The Nitty Gritty……

Being a new small business owner, there’s so much to learn……

Marketing, Insurance, Gear, Product Presentation, Post Production, Taxes, Scheduling, and oh yeah,  learning how to use a camera & assortment of lenses.

Back in December of 2009, only 1.5 months after buying my first DSLR camera, I was contacted by our two recent brides to shoot their weddings. I was thrilled. I was exstatic. I was over the moon. I was terrified. I was naive.

…. but at least I recognized my terror and naive-ness…. and had time to conquer those issues. 

I spent the next 9-10 months battling my lack of knowledge, by learning anything and everything I possibly could about the wedding photography industry, from a photographers point of view. (I already knew enough from the brides point of view!). Thank you Google and SWPB (a Flickr forum) for being there to answer my questions. You’re an invaluable resource.

When I first advertised that I was willing to shoot weddings for $500 a pop, I had NO CLUE what that meant, how much of that money would actually make it back to our bank account once we were all said and done with the event….. but alas, contracts were signed and their teeny tiny deposits were paid. I was still excited that these two lovely girls were giving me a chance. That’s hard to get.

I’m going to talk a little about money. Money is an uncomfortable thing to discuss. This will be a real breakdown of money to shoot a wedding. So prepare yourself.

Why am I sharing this? I think it’s important for clients (and others who might want to get into this business) to see what we spend, and what we take home. Remember we are artists, we are the ones you chose to freeze your wedding day. We are the ones who provide you with a tangible memory- your caterer, your florist, your church & reception hall all can’t do that. Their services last a few hours, ours don’t.

On Monday morning I decided to really depress myself by running the numbers of our last wedding. Now before you see this- yes I know as a noobie photographer I don’t do things the most efficiently, I take forever to edit, I didn’t charge my clients travel costs. I made mistakes. I am learning. At least I knew going into this that my payment would be the experience I would gain more than anything not the money.

Here we go:

Worked wedding 11.5 hours (10AM-930PM)
11 hours of driving
6 nights editing @ 4 hours each night (24 hours)
Sunday 10AM-9PM editing, blogging, album design (11 hours)
Hours Total= 57.5

Album gift $60
Print gifts $12.90
Shipping ~$10
Materials (CDs- $3.90, CD Sleeve- $1, Print Box- $3)
Gas (5 hours there, 6 hours back, 704 miles / 38mpg= 18.5 gallons x $2.70= $49.95)
Hotel in Kitty Hawk- $111
$$$ Total= $251.75

$500- $251.75= $248.25 / 57.5 hours = $4.32 an hour / 2 shooters = $2.16 an hour (before taxes)
 

I didn’t include our gear- I wasn’t quite sure how to bring that into the equation. This also doesn’t include any overhead costs like the electricity in our house where I edit. It doesn’t include the wear and tear on my car. It doesn’t include taxes! It doesn’t include the insurance we carry on our gear & our business. I would venture to say that had I included those things, we wouldn’t have pocketed a dime.

$2.16 an hour is mind boggling, isn’t it!?!?!??!?! 

At our current rate we would have made this:

$1850- $251.75= $1598.25 / 57.5 hours = $27.80 an hour / 2 shooters = $13.90 an hour. (before taxes)

At our 2011 rate we would have made this:

$2150- $251.75=  $1898.25 / 57.5 hours = $33.01 an hour / 2 shooters = $16.50 an hour (before taxes) Roughly $34,000 a year before taxes…. or well under $30k after taxes. (If we work 40 hours a week for 52 weeks)

Remember, this money also has to be saved to a.) pay those taxes b.) save up for any new gear we want to buy…. (a new D700 for Jeremy will run us over 2k to buy) and c.) live off of the rest!

I don’t do this to for any other reason than to educate the public. I think many people see a number…. like $3k and wonder how in the world photographers can charge that much!?!? or why anyone would pay that much? Simple. We need to live above poverty, and you want pretty photos from a reliable photographer.

It’s likely that if you hire a “budget” photographer they either won’t provide quality service or products, and/or they aren’t legitimate businesses. Yes, we started at $500, being naive, but quickly realized no photographer can run a thriving business charging that amount.

I hope this has helped educate you, I know looking at these numbers on Monday morning surely opened my eyes very wide.