For the class of 2012, senior year is fast approaching. There will be many decision made in these next few months, not least of which should be WHO will take your senior portraits? This and many other questions should command careful consideration and not be solely driven by cost. So, how do you choose your senior portrait photographer? Very carefully!
The following is an excerpt from an article written by Katharina Smith, Studio Director of Photographic Essays, a studio in Woodinville WA. ”Look at photographs from last year’s seniors – on their ads, in their studios, and in person. Ask your friends with past seniors if you can look at their portraits. The way you see other kids in their work should make them look natural, not overly posed.
While your photographer should be on the “same page” as you and your child, most photographers won’t have a complete vision until they’re in the session, working one on one with the senior, alone. That’s when real personality and real involvement comes out.
If the photographer is good at what they do, they will be very personable and someone you feel at ease with quickly… and that will translate to real expressions.
Pricing shouldn’t be the deciding factor, because you get what you pay for. Yes, in this digital age, its easy to get things quickly and cheaply, but that’s exactly what you’ll be getting — quick cheap work. A real artist knows the value of their skill, and their prices will reflect that.
This is one of the only times your child will have special portraits made of just them – its worth every cent you put into it, because you will never have this time back and you will always want to remember it.”
As stated above, you shouldn’t trust your senior portraits to anyone with a nice digital camera. Save for and make the investment in quality, custom photography. You will be glad you did.
Custom Photography, an Investment? | St. Charles County Custom Photographer | Radiant Images Photography
May 12th, 2011
What would you consider to be your greatest investment? Something you saved for, dreamed about, planned for? It is probably something you spent a great amount of time thinking about, weighing the options on and then finalized your decision.
I’ve often heard that the greatest investment you’ll ever make is on the purchase of your home. You consider the cost and the size. The square footage and the wallpaper. Every detail is brought into focus. You insure it for its protection – and your peace of mind. But what about the unplanned detours life brings us? As we have seen recently in the news, tragedy strikes in a moment with tornados, fires, tsunamis and more. What if that happened to you? What if you came home to your home on fire? While thankfully, your pets and family had already evacuated, consider if you had just a few precious moments to grab things of great importance before the home was consumed?
Would it be the kitchen spoons or the portrait of your baby on her first birthday? Would it be the couch cushions or the portrait of your grandparents on their 50th wedding anniversary or perhaps the portrait of your wedding day? How about your child’s senior portraits and graduation photo? Your family portrait before the kids all left for college and careers?
While your home indeed is one of the greatest investments you will purchase, I’d submit to you that it is the memories that are on display that are the true investment.
Radiant Images understands the value of your portraits. They understand that you’ve saved financially for them, planned and set aside time for them, and dreamt about what the perfect photo would look like hanging over the fireplace. They know that you want quality products that will become heirlooms in your own family lineage. They are honored that you would consider them and they will give you great return on your investment with quality portraits, fine art prints and custom canvas gallery wraps to adorn your home.
Radiant Images is invested in you too! They spend their time and money on ever increasing education in order to create fabulous portraits that turn into pieces of art for your home. They know and believe that their images will be the ones you grab off your walls should the unthinkable happen.
Radiant Images is waiting for you to contact them today so you can begin investing in your future!
Radiant Images Photography now on Youtube…
March 23rd, 2011
We are excited to announce we now have a Youtube channel. Check out radiantimagesphotog on Youtube and share with your friends. You can also subscribe so you won’t miss any of the videos we post to Youtube. See you on the tube!
Professional Photographers | Why the cost?
March 10th, 2011
This is a very informative, well written article by Shawn Richter of Caught on Film Photography, about why you pay what you do for professional photographers.
Why are Professional Photographers so expensive?
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 $45 for an 8×10 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 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
- 4-6 hours of Photoshop time including cropping, contrast, color, sharpening, saving a copy for print, internet, and backing up the edited photographs
- 2-3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions/emails, receive their order and payment, order their prints, receive and verify prints, package prints, schedule shipment and drop package off at PO that have to be sent.
- 1-2 hr in-person ordering session
You can see how one two hour session easily turns into more than 12 hours of work from start to finish. So when you see a Photographer charge a $200 session fee for a 2 hour photo shoot, you are not paying them $100/hour.
Now for the expertise.
Shooting professional photography is a skill, acquired through years of experience. Even though a quality camera now costs under $3,000, 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 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, the lake, your home, or downtown! And of course, look at our work compared to theirs. You truly 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.
a note from Lori:
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I realize not everyone is financially able to pay for custom photography, and that’s alright. Custom photography is an investment that should be planned for.
One-year old Cake Smash | Saint Charles County Child Photographer | Radiant Images Photography
March 2nd, 2011
What a SMASH we had for Miss ‘C’ and her one year birthday! It has truly been a joy watching her grow this past year. She was the first of our Bebe Bundle participants so we have photographed her at newborn, 3, 6 and 9 months and her one year mark. An incredible time!
One of our many custom collage choices
St. Charles County Family Photographer | Radiant Images Photography
August 17th, 2010
We had so much fun with the ‘C’ Family…the heat didn’t even deter us…too much! They wanted to get family portraits done before their daughter left for her first year in college. What a sweet, sweet family. I was honored to be a part of creating the memories.
They grow up so fast...almost in the blink of an eye!
Radiant Images | St. Charles County Newborn Photographer
July 7th, 2010
I was blessed to have a session with baby ‘E’ this morning. I feel a special bond with her because, like me, she was adopted by her parents and blessed with a wonderful home. I was just a mere 3 weeks old when my parents brought me to my new home, but ‘E’ was brand-spanking new! What a glorious gift for mommy and daddy! Congrats Charla and Mike!!
A precious gift from God, Miss 'E'
ANNOUNCING: Radiant Images Launches New Website
July 5th, 2010
It has been a long and winding road, taken many, many hours of dedicated work by my tireless webmaster and resulted in many 2 a.m. bedtimes, but it’s finally LIVE! Radiant Images Photography now has a totally customized website, RadiantbyLori.com. Come an visit our new home on the web, browse through our image galleries, watch a few session videos and peruse all of the tips and portrait information available to you. We are excited about this new site and the many cutting-edge features it utilizes and we want to hear what you think.
If you are a client of Radiant Images, chances are one of your images is gracing the site. If you are not a client we would love to change that. Here’s your chance to take advantage of our excitement…we are offering a FREE 11×14 Gallery Wrap (a value of $285) with any package purchase now through the end of July. Your session must happen between July 5th and July 31st to be eligible for this amazing deal. I look forward to seeing you in the lens!
Blessings!
Lori
Why are Professional Photographers so expensive?
April 9th, 2009
(This article has been very well received by the photography community, and is now referred to by many Photography websites across the country)
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 8×10 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.