Wedding photographers - How many weddings do you do a year?

An Exception said:
Raymond, how much time would you say you spent processing an average wedding?
I'm tempted to look into options for outsourcing like russinating pointed out, although I think I'd struggle to relinquish control, and trust the outsourcing company.
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I am a control freak, they are my photos from beginning til end. Outsourcing book design I would consider, but out sourcing processing, no way.

If i sit down and do it, never really timed it but rough guess, i say about 36 hours ?
 
Raymond Lin said:
More togs don't have a party of 4 either.

And when people ask how many they shoot, it means them, physically.

I might as well say I can shoot 100 because my friend shot 28, and i know someone else shot 40 and someone else shot 25.

But somewhere, there is a parent company that binds us all?
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I don't want to derail the thread, but russinating said he has 29 bookings on separate days. I'm assuming he is saying he could shoot those wedding's solo if he wanted.

The only thing that may be different, is perhaps larger setups may have bigger marketing budget's, so may get more work due to that?
 
I've answered the question normally and hypothetically as if I worked solo so meh. Working solo and holding another full-time job certainly isn't "average" though.

There is also a massive difference between what you do, which although is obviously very successful and good, is still almost a hobby. Just because it's someone's wedding day it doesn't mean you're not running a business and I think there is a difference between the two.

36 hours editing for example is pretty much a full working week which would be impossible to do for any full-time photographer shooting one wedding a weekend, let alone two plus all the day-to-day business. I'm surprised you manage that as well as working weekdays!
 
An Exception said:
I don't want to derail the thread, but russinating said he has 29 bookings on separate days. I'm assuming he is saying he could shoot those wedding's solo if he wanted.

The only thing that may be different, is perhaps larger setups may have bigger marketing budget's, so may get more work due to that?
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Probably, and it is his full time job and no doubt he advertises.

FYI, i do not advertise. I don't even have time for a blog lately. I don't tell people I shoot weddings nor do I give out cards unless asked. I don't even put cards out when I shoot weddings! I find it really tacky when togs leave a stack of cards on the table, its someone's wedding, not your place to advertise, that's for another day I think.

I do get asked to swap cards with the MUA, the videotographer, the band etc but unless they or a guest asks, the cards stays in the bag.

Yet I can get enough work to 20 a year I think if i didn't have my full time job restrictions.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
I am a control freak, they are my photos from beginning til end. Outsourcing book design I would consider, but out sourcing processing, no way.

If i sit down and do it, never really timed it but rough guess, i say about 36 hours ?
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I'm also a bit of a control freak, but I also thought what would I prefer to do, process a wedding, or shoot another one or two.
But I think I'l also keep processing in house, as I'v been working on speeding up my workflow, as it stands I adjust exposure, WB, and straiten images manually, but my processing 'style' is an automated action which doesn't take much time at all.
 
Russinating said:
I've answered the question normally and hypothetically as if I worked solo so meh. Working solo and holding another full-time job certainly isn't "average" though.

There is also a massive difference between what you do, which although is obviously very successful and good, is still almost a hobby. Just because it's someone's wedding day it doesn't mean you're not running a business and I think there is a difference between the two.

36 hours editing for example is pretty much a full working week which would be impossible to do for any full-time photographer shooting one wedding a weekend, let alone two plus all the day-to-day business. I'm surprised you manage that as well as working weekdays!
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and I help my dad at his shop at weekends...

Granted, I am not "average", and I do appreciate your side of the coin. It's just it would be unrepresentative what your company can do but the 29 separate booking days would be more representative, for a solo photographer, which is what OP was asking for.
 
Anyone had any first hand experience with outsourcing processing? I am interested fro several different reasons.
 
An Exception said:
This is also what is worrying me, I'm aiming to be able to get this done within 8 hours...
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The quickest i've done it.

