Why do photographers charge what they do?

Have you ever wondered to yourself "Why do photographers charge what they do for newborns?" or "Why does it sometimes take FOREVER to see my pictures?".

I was chatting with a good friend of mine, who is a newborn photographer, and I was wondering the same thing. She and I started talking about the process she goes through to get to the end result. It made me appreciate photographers and their process so much more!

Here it goes:

Newborn sessions can last 4 hours or even longer! The photographer usually has a bunch of props that they have purchased, sometimes specifically for your newborn photo shoot. They spend their time taking pictures and posing the baby. Most of the time, the baby wakes up during the session so they have to wait a little while in between to try to get the baby to sleep as well. Once the photographer gets all their photographs, you'd think they may be finished, well they aren't! This is why you aren't able to see the images immediately, lets get into that...

The session is over, now the photographer has to go through dozens of images to find the right ones. From there, they edit each and every one, taking anywhere from 7 minutes to 20 minutes for each photo. If you have 15 photographs in your album and each one takes 20 minutes to edit, that is an extra 5 hours on top of the 4 hours your photographer took for your session! Totaling 9 hours!

After the photographer has done the session and edited the photographs, they have to set up the gallery. In between that, they are answering your calls and emails about how to order, etc. When you order, the photographer has to place the order with the printing company. To order with the printing company, they have to crop, re-size, and add logos, which can take anywhere from 45 minutes - 2 hours. They also have to check the order to make sure it is correct when it comes in and some make post office runs to ship it to you!

Lets appreciate all our photographers do for us! They really work hard and give us memories that last a lifetime ♥♥♥


If you are interested in reading a story and letter that makes you appreciate more about photography and the memories, click here to visit a blog and read a story that brought tears to my eyes..

**Thanks to Jennifer Lea Photography for supplying the photos and the information :)