MJPhotos24 wrote in post #3741673
Well, I think the point was to not underprice and undercut the industry as a whole, and not so much what other people are getting job wise. There's way to many people out there now that
think they are professional photographers when they're not. To many people undercut pro photographers, do lesser quality work, but land a job because they're cheap, and then never get hired again because the quality sucked, and yet companies still go looking for the cheap hires to do it all over again. Now I'm not saying you can't beat or match someones offer, I've done it but there's always that number (figured out by so many factors) that once it gets below that you walk as a professional. I've walked and had companies come back saying "we messed up", and personally I'd rather work for people who give a darn about the quality than joe schmoe who don't. It's pretty much every profession, but yet people do not take photography as serious as something like having having a new addition built on the house. If someone comes in with low prices for that then the owner will ask "why is it so cheap", photography on the other hand "oh yay! we saved money!" --- even though the quality isn't as good.
A little over a year ago, I shot a wedding; my one and only. I did it for $600.00. I was damn near read the riot act by "real" wedding photographers for doing it for such a small sum of money.
They insisted that I took work away from the wedding photographers trying to earn a living.
So, I asked them if they would've done it for $600.00. The answer, of course, was that they would not. But the bride and groom were unwilling to pay the prices quoted to them by "real" wedding photographers.
So, I took the job that nobody else would do, at a fee that nobody else would accept, and "real" wedding photographers wet themselves over it anyway. The whole experience left a real sour taste for these "professionals", and convinced me that I shouldn't allow myself to be concerned with whether or not someone else is able to get a job because of what I was paid.
Both me and my client were satisfied with my fee, and with the results I gave them. That's all that matters.
In my opinion, based on that experience, wedding photographers are some of the most overpaid prima donnas on the planet...