I have a super wedding couple who are getting married in August and guess where the reception will be? Yep! Is that gorgeous or what? Check out the website here; http://www.prestigeyachtcharters.com/yacht_lexington.asp
This is going to be one awesome summer! :)
~Valeen
by Shawn Ritcher
Shawn is a photographer in CA and has written this article, with his permission I'm posting it here. If you have any comments or questions, let us know, ok? :) ~ Valeen
In this digital age where everyone has digital cameras, scanners and home "photo printers", when people upload their photos to a local drug store website and pick them up a few hours later, we hear this all the time - How in the world do Professional Photographers charge $55 for an 8x10 when they cost just $1.50 at the drug store?
Here's why.
Simply put, you're not just paying for the actual photograph, you're paying for time and expertise. First, let's look at the actual time involved. If you don't read this entire page, at least read this first part.
For a two hour portrait session:
- one hour of travel to and from the session
- two hours of shooting
- 30 minutes of setup, preparation, talking to the client etc.
- 30 minutes to load the photos onto a computer (2 - 4 Gb of data)
- 30 minutes to back up the files on an external drive
- 3 - 4 hours of Photoshop time including cropping, contrast, color, sharpening, saving a copy for print and a copy for the internet and backing up the edited photographs
- 2 - 3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions, receive their order and payment, order their prints, receive and verify prints, package prints, schedule shipment and drop package off at Fed Ex.
- For local customers, we also print a set of all of their photos, and meet them at our studio to review the photos and place their order. Meeting and travel time averages 2 hours.
You can see how one two hour session easily turns into more than ten hours of work from start to finish. So when you see a Photographer charging a $200 session fee for a two hour photo shoot, you are not paying them $100 / hour.
For an eight hour wedding:
- I won't bore you with the details, but an eight hour wedding typically amounts to at least two to three full 40 hour work weeks worth of time. Again, if they are charging you $4,000 for an eight hour wedding, you are not paying them $500 / hour.
Now for the expertise.
Shooting professional photography is a skill, acquired through years of experience. Even though a quality camera now costs under $2,000 taking professional portraits involves much more than a nice camera.
Most Professional Photographers take years to go from buying their first decent camera to making money with their photography. In addition to learning how to use the camera itself, there is a mountain of other equipment involved, as well as numerous software programs used to edit and print photographs, run a website etc.
And let's not forget that you actually have to have people skills, be able to communicate, make people comfortable in front of the camera - and posing people to make them look their best in a photograph is a skill all by itself.
Think of it this way - the next time you pay $X to get your hair done, a pair of scissors only costs $1.50. But you gladly pay a lot more to hire a Professional.
What about the cheap studios at the mall?
Please don't compare us to the chain store studios. But if you must, consider all of the time and work that we put into our photographs, compared to what they do. Good luck getting a two hour photo shoot at a chain store. Not to mention they won't come to the beach! And of course, look at our work compared to theirs. You get what you pay for.
The truth is, most of the mall and chain store studios lose money. In fact, in 2007 Wal-Mart closed 500 of their portrait studios because of the financial drain they were putting on the company. What the chain stores bet on is that you'll come in for some quick and cheap photos, and while you're there, you'll also spend $200 on other things. They don't have to make money, they are just there to get you in the door.
Conclusion
We hope that those who have taken the time to read this page will have a better understanding of why professional photographs cost so much more than the ones that you get from your local drug store.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Shawn, Pamela & Gavin Richter
Caught on Film Photography
I went through some of the weddings that we have already booked so far this year and it's going to be a blast! Lots of places we've already worked, and a couple of new ones too. I'm totally psyched and can't wait! So anyone looking for awesome places to have their wedding and/or reception, check out these gorgeous venues. Gotta love it!! :)
Mystic Seaport and the Seamen's Inne, Mystic, CT
The Water's Edge, Westbrook, CT
St. Clements Castle, Portland, CT
Fisher's Island, NY
Lake of Isles, North Stonington, CT
Saybrook Point Inn, Old Saybrook, CT
Ski Sundown, New Hartford, CT
Harkness Mansion, Waterford, CT
Branford House, Avery Point, Groton, CT
Quidnessett Country Club, N. Kingstown, RI
Lord Thompson Manor, Thompson, CT
Tunxis Plantation, Farmington, CT
These are some of my favorite places for so many reasons besides the fact that they are all absolutely gorgeous! Like maybe the food is fabulous too?? Right Jeremy?
