TAT and FPQ Question...

Candid Arts

TAT = Turn Around Time.

I'm wondering what the turn around time is for a wedding shoot. Say you take 1000 photos. From the time you take them, to the time they are edited and uploaded and ready to show your customer, what's a good average turn around time for this?

FPQ = Final Product Quantity.

Say you take 1000 photos, what's a decent average of final pictures that "turned out" that will be viewable by the B&G? 100? 200? 600? This is obviously going to vary, so I'm just looking for an average.

Thanks for your help.

Art Scott

TAT
3-4 weeks....at most....with film I turned it around in 10days.......unless processors were giving delays due to a seasonal thing............
if all you're doing is processing and putting into a gallery....then 1-3 weeks.....

FPQ

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600++

Scott_Quier

Candid Arts wrote:

TAT = Turn Around Time.

I'm wondering what the turn around time is for a wedding shoot. Say you take 1000 photos. From the time you take them, to the time they are edited and uploaded and ready to show your customer, what's a good average turn around time for this?

FPQ = Final Product Quantity.

Say you take 1000 photos, what's a decent average of final pictures that "turned out" that will be viewable by the B&G? 100? 200? 600? This is obviously going to vary, so I'm just looking for an average.

Thanks for your help.

TAT - my contract reads that I will have final, edited versions of those that I think tell the story of the day on-line and available for viewing NLT 14 days after the event.

FPQ - I'm asked this question by virtually every prospective B&G. My previous performance has been somewhere between 30 and 75 finished photos per shooting hour ... averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of about 45 - depending on what happens during the day. If there's lots of different stuff going on that number tends to be at the higher end.

However, I had one wedding where the B&G spent 80% of the reception bent over a balcony railing, smoking. There's just so many photos of people smoking that I'm willing to take - about 2

Please note, these are my numbers. The "average count" will vary from one photographer to another. I know others to deliver less and many that deliver more.

Bottom line, be prepared for when (not if) you get asked this question by a prospective client. I guess that's what you are doing right now.

zoomer

Turn around time for appx. 1000 pics taken would be 14 days. Which would include two weekends.

If I take appx. 1000 pics I would deliver appx. 800.
All would be fully processed in Lightroom.
Appx. 100 of my favorites would be tweaked further in Photoshop for their online gallery.

Blurmore

TAT= 2-3 weeks on season 1-2 off.
1000 images taken > 800 after cull > 200-300 perfected to tell the story, balance batch corrected.

Candid Arts

Thanks for the feedback on the time frame question. That helps a lot.

As far as the quantity...600...800? Really? Damn... How many of these 800 do the B&G actually purchase, enlarge, etc?

That seems like a really high "these turned out" rate. But like you said, 200-300 that are favorites. The other 500-600 are just in focus, composed well, not cutting off someones head, exposed well?

The last wedding gallery I looked at from the photographer for my aunt's wedding, there were like 600 photos, but I'd venture to say 70% - 80% of them were...eh. Where as I, if I don't think the photo is great, it goes in the trash.

Blurmore

Candid Arts wrote:

Thanks for the feedback on the time frame question. That helps a lot.

As far as the quantity...600...800? Really? Damn... How many of these 800 do the B&G actually purchase, enlarge, etc?

That seems like a really high "these turned out" rate. But like you said, 200-300 that are favorites. The other 500-600 are just in focus, composed well, not cutting off someones head, exposed well?

The last wedding gallery I looked at from the photographer for my aunt's wedding, there were like 600 photos, but I'd venture to say 70% - 80% of them were...eh. Where as I, if I don't think the photo is great, it goes in the trash.

Every one of the 250-300 shots that I upload to smugmug and are for sale to the family and friends are "money" and contribute to the telling of the client's story. The balance of the shots I deliver to the couple for their use, in case perhaps some family member looks better in one of the "other" shots. I'm not primarily in the business of selling paper, so I have no way to track which shots the couple decides to print or enlarge, but I would imagine that over 95% are from the ones I perfect and upload. I deliver the perfected ones on DVD in a folder called "proofs" and all the rest in a folder called "extras". Of course 100% of what I sell off of my smugmug to family and friends are from the perfected ones. My contract and Limited Liscence to Reprint states that the client is prohibited from publicly displaying, uploading, hosting or selling any of the images without my permission, and I have had no problem with it.

cdonovan

My turnaround time seriously sucks! But it's nothing that surprises the b&g, because it's written in my contract, 4-6 weeks. As I do have another job on top of the photography. I've never had anyone upset by the TAT, I am fully prepaid upfront, and I make sure that within the first few days after the wedding that they have photos online, in their private gallery to look at and oogle over!