From download - 90min to 2 hours (depends if i am sitting there in front of it)
Culling - 3 hours
Process 10 hours
Second cull - 1 hour
Tidy up - 2 hours
Export - This is an overnight job, Mac is slow, it takes about 4 hours to do this.
Admin - emails, make picture disc, upload to private gallery, burn disc, order CD cases. 90min.

Thats about 20 hours, not including exporting time, I leave it overnight whilst i sleep.

Quality, not quantity.

It's the beauty of having a paycheque I guess. But then again, if and when I move into this full time, I rather be shooting 20 weddings and earning as much as another tog shooting 40.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
The quickest i've done it.

From download - 90min to 2 hours (depends if i am sitting there in front of it)
Culling - 3 hours
Process 10 hours
Second cull - 1 hour
Tidy up - 2 hours
Export - This is an overnight job, Mac is slow, it takes about 4 hours to do this.
Admin - emails, make picture disc, upload to private gallery, burn disc, order CD cases. 90min.

Thats about 20 hours, not including exporting time, I leave it overnight whilst i sleep.

Quality, not quantity.

It's the beauty of having a paycheque I guess. But then again, if and when I move into this full time, I rather be shooting 20 weddings and earning as much as another tog shooting 40.
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Me to, but I think you could also cut out huge chunks of that workflow and still maintain quality. For instance your exporting time is massive, how many images are you delivering?
My OC'd i7 with plenty of ram as well as running on SSD's doesn't seem to take hardly any time at all...
 
An Exception said:
Perhaps if you did go full time, a computer upgrade could actually be cost effective. Is it not possible to just upgrade your existing mac components?
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Nope, I do have the funds for a new i7 now but I really had hoped they refreshed it in the Apple Event last week....they didn't.

I am holding out, it is DUE a refresh!

See here.

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

They are over 140 days late compare to their normal cycle.
 
I know your a mac guy, but I think this is one area I'm glad to be a PC user.
Below is my shopping cart for tomorrow, I'm downsizing to a nice little shuttle R5, that I can upgrade as and when in the future...

pc.jpg


Edit: Oops I'v made a mistake with the ram
 
^^ how have no idea how fast that is, or how much it is :p

I've lost touch with PC and its software now, I do use it at "work" but its Windows 2000/NT and my last PC ran windows 7 which died 3 years ago.
 
Raymond Lin said:
, I rather be shooting 20 weddings and earning as much as another tog shooting 40.
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I have a friend that said they were doing 50 a year at one point, and going out cheap in order to do so

i was trying to explain that they could double their prices and do half as much work and still make the same money
 
An Exception said:
I know your a mac guy, but I think this is one area I'm glad to be a PC user.
Below is my shopping cart for tomorrow, I'm downsizing to a nice little shuttle R5, that I can upgrade as and when in the future...

pc.jpg


Edit: Oops I'v made a mistake with the ram
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same, in the next months I will be buying an SSD and 16/32GB more ram, in prep for D800 towards the end of the year!

will OC the CPU a bit more as well.
 
Paul11 said:
I have a friend that said they were doing 50 a year at one point, and going out cheap in order to do so

i was trying to explain that they could double their prices and do half as much work and still make the same money
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The problem is, if you double your rices will you still maintain at least 50% of your customers? Likely not, if you double your prices you might end up doing 1/4 of the weddings and so make half the money.

My mum runs a home business which is forcefully massively undervalued, but whenever she raises prices the customer numbers drop off very rapidly. She also has a range of prices, so the customers that do order will choose the lower valued services remaining at the same price points. Thus there is definitely a market value limit.

In general though I agree and you don't want to be fighting for the bottom and over working yourself, you need to get the right balance.


Also if you are a full time wedding tog doing 30 weddings a year may be reasonable amount of work time in total.
 
D.P. said:
same, in the next months I will be buying an SSD and 16/32GB more ram, in prep for D800 towards the end of the year!

will OC the CPU a bit more as well.
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Soooo glad Canon didn't go Pixels crazy with the 5Diii ! Otherwise i would have HAD to buy a new computer.
 
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