Nelspruit Photographer – How much does photography cost?
Author: admin | Category: PhotographyHow Much does photography cost? Photography is a time intensive occupation. First you spend say 6 hours on site, then you spend 4 or 5 hours preparing a proof disk, Thereafter another 6 or 7 hours “developing” the chosen images in photoshop. and another couple of hours printing and then building the albums.
The question we are exploring is, “How much does photography cost?” We briefly dicussed the hours a photographer will spend on a commission. The avarage is for every hour spent on the shoot, another two will be required to get the prints ready and out. So a photographer charging R 2500.00 for a six hour shoot is in for 18 hours of work excluding the cost of prints. If we allow R 700.00 for the physical prints and albums, Our Photographer is working for R100.00 an hour. Seems good but is it really?
Lets look at the facts, The average photographer can do a maximum of two shoots on a weekend, Most weddings happen on Saturdays, go figure. so lets call it 36 hours a week at R 100.00, thats R 3600 a week. pretty fair, you would think, that works out to R 14 400 a month.
Lets look at overheads, A Photographer needs a good camera, some good lenses and a decent computer to process the images. All of this equipment needs maintenance, upgrading and sometimes just replacing.
The camera body I use is a Canon EOS 40D, My back up is a Canon EOS 400D, The two bodies cost nearly R 20 000 on their own, My Primary lense is a Canon 28 – 200 lense costing about R 6500, The other lenses work out at about 15k in value. The flash on the primary camera cost another R 4000. so a total of R 49 000 excluding the bags.
The Computer sans software another R 8000.00, The software add another 11000, Our basic overhead is now getting to R 68 000. Add in some advertising at about R 48 000 per year so R 96 000 for two years because I know we upgrade most things at least bi annualy. so that is R 164 000 for equipment and advertising every two years. In the same period the hard working photographer at R100.00 an hour will have earned R 345 600.00, leaving him or her with R 181 600 gross for two years or R 7566.00 a month. What is this photographer going to use to get to his gigs? a bicycle? Where is he going to live? I know in the neighbourhood I live in, after rent, water and lights theres nothing left to buy something to eat.
I have heard many tales in my life, but something that has stuck with me is eating soup with a fork will keep you busy, but it won’t keep the hunger at bay. Running a business without profit is like eating soup with a fork.
So you actually came to find out what photography costs? Click here and you can do all the calculations you like. There is an online photography cost calculator right there.
Tags: Costs, Photographer, Quote, Wedding photographer, Wedding Photography
July 25th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
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July 27th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Well said bru – Taking pics is very expensive. I just went and added up my capital inlay, it’s scary. And i thought digital photogrpahy was cheap…..