When I started those 43 years ago, the cost of living was substantially lower. Gas prices have tripled to quadrupled, the cost of supplies have increased, and time is more valuable.

Film vs Digital

In the film days, you shot the subject and then either (after you learned to do so) processed or had a company process your film. This could take up to a week. Then you see what looks the best and try to sell a product to the customer.

Digital days, you can get your files downloaded, do a quick process, and get your customers results in a matter of minutes (hours sometimes).

Time

In both cases, time is the most important item to a photographer. If a shoot for an event takes five hours, there may be up to three plus hours to process, weed out the bad images (yes there can be bad images), choose the best images for the customer and then get them delivered. At the minimum, this shoot took eight hours of the photographers time. Then include drive time to and from an event. How about a round number of one hour each way. Now it is ten hours. It can be more if your customer is wanting printed material of the event. This can take several hours (depending on size of prints and quantity of the prints), then the delivery method whether it is in person or mailed.

In the above time scenario, for that ten hour shoot and processing i would charge you $800. Yes that is $80 an hour for my travel time, shoot time, and processing time. Turn this into a two day event. Not only am I asking to be paid for day two, but I may need a place to stay the night because I am tired after a nine hours of travel, shooting, and processing. Sure I don’t have to take that one hour drive home, and I will have more time to process the files.

An unexperienced or some one that is just starting out, may charge you less. This is understandable. Minimum experience level, not familiar with the trade, not able to meet the deadlines, are all common. An experienced photographer know what their time is worth. Hence the rate. It is just like any job, the more time and experience your have, the more valuable your rate will be.

Conclusion

The choice still belongs to the customer on who they hire to photograph an event. Remember what your dollar gets you and is it worth the cost for your product.

I hope this was helpful. If you have questions or comments, feel free to write.

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