Author - easymovet

There are a ton of great photographers in the market and that means good prices are available but it’s still worth while to do some research. True their are lost of folks willing to do it for free but you’ll end up paying in other ways. A solid professional photographer will have a great portfolio and an obvious passion for their craft which should come across in websites that focus on the images rather than hot deals or special pricing. Pricing is a very poor indicator of the quality of the images that you’ll get because running a business requires skills like marketing and customer service that are unrelated to photographic talent.  The best bet you have is to pick photographers in your price range with great portfolios and then pick up the phone and chat. Ask them questions to see if they are willing to help you capture the images that you want or are they just looking to move product.

Here is a general price breakdown you can expect to see.

Average price of a wedding photographer:

Top of the line
As a rule of thumb a magazine quality photographer with lots of experience will charge around $3000 for a wedding and will usually include a second photographer and a CD of your prints.

Hit or miss
The midrange is where the deals are, these are solid photographers who may have some rough edges with customer service or great customer service with awesome photography skills, they run around $1500.

Bargain Basement
Hit up craigslist and you may find several photographers willing to shoot for $500 but in my opinion if thats your budget then you should just pay a friend to do it.
The risks

• Being liable for accidental damages by an uninsured photographer
• Not ever getting your images delivered, either due to corrupt cheap memory cards or flaky abilities
• Not getting the images that you want

So while it may seem like the average cost of a wedding photographer is rather high it’s usually just someone charging a fair price for their services.

I used to think marketing was an evil word. I always considered myself to be modest,  not quite humble, but not a bragger. Those are not great virtues for marketing. It turns out i may have had a misunderstanding of modestly, which i still consider a virtue.  When someone is making conversation with you, it is not the time to toot your own horn, but if someone is asking about your services, lay it on them, even if you think that you are intimidatingly successful, what you actually are is inspiring.  Problem is i’m not yet to the inspiring level so i have to find some middle ground but still be loud enough to be heard otherwise i’d starve (which may be ok for some artist, but not this one).

Advertising is indeed only one branch of marketing and if it could be summed up in one word, it would probably be ‘Repetition’. It’s also the easiest type of marketing and can be both the cheapest or the most expensive.

Here are some free waysto toot your own horn:

Thumbtack profiles:
Are a great way to get a free listing with great SEO and lots of cool tools including a Craigslist poster with reminder. Their site is one of the most user friendly that Ii have ever seen.  The Minneapolis Photograph is my profile on Thumbtack.

Free WeddingWire listing
Is a popular site for pre-nups to find tons of info on wedding, free profile, no brainier.

WordPress Blog
This blog is wordpress, it’s self hosted on Godaddy but you can find a host on wordpress for free.

And some not so free:

Wedding wire Premium
There were 29 pages of providers in my area, basically to be seen you have to upgrade
Pavlv
These guys are new on the block, they send out your photos via postcard to potential buyers.

I just launched this site so I haven’t posted anything here yet, but I plan on posting non-work pictures including family, personal projects,  and walk around shots.

Thanks for browsing!

Love,

Riaz