What should a bride consider when choosing her wedding photographer, part 2.
In the next few weeks I intend to post a series of short posts on this subject and hopefully be able to help you make the right decision in the single most important aspect to your wedding planning.
Wedding Photographer Basics – Choosing A professional Wedding Photographer
So how do you choose a professional wedding photographer ? There are many criteria that can easily be overlooked by wedding couples at the planning stage when choosing and booking a wedding photographer. not like choosing a wedding gown or a location for your event where you have the luxury of knowing, at least in theory, exactly what you will receive, it is not so with a wedding photographer as you will only know if you made the right decision once you see the pictures after the wedding.
What would you want to buy? VS What would you want to see!
Human nature makes us fall for a low price and with the competition these days, anything you can do to lower your price can get you more business. Many wedding photographers charge a low price up front but keep all ownership and copyright on the images. After the wedding, you may be shocked to find out how much it costs to get the prints that you want, and it is not unusual for clients to spend more on reprints than what they originally spent on the entire photography fee. In the beginning you might feel great because of the low price but could potentially be feeling resentful in the end because of the high price you were charged for reprints and because there was little or no discussion about the reprint costs when you were originally booking the wedding.
Another business model for photographer is to charge the full amount of the sale up front. The client pays for the photographer’s style, experience and expertise and the photographer delivers the images on a DVD, which the client can use to make unlimited prints for personal use. The photographer gets paid for his talent, overhead and business expenses and his desired profit up front, and the client has no surprises and no hidden costs in the package. the other advantages to this business model is that you do not have to worry about the photographer loosing your images, or moving out of town, and you have the ability to use your images for email, computer slideshows, albums, and you can even do your own image manipulation if you wish.
The most important thing you need to know about these two very different business models is that each of them creates a completely different motivation for the photographer, and that motivation influences the kind of pictures that they take; The first is motivated by print sales while the second is motivated by the need to tell the story and create a beautiful record of the day. This photographer is your own personal photographer for the day. He will be thinking, “What will the bride and groom want to see?” instead of thinking, “what would the bride and groom want to buy.”
more to come . .
Please feel free to leave a comment or contact me with questions, or if you want me to address a certain subject that is on your mind
If you like what you read, please subscribe to FotoWala articles via email alerts, or to the RSS feed.
Now you can also follow me on Twitter
