>Ken, for the $%&@# pathetic sum one makes, is it worth it? <g>
Well, let's see... A basic wedding shoot requires about $100-120 worth of
film plus another $150 for process and proof. $10 in batteries and a $15
album for presenting the proofs. Another $15 for dry cleaning (you really
sweat so don't expect to wear a suit to more than one wedding). Add in
mileage costs of oh, $10 (to/from lab too). If you add in wear and tear on
the equipment, and I do at $3 per roll for wedding work, that's another $39.
$359 is the total material costs. Now this is just for the basic proof
package, not including any reprint costs. My standard markup on any job is
always a minimum of double my costs. This means that I'd have to charge
about $720 for the shoot. Unfortunately, the market won't quite bear that
so I charge between $600-$650 for the basic shoot.
Ok, so I make $250 on a basic shoot (before any reprints). I have spent 1
hour in an interview, 2 hours at the rehersal, and 7 hours at the wedding
and reception. I have another hour in film pickup, dropoff and pickup and
another 2 hours spent going over the proofs, numbering and placing in an
album.
I'm now making $19 per hour for my labers. Taxes, insurance, and equipment
purchases all have to come out of it. Oh, and you don't expect the
assistant (my wife) to work for nothing, do you? And, don't forget
accounting costs.
Weddings are extremely expensive to shoot and in reality most photographers
don't charge enough. Most commercial photographers charge around $1000 a
day plus materials and don't work nearly as hard.
Reprints. Oh, those expensive reprints. We've already established above,
how much real margin there is in the basic shoot, now let's look at some
reprints. My real cost on a standard-crop, color corrected 8x10 is $3.10.
Not bad, in fact a real bargin. Time spent with customer selecting this
8x10 and talking about the crop/etc. is about 15 minutes. With all the
other possible physical costs involved with this 8x10 I figure I have about
$5 in each one, not including my time. Now let's say I sell 10 of these, I
have $50 wrapped up in them and two and a half hours consumed plus another
hour at the lab. You tell me, how much should we charge per print? I won't
charge $45 per print like some do, but $15-25 is definitely reasonable. At
$15 per print I'm making $100 profit divided by 3.5 hours is $28 per hour.
Yes, you can make some money at wedding photography. In fact, if you can
sell packages that range from $1200 on up, you can really make some money.
However, considering that you are giving up most of a Saturday and several
evenings with your family, you must deal with every imaginable personality
both good and evil, and deal with the stress that will probably give you a
coronary at age 40, I don't consider the profit to be great. Good, yes,
but not great.
With every wedding you do you get more and more confident and the images
improve. At first your work will be hit and miss and look only marginably
better than cousin ralph's. You must select the right equipment and go for
the professional "look." That means flashes must be mounted above the lens,
even for verticals. That means exposures have to be correct and "cave"
shots are not allowed. That means the compositions must be artistically
correct. That means you must be able to pull beauty out of people that has
to be created and not just captured. That means you must case the place out
for creative shots involving archetechure and natural light.
Is medium format equipment necessary for wedding work? Technically, no, but
try to be competitive without it. Even if you only shoot one roll with a MF
camera and the rest with 35, it is worth it. For this wedding saturday, I
shot 3 rolls of 220 (about 45 shots with misfires and wasted ends of rolls)
and 8 rolls of 35. Anything that you feel that could be a big enlargement
(11x14, 16x20) make sure you shoot with both formats. Otherwise, the
snapshot stuff (5x7 and smaller) is definitely 35mm territory as you really
won't see much of any difference between the two formats. Just make sure
that you DO NOT fill the frame. Always leave a huge margin on the
left/right sides of the viewfinder as a standard 35mm frame does not crop
evenly to 5x7 or 8x10.
Ken N.
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