..... Some people are curious why a Santa photo can cost what it does, so Ill help de-mystify a little bit of what goes in behind the scenes. The first and foremost, a photographer and Santa who can dedicate a month to the schedule has to be paid; there is a lot more work involved in Santa photography than just clicking a button on the shutter. The photographer (myself, in this case) while only at the set for 4 hours on a scheduled day, spends another 4-6 hours, balancing color and lighting of the photos so no particular color is out of gamut range for printing and making sure that the photos are neither too dark, nor too light... this has to be done for every photo chosen, and each and every photo needs to be looked at and compared to the others taken to choose the best one for each child. Once that amount of work is done; the photo is either emailed or sent to print; and if its sent to print, once it comes back once again, all the orders have to be gone through and packaged, sorted, and finally sent to the pick up location or once again ordered for mailing. A Santa day, while may only be 4 hours of shooting can easily be far more than that for the amount of work involved; particularly on Friday and Saturday when photo volume is high (this is a part of the reason why we do not shoot on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesday... those days are needed to catch up and process and sort Friday and Saturday orders). Next, there is wear and tear on high-end professional camera gear; anyone in business needs to cover the cost of their tools and tool usage; its a given. Many people dont realize shutters and flashes have a lifespan, which means every time you take a picture or fire your flash you are one step closer to that component of your gear needing replacement. During a typical Santa season, I may take 25,000 - 50,000 photographs as we try to get the right picture for each child. Only a fraction of these photographs are actually used; but the volume of photographs does play a heavy role in wear and tear on camera gear which is a hefty chunk from the lifespan of a camera. Once you factor in all the costs; paying myself, Santa, the cost of prints, envelopes, Santa cards; the cost of running the Santa set easily runs into the thousands of dollars. Most people only see that moment where the photo is taken, and not the massive amount of time and work and investment that goes on behind the scenes to make that photo happen. I hope this sheds some light on the mystery of professional grade Santa photography and why the price is what it is! :)
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 05:05:21 +0000
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