Beercat Loc: Central Coast of California

Well maybe ............ I'll let you guys decide.

We are all involved with a changing profession. What was normal only a short few years ago is now not as accepting as it once was. With the shoot and burn types and the newer phones that take pretty good pictures B&G's seem to be sharpening their pens and not wanting to shell out be bucks unless you have a huge budget paid by your parents.

So with that in mind. I thought about a hybrid. A low price which will get them a pair of pretty good snappers for their big day. Maybe we shoot 800 pictures but they will only see 100 which will be the very best of the 800, cropped and then enhanced. The 100 will be placed on a gallery in low resolution which could be good enough for social media but not enough size to allow prints. They can share the social media photos but for larger photos they would need to order the print, no files, prints with a small watermark/name in the lower left. This would mean if they wanted several prints they couldn't just by the large file and then take to Costco. They could also put together their own coffee table book from the site.

We would also set up a portrait area at the reception where anyone could have a quality portrait made and yes, order the print on-line. Hand them our card and tell them to wait a week and go to the gallery.

So my question is ........... what would be a fair price to charge to show up and snap the wedding and 100 edited photos that could be used on social media? We figure the balk of the money would be from orders from the gallery. I'm figuring $499 - $699 range believing we would make another $2,000 + on the gallery orders. Remember I'm in California, cost more around these parts.

Good part for the B&G is they won't be buying the pictures for their parents, wedding party and friends ..........

We get to pay out cards like mad when we snap portraits ............

Pot processing will be quick, won't take long to pick out the best 100 and then post processing.

Bobbee

When we do weddings, I specifically tell my other two shooters, get couples at the wedding. I will handle the B&G. Obviously we get spill over. i have them do this because I put the pictures up in a gallery with print only options. We get a couple, but not as many as was intended. Be interested in your result. As for your price, sorry, as someone here said, I am a 'bottom feeder', I could not give you a normal price. But I agree on the B&G with sharp pencils. People just don't pay for photographers any more. They would rather pay 1,800 for a DJ to play MP3s for 4 hours which will be quickly forgotten. Unless someone gets pregnant in the closet humping to LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem. See I am even dating myself. That song was OLD 2 years ago.

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

OK, Here's some thoughts from experience.

First, the portrait booth you are talking about. I have done this for quite a long time. The sad truth is, you won't sell ANY after the fact. We print on the spot, and can make from $300 to $1000 per night doing that.

Our first few times, we had super long lines waiting to get photos taken, and would be lucky to sell one when people went to the gallery. The big issue is, once the excitement is over, they no longer want that print. You need to strike while the iron is hot.

I used to use an inkjet printer, but the problem is that it is SO slow, that we were still printing pictures, when the venue was kicking us out, which made for unhappy people who had to wait around while everyone was cleaning up.

I have a DNP DS-80 printer now. Cost for an 8x10 is .70. I charge a flat $10 each. Which is actually a REALLY good price for them. I put them in "Buckeye Folders" that have my logo on the back that I buy in bulk. Runs about another 70 cents each. Finally, to help get my foot in the door, I give the Bride and groom 10-20% of the "profits" in credit towards prints. At the reception, I have signs around, and on the tables that tell people that the portrait booth will help offset the cost of the couple's wedding photography. We all know that even if the Bride and groom get $200 worth of credit on a $1200 portrait booth night, (math isn't my strong suit, but after taking out $1.40 in supplies, etc) Anyway, that $200 in credit only costs me about $20 in prints for the couple.

We did a wedding last year, that for all intents and purposes, was an all out flop. Police called twice because of fights, etc. We made a boatload of money all told at the portrait booth, one person alone spent over $200 dragging various people back to the booth to get more photos.

Unfortunately, our printer only does 8x10's. I could print 2- 5x7's on a sheet, but the time it takes to cut them out, will also slow down the works. I wish I had thought of that, because we were selling the 5x7's for the same cost. It's always an option.

Another cool thing from that wedding was that I sold a 30x40 canvas of one of the prints about 2 months after the wedding, and it was just a "portrait booth" photo. I'm positive that if I handed out cards and told people to go there to order, I wouldn't have sold that, or many of the other prints. Drunk people who think they are helping the bride and groom are very generous. :)

A final suggestion on the booth. Make sure you have some form of "Square" or "paypal" that you can take credit and debit cards on the spot. I'd say that at least 70% of the portrait booth money comes from credit and debit cards.

