Being a photographer, I have run into so many issues with clients not being able to understand why they can not just have their digital images. I was at a friends work holiday party and everyone was looking elegant in their cocktail party attire and a gentleman struck up a conversation with me. He heard that I was a photographer and he was a husband and father of two. He wanted to know why his family photographer “wouldn’t give him his digital images.” I began to ask, “ Could you buy them?” He said in a negative tone, “Yeah for $500!” What happend with this man was that he found a photographer, and he got his family photos taken but he didn’t want to buy prints from them, he only wanted all of the digital images for a low price. I had to explain to him why his photographer did what they did and by the end of the conversation, he was at an agreeance with me. I see this all the time with photographer and clients. Most people have no idea what goes into the professional photography field. Most people think it’s as easy as taking a photo with an iphone, add a filter, and posting it to Instagram. Here are the reasons why digital images cost so much.
Digital Images are not real!
First off, digital images are not tangible, they are not real until you print them. Facebook makes it seem real and you can share images all over the world. People forget that they need something physical to show their loved ones and their children. Technology changes faster and faster every day, so what if someday you have no way to recover those digitals? What if you constantly have to convert the images into something different just to keep them. That is a lot of photos! You should be decorating your home and not your social media. Having digital images is a great backup for you physical prints. Prints do not last forever and the color fades over time. After many years, you can have that option to reprint that picture on your wall. In case of a fire or flood, you can have a digital backup to reprint your images. That is why when myself and others offer digital prints, they come with the digitals. This is an illegal copyright no no, so I shouldn’t say this but you should buy the prints from your photographer and then scan the ones you really like to post on Facebook.
It takes time and time is money
I know it sounds crazy but, Photographers don’t work for free. When they shoot your 10 hour wedding and come back with 4,000 images that are 28 MB per image. A lot of them may be copies and test shots too. That photographer has to spend hours backing up the images, then going through them all, and then editing them. It takes me personally, 70 hours to finish backing up and editing a 10 hour wedding. If i got paid minimum wage then I would be looking at $630 at the very least. Then you have to look at the copyrights to the images. That allows someone else to own and reproduce the images. Those images are the photographers gold. They get paid for every print that you buy from them. If you sell them the image then they can buy prints from someone else. That doesn’t seem fair, does it? Most photographers have a great relationship with a big professional print lab. They work hard on making sure that their prints look correct and match the right color profile. If I were a client, I would not want to trust some random lab to print my photos.
The issue is lack of education and communication between photographer and client. Most people who are not familiar with photography don’t understand these things. Explaining this stuff can also be difficult to do as a photographer. But just remember, do not forget to print!
Albums are a great what to display images. Albums shut and that allows them to not get exposed to light as much (Light ages prints faster). If you have an album on your coffee table, then friends and family can look at their own leiser. No one really like sitting around and watching you hour long slideshow of your wedding. I have yet to meet someone who loves that. Print! Print! print!
Photos by me.