s/o photography : why do photographers charge SOO much for the digital images?

Anonymous
I understand charging for your time and talent. I understand charging for the prints (although so many photographers overcharge, imo). But why or why do photographers charge SOO much for the digital images? It costs virtually NOTHING to the photographer. I spent 250 on prints but would have spent 500 for the digitals. So the photographer made 250 when they could have made 500. But they wanted 800 for digital AFTER a 250 print purchase!! WTF?
Anonymous
Because the value of what they do is the photographs that they take, not the paper they are printed on. They charge by the photo, which is like a sliding scale payment system, so that people who want more pay more, and people who want less pay less.

When you buy the digital images, you get everything, so you pay a lot for that.
Anonymous
Why didn't you just buy the digital images for $800 and get your own prints made from them? We recently had photos done, and after I figured out how many prints I wanted, I decided it made more sense just to buy the CD so I can have as many as I want printed myself.

The digital image IS their work. If they charge nothing for the digital files, you will just pay the session fee and take the CD & print your own and not order any prints from the photographer. Also, their talent is not just shooting the images - there is a lot of post-processing that goes into making the images look perfect. So it's not like after your session, they just download the images & they're done. It takes knowledge & talent to edit photos well too, and it's time-consuming.

I am not a photographer; just recently started it as a hobby & the more I learn, the more I realize how much there is to know. And I can't figure out how to use editing software to save my life!
Anonymous
I am a photographer and I do not charge this way at all. I have worked for other photographers who did charge this way and almost ALL of the clients had the same reaction as you.

I charge all inclusive for the session, production time and all images, high resolution on the DVD. I prefer not to deal with the reprints, as I have done this for many years and found that many photographers lose money on this.

Now, I have had some photographers think it's crazy that I do it this way and wonder how I make money. However, my all inclusive price is the same as some other photographers session fees and minimum print order price combined. So really, it's not that different and I actually have some of them come back to me to do speciality prints later on.

I understand your frustration. In school, I was taught how to price images. However, when we were taught this, it was still for images being printed from film. It frustrates me as well....especially since most photographers now are self taught and think they know more about photography than you.

That said, there are a couple of photographers in this area who's work I admire and they charge in a similar way. There work is AMAZING. One has done magazine ads and spreads...so I can see her charging more for her time. Outside of her and a couple others, I don't understand how other photographers do it.
Anonymous
Hi, PP! Would love to get your website!
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:I am a photographer and I do not charge this way at all. I have worked for other photographers who did charge this way and almost ALL of the clients had the same reaction as you.

I charge all inclusive for the session, production time and all images, high resolution on the DVD. I prefer not to deal with the reprints, as I have done this for many years and found that many photographers lose money on this.

Now, I have had some photographers think it's crazy that I do it this way and wonder how I make money. However, my all inclusive price is the same as some other photographers session fees and minimum print order price combined. So really, it's not that different and I actually have some of them come back to me to do speciality prints later on.

I understand your frustration. In school, I was taught how to price images. However, when we were taught this, it was still for images being printed from film. It frustrates me as well....especially since most photographers now are self taught and think they know more about photography than you.

That said, there are a couple of photographers in this area who's work I admire and they charge in a similar way. There work is AMAZING. One has done magazine ads and spreads...so I can see her charging more for her time. Outside of her and a couple others, I don't understand how other photographers do it.
Anonymous
I don't have the time to type out a long-winded, full explanation, so read this link:

http://www.professionalchildphotographer.com/information/?page_id=16

Also, to even make a salary of $50,000 per year, a professional custom photographer would have to make sales of about $150,000 a year. Taxes and business expenses (equipment, packaging, products, etc.) eat up the other 2/3. So when you pay a photographer $2,000 total for a photography session + prints or files, they are not getting anywhere close to the entire $2,000. It is a not a profession where's it's easy to get rich, or even to earn a "decent" wage.

This is of course, assuming that the photographers do it the legal way. If someone isn't a legal business and doesn't pay their taxes, of course it's easy for them to offer the whole thing for only $200.