Your other idea could work. I've tried various versions of that system, but it always comes down to people wanting the disk of full size images any more. That's one thing that I just can't bring myself to do. I really don't want people to make their own albums, or print at Walgreens. It may come to that, but I'm fighting the good fight (for now)

Your method of just letting them have the low res images to share on FB may be the key, but what I'm finding is that fewer people are wanting prints for the walls. Seems that Wedding albums, and digital is all they want. I'm almost thinking a hybrid of your idea, but adding the cost to have an album that I'm in control of, could be something to consider. With my business partner out of the process, I can try various methods and ideas to try to dial in exactly what to do that works for me... in my area.

Anyway, I hope my thoughts for the portrait booth help. I just don't want anyone to go through what we did with the first few weddings. It was SO POPULAR, but nobody actually spent money!

Bobbee

Now there is an interesting idea on a combination of ideas from here. Setup a small backdrop(I have a pop out of a 7x8), a camera and the DS80. Snap, 8x10 comes out, they get it for $15-$20. they are dressed, lubed, easy to do this. May work!!

Beercat Loc: Central Coast of California

I like the idea of giving some credit to the B&G for the portrait stuff. So maybe a hybrid of charging a tad more, lets say $999 (my better half says "9"'s in advertising works), give them the high res files but do what I was thinking, meaning give them the top 100 - 150 photos in high res. The point is to cut down on PP time. Would take a half day to go through 1000 pictures and pick out the top 150. Do the PP on the 150 over the next few days and your done.

Do the photo booth, charge $15 bucks for a 8X10 on the spot with a third going back to the B&G in the form of a credit for printing cost through in my case SmugMug.

Bobbee

i like this

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

I haven't used smugmug in a long time. I don't remember much about it. The one that I do use occasionally is Shootproof. Take a look at them. You only pay the monthly fees when you are using them, so right now, with nothing going on, I pay nothing. If I do a portrait shoot, as long as it is under 100, it is all free. They don't take commissions, and do everything for me, even allow the customer to crop and change to black and white if they want. For weddings, you get to upload up to 1500 (I think) per month, for $10. I've never gone over the $10 fee, but there are upper levels.

Once again, I'm still hanging on to the last vestiges of the "good old days" and do everything I can to meet with people face to face, and avoid doing stuff online. It really is getting harder and harder.

As for your pricing, I've been told countless times that we could probably charge $20 per 8x10, and not lose many people. My thing is, I figure that the more people I get through the line (because they LOVE the price), the more people I get to talk to, and hand business cards to.

I do get asked to do "photo booth" stuff with props, but once again, in keeping with what Don says, I try to stay on the classy side... and don't want to be known for silly stuff. Just me.

Only my opinions.

Beercat Loc: Central Coast of California

Bob .............

How do you interface your camera with your printer?

What background set up do you use?

What lighting do you use for the portraits?

Bobbee

ME Bob?

Camera(D800)==>ControlMyNikon==>Computer==>XHome PhotoKey(HotImport/HotExport)==>HotFolder(c:/DNP/Printer/4x6)==>DS40 Printer

SO, I have my camera on tripod, set up and composed. ControlMyNikon controls the camera, Pictures go to a folder watched by FX Home Key. It places the picture into an already framed and sized project. This is then exported to the folder watched by DNP's HotFolder application which outputs the picture to the printer. From Snap to Print it is about 7-10 seconds. At times I do not set up the HotExport because i want to look at the picture to determine additional edits. In full production mode this SLOWS things down and is not good. But sometimes people have GREEN on and that does not work well in Green Screen mode.

I have a bunch of standard digital backgrounds but I tend to go to the internet and either download one or buy one from Dreamstime to match the theme. i will cull through Dreamstime and send my client links. they pick one, I look, get final OK and purchase a download.

for lighting I have two Quantums up front with power packs and two continuous 5k florescents with umbrellas on the background.

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

I use a laptop tethered to the camera, and use lightroom. If "she who must be obeyed" is assisting, then she insists on Picasa. (she's not comfortable with Lightroom, and refuses to just sit down and let me go over how simple it can be. We only take 2 photos, One "portrait" and one "give him a kiss on the cheek" (if they buy the portrait, they almost always want a copy of the kiss) If there are blinks, etc, we tell them that we are happy to do retakes. What we learned the hard way was to not take 4-5 out of the shoot, because then the people take forever deciding which one. Once they get the photos done, they walk right over to the computer, and SWMBO, or my daughter who is an INCREDIBLE upseller, take it from there, and take payment, print, and put in the folder.

