Ran across an excellent blog post today from Rob Miracle. Please visit his blog by clicking HERE to read the post in it’s entirety. I am posting an excerpt below:
“In real ity, a por trait pho tog ra pher appears to be mak ing money hand over fist, but they are not. There is a large “Cost of Doing Busi ness (COB)” involved. First, they have a stu dio in most cases. The rent alone will run $1000 or more a month. Add in util i ties, insur ance, loan pay ments on expen sive equip ment ($2000 per lens, $3000 per cam era body, $2000-$3000 in light ing), any employ ees, and other expenses have to be paid for if you are shoot ing or not. Once a pho tog ra pher knows his COB, then she can fig ure out how many sit tings (or wed dings) per month they will have and hope fully the sit ting fee off sets these costs. Even pho togra phers who shoot on loca tion have sim i lar expenses to be maintained.
A pho tog ra pher can not shoot 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, so the $200 for the sit ting has to cover a lot of time not shoot ing. There is the time involved in book ing your ses sion, work ing on adver tis ing and such just to get you as a client. Once booked, there is the pho tog ra phy time. After that, there is the post pro duc tion time, which can be con sid er able, the post-session meet ing to proof the pho tos, the time to pho to shop the final prod ucts, get them to the lab, get them back to you and then spend time with the account ing. For a typ i cal 8 hour wed ding, the photog ra pher will spend 50 hours of time.
Lets break down that $25 for the 8×10. No self-respecting pro pho tog ra pher is going to sell you prints from Wal mart. The lab price for an 8×10 will be between $4 and $8 per 8×10 sheet (2 5×7’s, 8 wal lets, etc.). The pro-lab may have to ship the prints which will most likely go pri or ity. So if you only order one 8×10, thats going to add another $5 to the cost. That $25 8×10 now has a phys i cal cost of $9-$13. If the pho tog ra pher has to ship the print to you, that adds another $5 (up to $14-$18).
At this point the pho tog ra pher has $10 that he can put in the bank towards his salary.
Guess what. The Tax-man says “Not so fast”. A small busi ness orga nized as a sole-proprietorship (which many pho tog ra phers do) have to pay out 50% in taxes. Thats right, half. There is the Fed eral Income Tax, State Income Tax and this “small busi ness tax” which goes to cover Social Secu rity and Medicare that you normally have deducted from your pay check. The rates for a small busi ness owner are much higher than for an employee.
Out of that $25 you are being charged, the pho tog ra pher gets to pocket about $5 to pay his liv ing expenses.
If you are try ing to make a liv ing, you can’t sell 8×10’s for $5. Because of this, you will find fewer and fewer peo ple using pho tog ra phy as their pri mary income and more and more peo ple doing it part time or as a sec ondary income.”
I am proud to say that LanierStar Photography is my only job. I am not working a Full-Time or Part-Time job in addition to running LanierStar. For that reason I can guarantee that you receive your proofs and products in a timely manner and that you can reach me during regular business hours. Your wedding or portrait session is at the top of my priority list! All of my pricing is based on what I need to run my business, pay my taxes and pay my personal bills. It’s not glamorous, but I’m happy to be able to do something that I love!
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