If someone is a legal business who pays taxes and only charges $200 for the whole thing, they are likely earning less than minimum wage (if they put any time into their craft).
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:I don't have the time to type out a long-winded, full explanation, so read this link:

http://www.professionalchildphotographer.com/information/?page_id=16

Also, to even make a salary of $50,000 per year, a professional custom photographer would have to make sales of about $150,000 a year. Taxes and business expenses (equipment, packaging, products, etc.) eat up the other 2/3. So when you pay a photographer $2,000 total for a photography session + prints or files, they are not getting anywhere close to the entire $2,000. It is a not a profession where's it's easy to get rich, or even to earn a "decent" wage.

This is of course, assuming that the photographers do it the legal way. If someone isn't a legal business and doesn't pay their taxes, of course it's easy for them to offer the whole thing for only $200.

If someone is a legal business who pays taxes and only charges $200 for the whole thing, they are likely earning less than minimum wage (if they put any time into their craft).


I am the photographer who posted about the all inclusive price. I charge $450 for the session and disk. I have seen many other photographers charge $200-$250 for the session then a minimum print order of $200-$250. So combined, that is about what I charge. It's not that different. I do it 100% legally and pay my taxes every year, thank you.

I have put plenty of time into my craft. I went to college for photography and learned photography on film. I spent many hours in my darkroom at home and at school. I worked for a couple of 1 hour labs which helped me understand how color works and how to balance it out. While doing this I started assisting wedding photographers and eventually landed a full time job working for one of them for 10 years. After that, I decided to go out on my own because that was the next logical step. I still continue to help out my photographer friends with some post processing stuff b/c they know I can pin down color and make their images pop.

It makes me sad that you think because I do it the way I do it I must either A) not be doing it legally or B) don't put any time into my craft. I have a husband who works and provides well for us and I am very lucky to have that. It enables me to charge the way I do and let people have pretty pictures without it costing them a fortune. It is how I choose to do it. It is neither right nor wrong. Could this change one day in the future? Of course. I have many ideas as to how to make my business grow. However, I have a passion for photography. I LOVE what I do. The most important thing to me with my photography is not making money, but making people happy. If I can make someone feel beautiful or happy, then that is the best payment I could ask for.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I don't have the time to type out a long-winded, full explanation, so read this link:

http://www.professionalchildphotographer.com/information/?page_id=16

Also, to even make a salary of $50,000 per year, a professional custom photographer would have to make sales of about $150,000 a year. Taxes and business expenses (equipment, packaging, products, etc.) eat up the other 2/3. So when you pay a photographer $2,000 total for a photography session + prints or files, they are not getting anywhere close to the entire $2,000. It is a not a profession where's it's easy to get rich, or even to earn a "decent" wage.

This is of course, assuming that the photographers do it the legal way. If someone isn't a legal business and doesn't pay their taxes, of course it's easy for them to offer the whole thing for only $200.

If someone is a legal business who pays taxes and only charges $200 for the whole thing, they are likely earning less than minimum wage (if they put any time into their craft).


I am the photographer who posted about the all inclusive price. I charge $450 for the session and disk. I have seen many other photographers charge $200-$250 for the session then a minimum print order of $200-$250. So combined, that is about what I charge. It's not that different. I do it 100% legally and pay my taxes every year, thank you.

I have put plenty of time into my craft. I went to college for photography and learned photography on film. I spent many hours in my darkroom at home and at school. I worked for a couple of 1 hour labs which helped me understand how color works and how to balance it out. While doing this I started assisting wedding photographers and eventually landed a full time job working for one of them for 10 years. After that, I decided to go out on my own because that was the next logical step. I still continue to help out my photographer friends with some post processing stuff b/c they know I can pin down color and make their images pop.

It makes me sad that you think because I do it the way I do it I must either A) not be doing it legally or B) don't put any time into my craft. I have a husband who works and provides well for us and I am very lucky to have that. It enables me to charge the way I do and let people have pretty pictures without it costing them a fortune. It is how I choose to do it. It is neither right nor wrong. Could this change one day in the future? Of course. I have many ideas as to how to make my business grow. However, I have a passion for photography. I LOVE what I do. The most important thing to me with my photography is not making money, but making people happy. If I can make someone feel beautiful or happy, then that is the best payment I could ask for.