For the backdrop, I have a few 10x20 home made (10' wide muslin x 7 yards long) hand painted or tie dyed, as well as a white, and a black muslin) Depending on the wedding colors, or the color of the carpet if I don't have enough room to pull it all the way out and tape it down. Then, I have a 1 gallon lawn sprayer full of water, with a couple drops of Downey fabric softener in it, that I will spray the backdrop early (normally set it up the day before when they are decorating the venue) The wrinkles fall out as it dries.

Lastly, the lighting, I have a few ways I do it. If there is electricity handy, I use my travel portrait set up, which is 2 Impact 300w strobes and an old White lightning (Paul C Buff 800) that I may or may not use as a separation light or whatever I need it for, once again, if there is room)

If no room, or no electricity, I also have several speedlights, and Yongnuo YN-622n trigger and transceivers. (I'm in the process of trying to get all the same speedlights, as I have like 9 in total, and no 2 are the same, so remembering how to change settings is a pain in the rear. Once the lighting is set up and metered, that camera stays set up, and on that tripod, and any one of us can man the Portrait booth, as the other 2 go about the business of capturing the reception shots, then we switch off. It makes for a nice break to man the booth.

It does usually mean that at least one person stays with the set up the whole night.
1. To keep "guests" from jumping in front of the set up and taking their own photos with their cameras. Leaving the strobes on slave helps with that, as their shots won't turn out, but if it is the speedlights, that is a whole different story.
2. Shooting AND working the computer/printer slows you WAY down. If you have family that works for free like mine, then it isn't an issue. We did a shoot for an event, where I just couldn't find any FREE help, so I just took the cost of what I paid the person helping that day, off the top when figuring out the total of what to give the people as their "cut". Having an extra person to handle that stuff, more than pays for itself, even if you have to pay them. The more people you get through, the more money you make. At least with our set up, turnover means $$. That's why every decision on how we do things, is based on if it will speed up the process. Faster printer, extra person, only 2 shots, etc. You don't want people taking their time deciding on photos. Another thing I'm considering is either bringing a TV, or getting a projector, and somehow put it up high, so people can see other people's photos as they are waiting. Sometimes, grandma and gramdpa will come over and buy some of the shots that other family members have taken.

Hope it works out for you. Pretty sure we are still the only ones in town doing it around here, but figure sooner or later, it will get more popular. My guess is that what holds people back, is that it can be labor intensive.

I hope that helps.
bk

Bobbee

That is an understatement!!

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

Bobbee,
You mix the fluorescent and strobes? I've never been able to get consistent results like that, but with Green Screen, you NEED to be able to get that light even across the backdrop. It's awesome that you are able to do it!

What greenscreen software are you using? I've thought about doing it your way, but hate the thought of not being able to have someone see what they are getting before the print is made. Just my thought, of course that that may speed things up a lot.

bk

Bobbee

First, you are targeting a different audience. You are doing portraits. The engagements I am doing the GreenScreen is a 'fun' thing we are delivering. Less critique. But I am using FXHome Photokey. My only issue is a 4x6 JPG from PhotoKey will be picked up by HotFolder but it does not go to print. Issue with either PhotoKey or HotPrint. I was running the JPG through PS and doing a SaveAs just to get it printed. Now I output TIFF. This weekend I was not even using the lights on the backdrop as I have been finding the software really does a good job of picking up ANY green. If you highlight the Green it stops shadows. That I like. I just brought 2 two blub adapters that look identical to my single. So now i will have two blubs on each side. I too think spiral florescent are slightly weak. this may solve.

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

good to know, I haven't messed with hotfolder yet. Pretty sure I'm doing the cancer walk next month, and for that, to get everyone through, I thought about just taking the photo, and letting it print as is. For the occasional "blink" or person who absolutely hates it, I'll just eat the 70 cents. For that one, we'll be giving the actual profits to the cancer walk people, I'm just keeping enough to pay for my supplies. I figure having my business cards in the mylar envelopes, and a stamp on the back of each photo, may get me some more work. This is a good cause.

Bobbee

I create address labels with my information and the gallery name. I then peel and stick it to the back of the photo. When I shove the photo in their hand is is backside first and tell them what the info is. then send them on their way. when we are sitting there waiting for the next victim, we peel some labels and put them on the printer so they are ready to apply. the card may get lost or thrown away but the sticker is there forever.