There are more places and vendors that I love to work with so I decided that I'll be adding a page on the website to help you with your plans. If anyone has suggestions and a good referral, let me know, ok?
Happy Planning!
~ Valeen Thivierge
And it looks like they're almost all either wedding or photography related links, too! For a change ;)
Here's a weird one: If you happen to have a digital picture frame and it came from Best Buy, you may want to take a closer look. Apparently a bunch of them came from the manufacturer with computer viruses on them. Not a major deal and easy to fix, but still. Might wanna check yours out. Effected brand was "Insignia" and the model number is NS-DPF10A. Original Washington Post mention is here.
Ok first off, I'm no prude. (Can a guy even be a prude??) And I get the whole fashion thing, I mean we kind of have to to even be in this business. But check out this NY Times article about wedding dress trends. Is this what's coming? Seems a bit over the top to me, but I'll let you make up your own minds ;)
How 'bout this: a wedding ring with the point sticking out! OUCH! Designer Tobias Wong has come up with this killer (literally) wedding ring design that can "cut skin down to the bone". Hey nothing says romance like a terrorist weapon on your ring finger ;) Only one article linked to this and I couldn't verify independently so who knows if it's real or not, but man I would not want to be on the business end of this thing!
The most bizarre wedding cake I've ever seen. And then there's Mario.
Ok last one, if you haven't heard about this yet you need to check 
Ok that's it for today! Enjoy the snow tomorrow!!
-Bruce
Ok folks just some quick links before I head out for a long weekend. I have a few posts cued up to launch automatically while I'm away (What? It's technology, what could possibly go wrong??) so check back every now and then, or just plug us into your RSS reader and be done with it, will ya? ;)
Sorry but any comments will hafta wait until I get back to be published through. I hear our hotel room doesn't even have a phone so wireless is probably out of the question. Besides, Roland and I will be out fishing or wrestling alligators or flying around the swamps in a airboat. Or maybe just hangin' at the hotel pool drinkin' beer. What kind of beer is best for a 9 year old? (Oh I'm kidding, relax...I'll make sure it's light beer)
Hope everyone has a great weekend and I'll post some pics (who me? take pictures??) when we get back!
See ya!
Bruce
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Retrevo is a web site designed to match people with electronic equipment they're looking for. No it's not Gadget Dial-a-Date, think of it more as an index of electronic equipment. You can find product manuals, get recommendations on a particular item, or even find support for something you may already own. It's an interesting concept and along the lines of our Valentine's shopping post the other day, they have some gadget shopping ideas for you as well.
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Rumors of Microsoft wanting to buy Yahoo (my favorite potential name I've heard for the new company? Microhoo!) has Flickr users up in arms. I must say, I'm a big fan of Flickr too and would hate to see it ruined. This new group on Flickr is for folks to voice their opinions about it and boy have they ever! Some pretty funny stuff in here and currently it's showing 2,539 members and still growing!
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This is amazing. One family's ritual of taking a photo of each family member on June 17th of each year since 1976. So cool to see the transformations throughout the years! Check it out here.
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Amazing "Web Trend Map", hard to read with this snapshot but if you click on the link, it's an intricate map of everything hot on the web right now. As a twist, it's an actual map of the Tokyo-area train routes.
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Have you heard about Google's 411 telephone information service? It's totally free, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411. It works great and you can even get an SMS message sent that includes the information about the business or number you called about. Check it out here.
