We all love to get things for free, right? Such a great feeling! And with Juliette, we hope (in a close future) we will have enough income to be able to accept no-budget projects, but in the meantime we do need to make a living out of photography.
Photography services can look pricey, especially when you are not aware of the amount of work and expenses involved in taking a simple picture. While we love when our clients don’t try to lower our rates, we can also understand when they do. Let us explain:
Photography gear is our biggest investment.
Camera, lenses and studio lights all together can cost the same price as a car:
Cameras = $3000 to $5000
Lense= $600 to $2000
External flash= $600 to $1000
Studio lights= $2000
This is just an average, you can find even more expensive material such as Hasselblad cameras who can be around $15000 (oh the ultimate goal!). You can also add more money for all of the other little accessories such as hard drives, memory cards, filters, tripods, extra batteries…
On top of this, you need to include the repair cost. I fixed my camera and two lenses 6 months ago and the total cost was over $1500.
Don't forget the computer stuff.
Computers are a very important investment for photographers. Except the photoshoot itself, everything happens digitally nowadays: editing, pictures delivery, payment and even customer service. Unfortunately you cannot be a professional photographer without a computer anymore. In order to provide a wonderful and artistic work, we have to invest in great equipment. Since Juliette and I travel a lot (Hello from Rome & Paris!), we needed to invest in a light laptop and each of us paid around $1300.
Let’s not forget about internet. It's a must in our industry and it needs to be fast, so boom, more $$$!
We have to get around.
As photographers, we love to shoot in different places so we need an easy way to travel. When we do not have to carry a lot of equipment and we are not going far, we use public transportation, otherwise we drive. It is more expenses to add on our side: cost of the car, gas, repairs, insurance + the time we spend on the road.
Where we shoot also needs $$$.
As you may already know, a part of our boudoir experience is to shoot in beautiful lofts in Toronto and GTA and we do not rend those places for free. The cost for those type of location can be expensive for us: $100/200 per hour. The price to pay to offer the variety and the quality we do.
Let's not forget...
There is a very simple fact that applies to any person who work for her/himself: if you don’t work you are not paid! Which means, we can’t afford to be sick or take a day off for example. We both work every single day because every little actions we make leads to find new customers and develop our businesses (did you know we do weddings too?), especially since we opened less than a year ago. This hard work also has a cost we need to cover in our pricing.
We are sparing you the taxes and insurance involved in this whole bill too, but yep, there are here too.
This is only the material side of our investment, see you in January for the creative one. Yes our awesomeness has a price too (big smiley face).
With Love.