I add more as I get them edited, as long as they have something to look at, that makes them very happy!

I've been asked the numbers question before, I think that when all is said and done, the bride sees the final number and thinks, wait a minute, bride x hired y photographer and got z+ pictures, why did i get only z pictures. If you give them as close to an idea as you can of the final number and what will in the end affect that count, they are more willing to work with you...as long as they remember this the whole day

Without really realizing it I realized that my final product quantity was very similar to Scotts', I went back though a number of different weddings and calculated it against the hours and the formula pretty well worked out! I had a bride go a little wonky when her quantity wasn't what she wanted, I stood firm and thankfully had a resource in Scott here on Dgrin to bounce the info onto and be sure that I wasn't the crazy one!

I was feeling inadequate when I learned that people were getting sometimes triple the amount of pictures from other photographers, when I took a closer look though, it wasn't that they were ending up with more unique photos, they were ending up with 3 copies (color, black and white, and sepia) of the same photo.

Scott_Quier

cdonovan wrote:

Without really realizing it I realized that my final product quantity was very similar to Scotts', I went back though a number of different weddings and calculated it against the hours and the formula pretty well worked out! I had a bride go a little wonky when her quantity wasn't what she wanted, I stood firm and thankfully had a resource in Scott here on Dgrin to bounce the info onto and be sure that I wasn't the crazy one!

Good on you to stand your ground and I'm so very happy that information/opinion I provided help you in some small way. That just gives me all sorts of warm fuzzies!

cdonovan wrote:

I was feeling inadequate when I learned that people were getting sometimes triple the amount of pictures from other photographers, when I took a closer look though, it wasn't that they were ending up with more unique photos, they were ending up with 3 copies (color, black and white, and sepia) of the same photo.

As for the different treatments. I go through them and most of the photos I deliver are in color, true to the environment (or WB corrected, as appropriate). Some I do B&W, sepia, etc. I also let the client (usually the bride and groom) know that I'm willing to give them (the B&G) some - but just a few and it's something we negotiate, duplicate photos in treatments other than what I initially supplied.

cdonovan

Scott_Quier wrote:

Good on you to stand your ground and I'm so very happy that information/opinion I provided help you in some small way. That just gives me all sorts of warm fuzzies!
As for the different treatments. I go through them and most of the photos I deliver are in color, true to the environment (or WB corrected, as appropriate). Some I do B&W, sepia, etc. I also let the client (usually the bride and groom) know that I'm willing to give them (the B&G) some - but just a few and it's something we negotiate, duplicate photos in treatments other than what I initially supplied.

It was a huge help, and I'll always be grateful!

The b&W and sepia thing threw me for a loop, it so goes against the whole photographers vision, not all photos translate into black and white/sepia, nor should they. Personally I feel it's a wishy washy way to edit. I've always told my clients that I choose the mixture, When delivered, all are color corrected, and I ask if b&w is something that they do or do not want, if so, then it's usually 80% color, 20% sepia/b&w. From the work that I've seen it's no doubt just an action that is being run, so time isn't a factor, but they have the large number output at the end of the day!

zoomer

My highest picture count ever was 1400. I gave the bride 1200 pictures.
She only contracted for 650.
All of the 1200 pictures she got were good photos. Probably 300 of them were additional effects so appx. 900 unique photos.
I never delete good photos just to hit the contracted photo count or include non-professional quality photos to make the contracted photo count.

I don't include marginal photos to increase the photo counts. If they are not good professional quality photos I do not include them.

I spent three solid weeks editing the photos, worth every minute as they turned out to be some of my best work.

Here is a link in case anyone is interested in checking them out:
http://alloutdoor.smugmug.com/gallery/3654430_8gcAs

Candid Arts

So thank you everyone for your replies and input on this subject, it is very helpful.

