4 ms·

It's obviously demand-based, but when I went through this a few years ago, the least experienced people we talked to were asking in the $2k range (this is in SF

It's obviously demand-based, but when I went through this a few years ago, the least experienced people we talked to were asking in the $2k range (this is in SF). Book 30 of those a year and you're grossing $60k. You have to work weekends and there are consultations and other stuff, but it still strikes me as a lucrative job if you can pull it off. The wedding photographers have some clever ways to sell you more stuff too. Most of them want to retain the rights to the photos that you pay them to take, so they can sell prints to your guests or license them as stock art and stuff. I actually got into a shouting match with one photographer over that -- I insisted on treating the photos as works for hire under US copyright law. One guy had "his and her iPods" that he would load up with wedding pics at the end of the reception. The cost? $1000. Yeah, no thanks.

rbritton 16y ago
$60k would be great if that were all income, but the majority of it isn't. After everything is accounted for (product cost, equipment depreciation, studio space, updated samples, advertising, etc), the profit amounts to 20-30% of it We spend about $1500/mo here just on studio rent and utilities. I won't go into your second paragraph, though, because that mostly boils down to a difference of opinion.
- bricestacey 16y ago
  It seems counterintuitive to simply list cost of rent and utilities when discussing photographers as if no other business suffers the same. It'd be more interesting to list expenses specific to the industry.
  - DougBTX 16y ago
    Yes, obvious standards costs of business, but the post above does the calculation: 2k x 30 = 60k salary. If you're arguing with someone who doesn't have the basics down, that's the place to start.
    - plnewman 16y ago
      I did say "gross $60k", and I meant something more like "revenue" than "salary". Obviously there are expenses that come out of the basic fees, but when I was doing this, the people I talked to at the lower end of the cost spectrum seemed to operate without some of the expenses that came up (ie, home studio, little/no advertising). The point I was trying to make was, wedding photography is competitive but potentially lucrative if you can establish yourself, particularly in markets like SF.
prawn 16y ago
Part of that "other stuff" would be countless hours of finishing/retouching/correcting, etc. Some photographers will spend a week P/T to work through the photos they took on one night. I think there'd be a few people who get into wedding services expecting it to be lucrative and then find it a lot more difficult than they expect. I've mentioned on here before (check comments history) a client of mine who got married, noticed the huge prices, bought a wedding services business and then sold it within six months - more hassle than it was worth!

rbritton 16y ago

$60k would be great if that were all income, but the majority of it isn't. After everything is accounted for (product cost, equipment depreciation, studio space, updated samples, advertising, etc), the profit amounts to 20-30% of it We spend about $1500/mo here just on studio rent and utilities. I won't go into your second paragraph, though, because that mostly boils down to a difference of opinion.

bricestacey 16y ago
It seems counterintuitive to simply list cost of rent and utilities when discussing photographers as if no other business suffers the same. It'd be more interesting to list expenses specific to the industry.
- DougBTX 16y ago
  Yes, obvious standards costs of business, but the post above does the calculation: 2k x 30 = 60k salary. If you're arguing with someone who doesn't have the basics down, that's the place to start.
  - plnewman 16y ago
    I did say "gross $60k", and I meant something more like "revenue" than "salary". Obviously there are expenses that come out of the basic fees, but when I was doing this, the people I talked to at the lower end of the cost spectrum seemed to operate without some of the expenses that came up (ie, home studio, little/no advertising). The point I was trying to make was, wedding photography is competitive but potentially lucrative if you can establish yourself, particularly in markets like SF.

prawn 16y ago

Part of that "other stuff" would be countless hours of finishing/retouching/correcting, etc. Some photographers will spend a week P/T to work through the photos they took on one night. I think there'd be a few people who get into wedding services expecting it to be lucrative and then find it a lot more difficult than they expect. I've mentioned on here before (check comments history) a client of mine who got married, noticed the huge prices, bought a wedding services business and then sold it within six months - more hassle than it was worth!