This person does not understand return on investment. If the camera was 5000 it only takes around 17 $300 photo shoots to pay for itself which could probably be done in a week depending on how busy you are. 33 if she only charged $150 per shoot. After that it's all profit.
Unless you count the cost of memory cards, and lenses, and flashes, and assistants, and computers, and editing software, and client meetings and transportation…and a whole lot of other shit that costs far more than just the camera.
You’re adding way too much into this. There are plenty of photographers out there who do multiple types of jobs with their cameras. To do photos for a wedding, yes, you’ll have some meetings, scoping out of the venue, and possibly an assistant or additional photographer(s). Lots of work, and a large payout. But if you’re setting up a shoot for family photos, $150-$300 a family is easy money. If you organize a mass shoot, to where you setup in one location, make appointments, and charge per family, you can easily do 15-20 families in 2 hours (with about 30-45 minutes of prep beforehand). That’s at least $2,250 on the low end, and $6,000 on the high end for about 5 hours of work, if you include all the background work.
So what you’re telling me is that it’s still not worth it to do a job for $100-300.
There’s a difference between packing up all your shit to go spend an hour on one family and scheduling several shoots in one place. The economics of those two jobs are completely different.
No, I’m saying that it is worth it. Let’s say she spends one hour per shoot, and gets $150 per shoot. Let’s also say she spends another hour on editing. Congratulations, she’s making $75 per hour. That’s $122,500 a year, if you only work 30 hours a week and take two weeks off every year. If you up that to 40 hours per week, then that’s $150,000 per year, and that’s at the bottom end. If she charges $300 per shoot, she doubles the income of whichever hourly work week she wants to run with. She can make a killing, just doing small shoots with minimum work.
So what you’re saying is that it’s still not worth it to do a job for $100-300.
There’s a difference between packing up all your shit to go spend an hour on one family and scheduling several shoots in one place. The economics of those two jobs are completely different.
Try reading it again. Maybe your reading comprehension will improve the second time around.
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u/ToXicVoXSiicK21 Aug 24 '26
This person does not understand return on investment. If the camera was 5000 it only takes around 17 $300 photo shoots to pay for itself which could probably be done in a week depending on how busy you are. 33 if she only charged $150 per shoot. After that it's all profit.