Reply To: Pricing

[Sharra]

@MBC Well, it seems you’ve already replied to my saying I’ve addressed your thoughts on thoughts on my misconceptions on pricing and photography so you can ignore what I said in the other thread. As for folders, I sort into events as well, but those I try to keep at a minimum and I haven’t shot nearly all the events that you have. I have reunion folders and soccer/lacrosse season folder for my kids but that’s about as far as they go. Any personal shots go into one folder per year but ultimately the files are named as I described so I have only 9 folders named 2004 through 2012 for each of those years. It’s for that purpose that I was describing my photography filing system, but yes, as a software developer (to me the term “computer programmer” is faux), I completely understand the necessity of having a useful file, backup, database and archival systems in place. That’s why I have 6 backups of everything important to me—four of local hard drives  in case any of them go bad and two off-site in case my house goes up in flames.

I’m not knocking anything you said about quality, especially when it comes to prints. But if a photographer can charge less for the digital side and keep the customer happy, then great. But I’m not saying keeping the uninformed customer happy with mediocre work is OK either. I was just saying if the customer has a choice between photographers, all other things being equal, they will choose the less expensive one where budget is a concern. In the same vein, I’ve known couples who get married by a JP in the back yard, use a community hall catered by their friend’s restaurant and still spent $3500 on photos because 20 years down the road, no one will remember what the meal was or who sat next to whom, but they will all cherish beautiful and well-taken photos that last a lifetime.