Why do photographers charge so much??

This topic has been on my heart a lot lately.  Being that it is high-season for portraits and engagements we’ve been busier than ever! We live and work in a “market” where the area is highly-saturated with lots of photographers who span across all styles, experience and price range – and I often get a lot of questions on price.

Not only does everyone do their pricing differently {session fee+prints, digital rights included – or not – high cost prints, low cost prints, you name it!} but in an area like Minneapolis, you can find photographers that charge nothing {portfolio building} to $2,000 for an hour’s portrait session and prints – and $800-$8,000+ for weddings.

But why do some photographers charge so much?? My portrait clients typically spend $450-$600 once all is said and done {digital rights included}.  I understand that for many that isn’t an ideal price range – but I just wanted to share with you why photographers charge what they do.

We have tried to find a happy medium of pricing – a range that gears towards the type of clients we love to work with and a range that we feel we will always provide a product our clients love 🙂

You may think that we have an easy life – we only work on the weekends and get the whole winter off.

But what you may not realize is that every beautiful fall evening there is – we are out taking pictures.

Every prime weekend we are out shooting a wedding;  missing our friends birthdays, niece’s baptism, yearly family reunion and many holiday gatherings.

We respond to emails and phone calls around the clock {and on vacation}

And when we aren’t photographing somewhere – we’re in the office editing, blogging, facebooking, building our SEO and updating the website.

We’re hosting meetings, pre-wedding consultations and wedding reveals.

We’re creating timelines, consulting with vendors and making sure that we are always 100% ready for each wedding, session and meeting.

You could say – just hire someone to help!  Well, we could – but part of the reason people book us {or so we hope!} is because of the personal touch we bring in working with our clients personally.  You could say – actually TAKE a vacation…. {I wish I could take a week straight of no emails!  But weddings can’t wait!}

Don’t get me wrong – we love what we do – and feel so blessed to be where we are, but we’ve also worked hard to get here, we’ve dedicated ourselves 110% to our business and do our very best to make sure everyone is cared for.

We aren’t perfect – but we certainly strive to be.

The next time you’re looking to book a session – please know that we understand price is a factor.  Please know that you need to choose what’s best for your budget – I hope that I can someday work with you whether it’ a mini-session, full session or wedding day.  At DnK Photography we value getting to know you and your desires for your session – and working with awesome people like your self who love great pictures and want to have fun taking them is what makes every missed holiday, missed night out with friends and missing just an evening away worth it 🙂  And as Dan pointed out to me – I {Karin} didn’t write this to make anyone feel guilty.  I do love spending an evening taking beautiful pictures of wonderful people.  It truly is an honor!

xox,

k:)