I have a lot of angst over pricing my photography. Finding the perfect balance. I want people to be able to afford beautiful photographs. I know they will love them and I know they will love them even more in the future.  I also want to make my photography  worth my while.   A session has to be worth the hours of my time and the massive amount of money I have invested getting to the point where I can take a truly beautiful photograph. But "afford" is a very big word with wildly different meaning to different people.

So how much for a photograph?  Well, I want you to understand what goes into getting that photo. Uncountable hours and thousands of dollars in training, thousands of dollars of equipment, hours editing raw photos, then hours spent with the client before and after a shoot.   A client might wonder why I want hundreds of dollars for a shoot? Other photographers charge thousands.  Well, it has to be worth it to the photographer as well as clients.  My ultimate goal is that I want to charge an amount that feels fair to me and is a good value for my clients.

If you think you can't afford to spend money on a professional photographer, you could ask a friend to take some photos and get your pictures printed at Walgreens. That is an option. But for most people, I challenge you  that you can afford a photo session and prints!  Two dinners out, one mani/pedi, one tank of gas and two new pair of shoes probably is more money than most photographers charge for a medium priced session.  All these purchases wear off, wear out and burn out.  But a photograph, printed at a professional grade lab, lasts FOREVER.  

Ask yourself what you would save if your house were burning down and you had 5 minutes to save what you could  I'm guessing that you would give a list that includes your family photographs ...  Every time.