PHOTOGRAPHY

CL Buchanan

[ Understanding Pricing ]

Considerable time is involved in downloading, sorting and evaluating the hundreds of captures from a wedding shoot. Then there's the actual manipulation of each image. An average of 8 to 10 minutes per image is easily attributable to various fine tuning processes. In my case, an average of 40-50 finished high quality images per hour of coverage are typically produced. Roughly 10 hours of meticulous processing work is required for every hour spent shooting.

As with any other business, there's overhead! Countless professional grade tools, endless upgrading and maintenance of most of those, traveling and industry conventions. All of these constitute real world costs and need to be reflected in the price charged. Logically, the lower the the asking price, the more short cuts are necessary to compensate! There's no magic bullet! Tools and processes are not trivial subjects in this industry! Unfortunately, they vary wildly from one photographer to another.