I estimated about 1K pics per AD if each pic takes an average of 1min for screening/deleting/postprocessing 1K pics would translate to 16-17 hrs of continous time spent infront of your PC. Add 16hrs AD to the 16hrs PP, it's actually 32hrs worth of work.:sweat: Just labour, not yet add other cost.
Good work..
It's good to see professionals contributing and hope that more will follow.
There will be a major photographic exhibition in the last quarter of this year and I'll be having a talk then as well..
I might speak on either of the few topics.. any suggestions?
"Becoming a successful photographer"
"Why should someone hire you"
"Event Photography"
"Live Photography"
Good work..
It's good to see professionals contributing and hope that more will follow.
There will be a major photographic exhibition in the last quarter of this year and I'll be having a talk then as well..
I might speak on either of the few topics.. any suggestions?
"Becoming a successful photographer"
"Why should someone hire you"
"Event Photography"
"Live Photography"
How about "Successful Branding As A Photographer".
You left out time incurred in post processing.
CyrnWith due respect - an average AD is about 12 to 14 hours unless you get a teochew one. So 30 hours would be about right if its all done for want of a better word properly.
If you get the shooting right there is the sorting out to do which for 1200 to 1500+ frames will take about 6 to 13 hours to sort, to a little tweking so that the resulting files are printable. That is on the conditions that you get the flash work right, if you can hit the target for workable files even if you shoot jpgs and not have to depend on raws to save your life. 30 hours should be enough- we are talking about needing to rework on not more than 15 to 25% of the files. Getting it right in camera is the target I shoot for. If you shudder have to do 60 to 80% then maybe post processing alone could take what 30 to 50 hours. Then the $500 guys is in deep red figures.
I would cheerfully shoot raws and do the full ultimate post processing possible ( read that as when you see the in camera file and the file for printing that look like distant relatives and not the same file) for all the final slected files only if the price point is right.
I would normally do for a selected few ;on key pictures for full processing but no way for the whole 300 to 400+ frames.
Anyways I suspect the $500 wedding guy is not going to sorting or post processing at all. Have heard some real hair raising horror stories from some couples.
The couples should have gone into contract with the less expensive (I wouldn't say cheapie. There may be reasons why they do not charge as much) photographer with both eyes open and terms clearly spelt out. Like you said, no editing, no sorting, no prints, and alot of other "no".
What's that phrase? Buyer beware?
What's that phrase? Buyer beware?
Just thinking out loud.. while that sounds interesting .. speaking on that topic may not bring as much benefit as some of the other topics..
Branding is not an easy thing that can be covered in a few hours.. I can definitely include branding as part of "Why should someone hire you" or "Becoming a successful photographer". Each brand ideally be having a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) but if I were to share USPs.. they wouldn't be unique anymore, would they??
Few photographers become brands... and you don't really need to be a brand to be successful, which I will share in the talk..
It's how you define your terms loh. Everyone have their own definition.
For me, how I calculate AD hours is 7am-11pm so it's actually 16 hours. Even if there's a break in the afternoon, it's still opportunity cost. While you don't charge your customer for the break, you should be aware that these few lost hours pile up when you are in AD business as ricebowl.
I shoot between 900-1.1K shots per AD (all inclusive) and deliver 600-800 pics in prints or CD. However, all selected for delivery is PP. I've been trying to automate this process, but most pics still feels better with "personal touch".
Anyway, shoot-and-burn will be becoming more popular just like budget airlines, of course you get what you pay for.
[/quote]
I shoot between 900-1.1K shots per AD (all inclusive) and deliver 600-800 pics in prints or CD. However, all selected for delivery is PP. I've been trying to automate this process, but most pics still feels better with "personal touch".
Anyway, shoot-and-burn will be becoming more popular just like budget airlines, of course you get what you pay for.[/quote]
You want to do it faster talk to Joho, his is a total personal touch affair and unless I misunderstood him, he can do it within 1 day. His is a very tune up work flow for a post processed look aka his style signature. The real top level pro's have their own automated action sets which can help cut processing time down - both locally and international; its just that it's not something that is talked about a lot.
