what expenses for wedding photography?

wildviper

I am thinking about starting to do photography full time. I hear that there a lot of expenses involved when doing weddings.

Can someone give me an idea of the expenses and average costs?

In my mind, the only expense would be of an assistant or two. Rental of equipment. Insurance and of course my time, but that should be obvious.

Nikolai

I am thinking about starting to do brain surgery full time. I hear that there a lot of expenses involved when doing surgery.

Can someone give me an idea of the expenses and average costs?

In my mind, the only expense would be of a nurse or two. Rental of equipment and the operation room. Insurance and of course my time, but that should be obvious.

wildviper

Nikolai wrote:

I am thinking about starting to do brain surgery full time. I hear that there a lot of expenses involved when doing surgery.

Can someone give me an idea of the expenses and average costs?

In my mind, the only expense would be of a nurse or two. Rental of equipment and the operation room. Insurance and of course my time, but that should be obvious.

Wow someone got off the wrong side of the bed!!!!

Thank you for your help. I was under the impression that this is a forum where we can get help and provide help to other fellow photographers. Perhaps I was wrong....we should have just been born with this knowledge.

chris84

wildviper wrote:

I am thinking about starting to do photography full time. I hear that there a lot of expenses involved when doing weddings.

Can someone give me an idea of the expenses and average costs?

In my mind, the only expense would be of an assistant or two. Rental of equipment. Insurance and of course my time, but that should be obvious.

This tends to be a touchy subject. A professional wedding photographer brings so much more to the table than a bag of gear and an assistant. They don't get the respect they deserve, it's not an easy job! It all depends on your current skill, gear, and experience. The way you worded the question means you likely have a very long way to go. I suggest reading this post http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=123598&highlight=shooter . Try to second shoot with someone else first and go from there.

ChatKat

Not the same for everyone
Expenses vary from one photographer to the next.
We use different equipment, advertise in different ways, shoot and process in different styles. We might own something some one else rents, we need different insurance because we might have different assets to protect.

The best way to determine what your expenses would be for a start is for you to make a list. Then do a business plan.

I can tell you that I do business plans professionally as I also do tax and accounting work. When I opened my studio armed with a ton of ideas, even I who has done bookkeeping and has a handle on what to expect surprised myself as to what I needed and what I thought I needed were a much bigger gap than I expected.

orljustin

If you are in a position to be "thinking about starting to do photography full time", then you should have enough experience doing the work that you would know the costs involved. This kind of question shows that you think you are just going to jump into something uninitiated and haven't really put in the time to be a capable photographer. The response to the OP is an illustrative analogy that helps you see that.

snaptie2002

You will need two camera bodies, two flash units, (you need two of these particular items in case one breaks down), a ton of memory cards, some extra batteries. You will need lenses to cover the 28mm to 200mm range.

I see you have a D70s, if you are comfortable with it you can pick up another used one fairly cheap. Try B&H's used equipment department as well as KEH. If your D70s doesn't have enough horse power, rent something better that uses the same lenses and use the D70s for a backup. You can use the money from your first few weddings to purchase items you find yourself renting on a regular basis.

If I had to cut anything for the sake of expense the first thing to go would be the assistant. My wife and I shoot as a team but we have both covered weddings solo. Tons of wedding photographers shoot alone.

Insurance is easy. Have your current insurance agent hook you up. You can get a two million dollar liability policy for well under $500.00 per year. If I were you I would not insure your camera equipment at this point. Your premiums would soon outrun the value of what you have listed in your post. If you do, just be clear your agent knows the gear is used for business.

You should be able to go into your first wedding with your current equipment plus whatever you need to rent for under $500.00. If you really need an assistant, recruit your spouse or a friend for free if you can.

Other expenses such as albums, prints etc. will vary from job to job. If you are tight for cash you can collect payment in full at the end of the shoot or set your deposit price high enough to cover the of cost of processing the orders.

That being said, shooting weddings is a lot easier than booking weddings....at least for me. So before you quit you day job be sure to have enough work booked to cover the loss of income from whatever your day job is.

