Part TWO: Working For Yourself

Wow! That’s A Great Photo… you must have an amazing camera!
Here's the second in a series of posts on WORKING For Yourself

So, today’s post will be about Why Does Photography Cost So Much?

In today’s world, everyone (...well almost everyone…) has a camera. Or a phone with a camera. So, why is a professional photographer so expensive? I mean, $250 for an hour in a session for my headshot? Or “HOW MUCH is the wedding going to cost me?"

Look at an amazing photographer’s work. The camera never took a single image. Not a one. The photographer did. There are plenty of examples of photographers with a cheap throwaway camera, creating stunning images. And tons of SHIT work posted by every idiot on the planet, with an expensive camera.

It’s NOT the cost of the camera that makes a good image. The photographer spends years working on their craft. Lessons, practice, more classes, and time on each image, perfecting it… before you get that single print.

A photographer makes, on average, somewhere between $30,000 USD to $45,000 USD, depending on what metric you use (US Bureau of Labor) or one of a dozen other stats online.

A photographer spends between $1500 and $7500 on a camera. No one has only one, or they’d be out of business when it dies. So, backup camera, too. Maybe another $250 to $10,000 on lenses. Add in a tripod at $500-$1000, accessories like filters, flash, soft boxes, grip arms, backgrounds, Camera bags, batteries, etc. It all adds up.

AND gets replaced every 3 or 4 years.

Laptop or some sort of computer is a must. An entry level one is $1000 for running Photoshop and Lightroom. Realistically, a decent one will cost $2000, plus backup drives, memory cards for the camera, etc.

Other Costs:
Also, a pro photographer has insurance. Both liability, and their own health insurance. Transport to shoots, expenses like hair and makeup artists, or fees to shoot in certain locations, etc.

Being in business means accounting fees for their books and taxes, etc. Office expenses, printing, advertising, websites, email, phone lines, etc. All the normal costs of being in business.

As for their time, Rarely, one works 52 weeks a year, so, there’s down time in billing. Office time doing normal admin stuff, like emails, calling people, scheduling, marketing, and sales, sales, sales!

On any given shoot, there’s pre shoot prep time. There’s the shoot, there’s editing afterwords, there’s time in Lightroom, and photoshop for images, and there’s pre press, and printing time too.

Classes for keeping up with software, and equipment techniques, take time and money, too.
Lastly, there’s this to think about:

That $1500 or $3000 wedding shoot?
A photographer can only work so many weddings a year… maybe 20. 25? That works out to much less than $35 or so an hour. Given all the time spent on running the business and making the shoot. That’s earning less than a mechanic, or carpenter, or plumber. if you want to feel even sadder... remember, you could be babysitting and make almost as much as a starting out photographer. And new, nervous moms are easier than the Mother of The Bride on wedding day!

So, next time you say to a photographer, "Wow! That’s A Great Photo… you must have an amazing camera!” imagine saying to a chef at a fancy restaurant, “This was a fabulous dinner. You must have amazing pans.”

Swear to you… it’s not the amazing pans that made the meal, and it’s sure as hell not the fancy camera… it’s the person behind the tools.

Part 3 WORK for yourself: Camera? What Camera?
Part 1 WORK for Yourself: How Much Can I Make?