Grin if you want to count that way it should be from 6am if your shoot start time is 7am and about an hour after you stop shooting - to factor in for transportation. Strange that most of your wedding end at 11pm. Most of mine then to run down about 11.30 to 12. More important the counting hours that the rate charge needs to be correct otherwise no matter how the hours are counted, you will have worked for too little.
I shoot between 900-1.1K shots per AD (all inclusive) and deliver 600-800 pics in prints or CD. However, all selected for delivery is PP. I've been trying to automate this process, but most pics still feels better with "personal touch".
Anyway, shoot-and-burn will be becoming more popular just like budget airlines, of course you get what you pay for.
[/quote]You want to do it faster talk to Joho, his is a total personal touch affair and unless I misunderstood him, he can do it within 1 day. His is a very tune up work flow for a post processed look aka his style signature. The real top level pro's have their own automated action sets which can help cut processing time down - both locally and international; its just that it's not something that is talked about a lot.
Grin if you want to count that way it should be from 6am if your shoot start time is 7am and about an hour after you stop shooting - to factor in for transportation. Strange that most of your wedding end at 11pm. Most of mine then to run down about 11.30 to 12. More important the counting hours that the rate charge needs to be correct otherwise no matter how the hours are counted, you will have worked for too little.
Wat to do...even opening a photo already lag about 5-10 Sec, cannot use a slow PC huh.
You second point being? I tot I stated very clearly: "I calculate..." as in it's my way of calculating my cost. Nothing to do with actual time required to shoot, be it end at 10pm or 1am. (yeah I've done one that ends at 1am due to after dinner "celebration")
As for opportunity cost, I only use the afternoon breaks as AD starts and Ends at unearthly hours, I dun see any other income opportunity during such a timing.
Wow, that's some serious lag. The only time I encountered this even on my P4 3.0GHz Dual Core 2GB PC is when I was evaluating Corel's Paint Shop Pro X and XI, each of my EOS 20D's 8.3MP images took up to 5 seconds to open. With up to 1,500 images from a Chinese wedding, this is not acceptable.
This one I can appreciate. When I shoot a Chinese wedding, it's a 2.5 hours return drive from where I live. The afternoon break after pang teh varies from client to client. I had one that ended 4.30pm and I had to continue shooting evening banquet from 6.30pm, barely enough time to charge batteries, download and backup images and catch a shower and change. On occasions where I am fortunate the tea ceremony ends early, I might check into budget hotel with my videographer or in some cases, I stop by my in-law's place to rest. Either way, it takes close to an hour just downloading and backing up the images and a quick shower. Rest or a short nap is quite a privilege I barely have time for in my 21-Hour Wedding Journey
I using 2.4G P4 wif 512MB ram running AVG, Zone alarm and Ad-aware in the background. I believe the lag is due to my system having too many ex-junk installations, even after uninstalling I believe there are a lot of residues left and even registry cleaners are of no use. I need to reformat my PC and install fresh. Even switching applications lags a second or 2 now. :flush:
No wonder! Even my 4 year old Dell Inspiron 8500 laptop has more juice (P4 2.6GHz, 1GB RAM) but 64Mb GeForce graphics is too limiting although some claim to make no difference for photo editing but I beg to differ. The apps that I run real-time are Avast antivirus and SpyStopper Pro while the others on a need-to basis such as CC Cleaner, Ad-Aware Personal, Spybot. The registry and hard drive cleaners I swear by are: Advanced WindowsCare Pro and TuneUp Utilities 2007 and I have a heavily tweaked out XP Pro 'Services'. My main editing PC is attached to 6 disk drives, 3 are SATA-II and 3 IDE in external enclosures with a combined total of 1.35Terabyte. It's very important to defragment from time to time and two really good defrag tools are PerfectDisk and O&O Defrag.
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