Thanks,
Marty

johng

Some general categories of expense:

• camera bodies (again you need at least 2)
• Lenses - you'll have to develop your own style but 17-200mm range is going to be required as is a solution for the low light church work when flash is not allowed. Rent / buy
• External lighting - are you simply going to just use on-camera flash or multi flash or strobes for larger wedding parties? Rent / buy
• flash bracket
• staff - are you going to have an assistant? Someone else to do processing?
• Bookkeeping / accounting / taxes. Going to do it all yourself or hire someone?
• Insurance - adding on to what another poster said - be careful about NOT insuring gear. Do you have enough assetts to buy new gear if you break something a day before a booked wedding?
• Legal costs to set up your company, LLC, etc... You want to protect your personal assets and insulate them from business related lawsuits.
• Potential legal costs related to lawsuits. Do you really want to be hunting for an attorney AFTER someone files a lawsuit? But right off the bat you'll want an attorney to review or draft your contracts
• Portfolios, prints, canvas, etc to show samples of your work.
• Meeting space - where are you going to meet potential clients? Are you going to rent space? Have them come to your home? Meet at a coffee shop? In all of these cases, how are they going to view your work? Remember, the more times you have to meet BEFORE booking the more you have to build those hours into your cost structure (i.e. if you have an initial meeting but don't have your portfolio, sample albums, sample canvas etc with you and have to set up a 2nd meeting for them to view that's more of your time)
• Marketing costs - part of your business plan is marrketing. Cost depends on your approach.
• Saving for capital investments in new / replacement gear. A smart business is putting money asside for these purchases. You don't want to pay out of personal $$ for a capital investment down the road. You'll have to out of the gate but 2 years later you want the business to be funding business purchases - preferably from account rather than credit.
• Clothing - do you have the proper attire - only got one suit and going to potentially wear it to every wedding? What about black-tie affairs? Even for meeting with your clients - you may already have appropriate business casual attire or you may not.

Those are just the thoughts off the top of my head. I'm sure I've missed a dozen.

wildviper

Thank you Chris, Chatkat, Marty, Orljustin and John for replying.

While I fully understand that I have to know what I am doing photographically...the expenses side is what I want to get nailed down. Like Chatkat said, I am currently planning on doing a business plan.

My skills are certainly not at the level needed for doing weddings, but I want to plan for it. I want to know what is needed financially to get things off.

I wouldn't dare mess up someone's wedding at this time. I have been asked to do weddings, and have always replied that I am not ready for that. But, to get ready for that, I have to do three things: Get better with taking pictures, improve marketing skills and have the financial backing to actually get into it.

That;s the reason for my post. I didn't ask about the other two activities since there are a lot of posts related to that. I am reading those currently. For expneses, I couldn't find a comprehensive post.

THanx again.

Angelo

Nikolai wrote:

I am thinking about starting to do brain surgery full time. I hear that there a lot of expenses involved when doing surgery.

Can someone give me an idea of the expenses and average costs?

In my mind, the only expense would be of a nurse or two. Rental of equipment and the operation room. Insurance and of course my time, but that should be obvious.

uncalled for Nik - you know better


.

ChatKat

johng wrote:

Some general categories of expense:

Those are just the thoughts off the top of my head. I'm sure I've missed a dozen.

Telephone and computer and software expenses are not on the list.

And for samples, double and triple the cost you think you need.

Very nice list, John. By the way, you cannot take your suit -or any clothing unless you have something a polo shirt with an embroidered name on it as a deduction because you can wear it as street clothing. Even then, you have to be careful to deduct it - it would probably be disallowed in an audit - and yes, I am a licensed tax preparer)

Scott McLeod Photo

And then add into the expenses regular equipment upgrades, repair, cleaning, new software, EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES!!! (I am at over 10 TB and this is always growing and growing faster as megapixels increase), new display samples, etc to keep up with trends, etc.

Plan on replacing camera bodies at least every 2 years, regular cost of updates to programs, etc, faster computer for the ram hog of a program, etc.

marketing/advertising costs.

Blaker

wildviper wrote:

I am thinking about starting to do photography full time. I hear that there a lot of expenses involved when doing weddings.

Can someone give me an idea of the expenses and average costs?

In my mind, the only expense would be of an assistant or two. Rental of equipment. Insurance and of course my time, but that should be obvious.

