If you’re about to hire a photographer, remember that you get what you pay for. Low price always gets you low quality.
Business headshots never cost anywhere near $15 each no matter what the volume. Expect *at least* quadruple that amount for a high volume shoot with minimal editing.
When you hire a photographer, you’re paying for both the photography and the photographer. The experience and quality of the photographer directly affects the success of the photos. Photos do not create themselves.
If one professional is saying they will do the work for $100 per hour and another is quoting you $200 per hour, your instinct shouldn’t immediately jump to the one offering the lowest price.
As an example, maybe the higher-priced solution has the learnings from a 20 year career vs. a 5 year career, to help you avoid more known pitfalls that you don’t even see coming. Or, they have helped 20 clients succeed in similar situations, vs. 2 clients succeed . . .
Fast and cheap strikes again
I received an email today from another Toronto company that’s unhappy with their recent business portraits shot by another photographer. This photographer charged $1,000 for 70 headshots, which works out to about $14 per person.
The photographer was in and out in about two hours according to the customer. That’s roughly 100 seconds per person.
At first, the customer was impressed by the low cost and quick turnaround, but that all changed when they saw the photos. The fast and cheap approach resulted in fast and cheap pictures. To make matters worse, the photographer insisted on full payment before leaving the client’s office.
The upset customer sent me three sample images. In each photo, the face was one or two stops underexposed and the white background was two or three stops overexposed. The background was so bright that it flared around each person’s head and shoulders. The lighting was positioned too low, with the catchlights at four o-clock (catchlights should be much higher to look natural). And here’s the kicker—the photographer had already “fixed” these images after the customer complained.
I told the customer I could do some retouching for $40 each ($2,800 total for 70 images) but there was no guarantee that the retouched images would be any good. Each picture probably required too much work. I also offered to reshoot everyone for $5,600 ($80 each).
The company wasn’t sure what it will do next, but they said they would try to get their money back even if it meant suing the photographer. (It’s a bit ironic that this company is a recruitment agency. You’d think they would know how to hire someone.)
The takeaway here is simple: Always hire the best photographer for your needs, not just the cheapest option. The goal is to get great photos, not a low invoice.
The brief satisfaction of saving money on subpar photography fades quickly. But the frustration of using poor-quality images can last a lot longer.
They will never get good photographs… it’s the problem in the mindset of the staff… the one who commission the photographer.
Ken, you are correct. It’s usually impossible to convert a $1,000 customer into a $5,000 customer. This is why a photographer makes a big mistake by pursuing low-paying customers and thinking that these customers will someday start paying more.
The company mentioned in this post said it has arranged for a free reshoot from the original photographer. So obviously this company doesn’t want to spend any more money. If you do the arithmetic, this photographer will end up doing 70 X 2 = 140 business headshots for $1,000 which works out to $7 per person.