Not the PP, but I like you.
Anonymous
OP,
What do you do for a living? If the photographer gave you a gorgeous shot of your child, you could sell it to an ad agency and make money off of the photographers works. This is rooted in intellectual property constructs. Did you off to buy the digitals? Pre-digital photography, photographers rarely gave the negatives to their clients. I think photography is actually less expensive now.
Anonymous
Can you have the prints you paid for scanned and digitized?
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Can you have the prints you paid for scanned and digitized?


NP and actually, this is what I did. But its not legal. I would have preferred to buy the digital images, but the photographer woudn't sell me the digital images at all at first. With pressing, he agreed, but for $1500
Anonymous
The digital files are effectively the photographer's negatives, most specifically in the case if you receive the files in Raw format. This contains all the unprocessed data that can then be edited as required. So, as stated before, if you get those files (particularly in the case of this Raw format), you do get everything. And of course, if the photographer has gone on to do the painstaking post-processing on the files (usually saving them as JPEGs afterward), then that of course has its own value. Hard to put a number figure on what it should cost, but all this is just to say that you do get a lot for what you have to pay.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:The digital files are effectively the photographer's negatives, most specifically in the case if you receive the files in Raw format. This contains all the unprocessed data that can then be edited as required. So, as stated before, if you get those files (particularly in the case of this Raw format), you do get everything. And of course, if the photographer has gone on to do the painstaking post-processing on the files (usually saving them as JPEGs afterward), then that of course has its own value. Hard to put a number figure on what it should cost, but all this is just to say that you do get a lot for what you have to pay.


Actually, a lot of photographers outsource their post production work and sometimes the cost reflects that as well. If the images are well exposed in the camera then the post production process does not take as long. By exposing correctly, you can batch correct the images and raw corrections and conversions sometimes take no more than an hour. The time really starts to come in when tweaking the jpegs for final images. Not the raw conversion.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I don't have the time to type out a long-winded, full explanation, so read this link:

http://www.professionalchildphotographer.com/information/?page_id=16

Also, to even make a salary of $50,000 per year, a professional custom photographer would have to make sales of about $150,000 a year. Taxes and business expenses (equipment, packaging, products, etc.) eat up the other 2/3. So when you pay a photographer $2,000 total for a photography session + prints or files, they are not getting anywhere close to the entire $2,000. It is a not a profession where's it's easy to get rich, or even to earn a "decent" wage.

This is of course, assuming that the photographers do it the legal way. If someone isn't a legal business and doesn't pay their taxes, of course it's easy for them to offer the whole thing for only $200.

If someone is a legal business who pays taxes and only charges $200 for the whole thing, they are likely earning less than minimum wage (if they put any time into their craft).


I am the photographer who posted about the all inclusive price. I charge $450 for the session and disk. I have seen many other photographers charge $200-$250 for the session then a minimum print order of $200-$250. So combined, that is about what I charge. It's not that different. I do it 100% legally and pay my taxes every year, thank you.

I have put plenty of time into my craft. I went to college for photography and learned photography on film. I spent many hours in my darkroom at home and at school. I worked for a couple of 1 hour labs which helped me understand how color works and how to balance it out. While doing this I started assisting wedding photographers and eventually landed a full time job working for one of them for 10 years. After that, I decided to go out on my own because that was the next logical step. I still continue to help out my photographer friends with some post processing stuff b/c they know I can pin down color and make their images pop.

It makes me sad that you think because I do it the way I do it I must either A) not be doing it legally or B) don't put any time into my craft. I have a husband who works and provides well for us and I am very lucky to have that. It enables me to charge the way I do and let people have pretty pictures without it costing them a fortune. It is how I choose to do it. It is neither right nor wrong. Could this change one day in the future? Of course. I have many ideas as to how to make my business grow. However, I have a passion for photography. I LOVE what I do. The most important thing to me with my photography is not making money, but making people happy. If I can make someone feel beautiful or happy, then that is the best payment I could ask for.


I'm sorry you have reading comprehension problems. I said $200 for the whole thing, not $200 session fee and then a minimum print order. Again, if someone is charging only $200 for the whole thing, they're likely not doing it legally OR making around minimum wage or less OR not putting a lot of time into their product. It is what it is, continue to debate me if you want. I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm not in the area and I'm not running a business (I just do charity portrait work right now).

I am referring to people who are actually making a living out of photography, not people who can afford to just break even because their spouses are supporting the family.
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