Prices, Talent, Quality, & Time

After much thought, and talking with other photographers, I have come to the conclusion that my prices are way too low for the services I offer. When I started doing this last fall, I honestly was a bit over whelmed by the prices I found at other area photo studios, and other natural light photographers.

I felt then, and still feel now, that quality portraits can be done without costing an arm & a leg. I have finally come to a happy medium, though, after sitting down and doing the math on my sessions. Counting the time of the session, and the time spent editing, I am currently making less than minimum wage per hour spent on each session.

I feel that while I love what I do, I am undervaluing my own talents severely. It took a lot of hard thinking, and a lot of advice before I came to the very hard decision to raise my prices somewhat, while still keeping them at what I feel is an affordable price.

All sessions booked currently will remain at the prices they were quoted when the session was booked. Those prices are:

Mini Session: $25
Family, Child, Engagement Sessions: $40
Senior Portrait Sessions: $50

In order to feel that both my time and talent are being compensated, and without feeling as though I am over charging, my new prices are as follows:

Mini Session: $40
Family, Child, Engagement Session: $60
Senior Session: $70

In addition, there is a small change to the session packages as well. Currently, they all come with a CD with the chosen 10, 15, or 25 High Res images, suitable for printing at sizes of up to 16x20 in size. As I have recently found a new print service, which has fast turn around and fantastic print & paper quality, I am now going to offer only low-resolution CD's with the session, or a high resolution CD for purchase.

The low resolution CD's will include all your images & edits up to a printable 4x6 size, with a small water mark on the corner.

The high resolution CD's will be available for purchase for $20 each.

I have already posted my printing prices, and as long as my print service does not change their prices, I will not be changing my printing prices. I feel this is one way where I can still offer substantial savings to my clients over many other photographer services.

Many places charge as much as $30-50 for a single 8x10 image. My price will stay firm at $5. Currently, the prices I offer for printing are comparable to going to the local photo departments at the department store or pharmacy. However, the quality of the paper, the color, and the image is far superior to what you will find elsewhere.

To be fair to anyone who has been considering a session with me, my new prices will go in effect for any sessions booked on or after June 1st. Sessions booked by May 31st can be for any time this summer, they just need to be on my books by then to qualify for my old prices. That gives people a week to book at the current prices, before they go up.

I want to just say thank you to everyone who has talked with me about this, and to say that while I hope this does not upset anyone, I do feel that it was a necessary change.

Heather
Expressions by Heather Photography