You're smart to look ahead and start planning in order to achieve your goals. You will find some great advice here- good luck and hope it works out for you!

sweet caroline

Too many photographers don't come up with a business plan and figure out the costs before they go pro. So good for you!

Why should he put time and energy into trying out wedding photography as a second shooter without also figuring out the costs involved? Why shouldn't he come up with a business plan and a plan to start purchasing equipment if he's serious? Why presume that he's going to jump into full time wedding photography without any experience just because he's asking what the pros use? My husband is a finance guy with an economics degree, and he'd approve of figuring out the costs and potential benefits prior to starting down a path. Even investing time, energy, and money into education/experience should be done wisely.

Caroline

P.S.
I'm not sure if OP is male or female, so I just used "he" above.

wildviper

Well I am in Finance(Financial Planner) as well. Perhaps that is why my thought process to get the costs first to see if this would venture would even be able to provide for me and my family.

I am being laid-off and have done portraits on the side. I realize that my skills have to be upgraded for the wedding pictures, but for portraits and other still life, I feel I can hold my own.

Since weddings is where the big cheese is, I wanted to figure out the costs....I don't want a big surprise.."What? you didn't know you had to pay Mr.X $2,000 for something???".

I will put these costs in perspective and start on my business plan. Thank you to all who replied. I appreciated it.

Wil Davis

Angelo wrote:

uncalled for Nik - you know better


.

Uncalled for or not, I think it hit the nail on the head, in a very succinct way, impossible to misinterpret…

Nice one Nik!



- Wil

raptorcaptor

Wil Davis wrote:

Uncalled for or not, I think it hit the nail on the head, in a very succinct way, impossible to misinterpret…

Nice one Nik!



- Wil

Arrogance and contempt is easy to interpret!

Wachel

raptorcaptor wrote:

Arrogance and contempt is easy to interpret!

I agree. It is comments like Nik's that make a relative newbie like me afraid to ask questions. I don't want to ask a question and get an answer like Nik's.

That is the hard thing here...there are pros and newbies all "living in the same house". The pro's should try and be patient as much as possible.

FedererPhoto

Well

Higher-end Computer & software
Location / space rental
Utilities (Phone line, Heating, Water, Sewer, Electric)
Misc Business expenses (business cards, paper, labels, etc)
Signage (if studio)
Taxes (property, income, sales)
Website design and programming
Traditional Marketing materials
Web hosting
Lawyer fees (business establishment, contracts, etc)
Accounting fees (budgeting, loans, account prep, taxes, etc)
Marketing time (emails, phone, web forums, etc)
Training time (schooling?, practice, etc)
Product production setup time (finding album producer, print provider, etc)
Booking costs (face to face - might include dinner costs + travel + time)
Actual time spent photographing
Post production time or outsourcing
Backups (online, offsite, external drives, etc)
Dissemination (DVDs? (jewel cases, the Discs themselves, boxes?) online gallery setup, etc)
Travel time and costs (50 cents a mile on average)
Crew / Assistants / Employees?
Sample costs (which will need to be refreshed a lot in the start as you developed your style)
Client Prints / Contact sheets
Insurance (liabilty, theft, Errors and ommissions)
Props, Wardrobe
Rentals for special cases
Shipping costs
Travel / Fuel / Food
Contact and marketing via that client after the shoot
Miscellaneous stuff (tape, tools, storage, straps, etc)

not to mention:
Photographic Equipment (at least 2 full sets of everything you'd need to shoot a wedding)
- Likely 2+ bodies and at least 4 lens - likely considerably more
- filters and accessories (circular polarizer, cf cards (quadruple the amount you think you need), cf wallets, batteries, cleaning supplies)
- Multiple flashes and lighting setups (lightstands, mounts, clamps, sandbags, umbrellas, softboxes, batteries, etc)
- bags to carry it all in
- good shoes
And that doesn't even take into account the fact that much of this stuff needs to be purchased, replaced, or repaired on a regular basis.

There is a reason any photographer that's been doing only weddings for a while (even if their quality is horrible) almost always charges more than 2k per gig --- because you NEED to charge that much to be profitable.

As far as 'making money with a camera', weddings is one of the more difficult avenues.



As for Niks comments -- if that gets under your skin and 'makes you afraid to ask questions' ... weddings isn't your thing, find something else. You can't buy a thick skin.