Thanks to an over-saturated market and more millennials jumping into marriage than ever, many wedding photographers are working too hard for too little.
Sure, you can easily make a few thousand dollars photographing a wedding, but by the time you’ve edited every single photo, met with the bride and groom numerous times, factored in your overheads and photographed the actual event, you could be looking at an hourly rate of minimum wage or less. So, how do you revamp your business to be more profitable? One option is to make your shoot-to-disc philosophy a thing of the past.
While brides love nothing more than sifting through several hundred images of their wedding (each of which you’ve spent time editing), giving them a competitive flat fee for hours of your work isn’t worth it –– especially when there’s no guarantee that they’ll even buy prints from you. Renowned Seattle-based photographer Jim Garner realized this when his own business almost went bust, which is why he made a successful transition into art-focused photography.
“We are appealing to the segment of the population that values art,” Jim told RangeFinder in a recent interview. “We specialize in the more artistic wedding, where the finished product is a beautiful art book and beautifully mastered wall prints. People who value the art have budget for the art. As a result, we are thriving.”
Instead of giving his clients a flat rate for his time as well as a disc of their wedding photos, Jim sells them an album of curated images that tell the story of their wedding, as well as fine art prints of specific photos. He doesn’t even come close to editing every image that he shoots –– in fact, Jim only edits the images he knows will go into the final album.
One of the most advantageous aspects of Jim’s art-focused approach is that it will not only make you extra money, it will costs you less time. You’ll be able to take on more clients by doing less in the way of post-processing, while simultaneously creating a luxurious and high-end product that is meaningful to your bride and groom!
Check out Jim’s upcoming creativeLIVE course, From Images to Art: Storytelling in Wedding Photography, from April 24-26 for more of his valuable tips and insights.
Source: RangeFinder