I do have a question though for you. When you're going through all your photos and deleting the garbage ones, what is your criteria for deleting them or keeping them?

Personally, if it's not infocus (unless I'm going for OOF), not composed well and can't be fixed with cropping, exposure is beyond fixing, something is being cut off that I don't like, facial expression I don't like...basically if it's not as good as I'm capable of doing I throw it away, thus deleting a lot of photos. Do your 600, 800, 1200 photos you show the bride all fit in that category, or are some of them just more general, generic documentary style photos that aren't like "WOW DAMN" photos?

I've only shot three weddings so far, and all three times I was worried I wouldn't get "the shot", so I took 6. I shot anything and everything I possibly could as many times as time allowed. The last wedding, 10 hours of on-site time, I shot about 1800 pictures. A lot of which were experimentation shots (as I was the 2nd not primary). But even the ones that weren't, I deleted a lot because a lot were duplicates, blurry, over/under exposed, whatever. Someone blinked (I tend to capture blinks FREQUENTLY), someone looked away, someone moved their hand fast and I got the motion blur, whatever. Now I've since been doing a lot of research and practicing and realized that I can calm down a little and take my time to get a higher rate of keepers, but still, I'm worried I won't get 800 keepers out of a 1000 shot batch.

cdonovan

Stay true to your style. I think that the first mistake is to try to fit into a mould of x number of photos at the end of the day. Don't worry about how many are and are not keepers.

One thing that i've learned a lot is that we, as the photographer are worried about white balance, iso, blurr, etc etc more than the client, who have no idea what we're thinking about... they care more about the content than the quality sometimes. They don't care that the only shot that you got of the brides maid coming down the isle had her with her eyes closed! They want as many reminders of the party that they threw and they want what they perceive as value for what they paid. It's really important for the client to realize, before paying a retainer, that they can't look at your payment broken down by cost divided by x number of photos = what each photo cost them. However, that is how a lot of people see it, they need to get their minds behind how we, price our work and ourselves! Easier said than done.

mmmatt

too many final photos can be really overwhelming to some people. But on the other hand, of the 5 pictures you took of Aunt Martha, there may be only one that is the expression that reminds the client of her true essence so it is hard not to include them all. It is a delicate balance I'm finding. If I shoot 1000- 1200 images I usually can whittle it down to about 600-800.

I like to jump on my photos the next day and usually get lost in them for the better part of the first week. I then go through and re-tweek for consistency and then do some effects. I try to deliver files and have the gallery up in 2 weeks and it hasn't been a problem yet. I take the balance of my fee when I deliver a disc to the clients and then I make the gallery live and order a 4x6 proof set after that. Then once they pick their favs I do my enlargements (I include some paper). As I get busier though it will be tough to get them out that quick and I may start farming out my raw conversion eventually.

Matt

ziggy53

I think it important to under-promise and over-deliver.

As an example, I had a family contract me for 9 shots total; that's it, just 9 shots. (Actually it was more like 11 shots to fulfill because of how "they" described the shots. I had given them a shot list but they wanted to work from their description.)

Anyway, it was an unusual case and I agreed to their terms. I already knew the family and I like the family. They also agreed to my terms and I was not doing this for free.

I decided to give them more coverage, of course. They also invited me to the reception (not in the agreement to shoot), so I shot that too.

My delivered "proof" images are against the contracted amount and I delivered 102 images to satisfy their contracted 9 shots. I have an additional 250ish images to deliver once they pay me to satisfy the contract.

It turns out that some very influential people attended the wedding and the reception and you can believe I was working the room for prospects. I made a couple of decent acquaintances at the wedding as well (one a candidate for Illinois Congress - twice.)

The important thing is that by under-promising and over-delivering I was able to achieve something good and mutually beneficial for all parties.

I normally write all my contracts to under-promise somewhat on the image count because it just makes sense (to me) to do so. I love giving people more than they bargained for.

Likewise I write my contracts to give me plenty of time for processing, and then make sure I get them the proofs as fast as I can. Stuff might come up that I could not foresee so I like to make absolutely sure I can meet the goal even with the possibility of problems.

For instance loss of a computer can be a setback, but I try to keep 2 copies of everything, even in-progress stuff, so I can recover fairly quickly if need be.