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thats not impossible Focus_man as at the moment the crop of few hours for a few quid new photographers in the market are doing there best to drive the prices and times down and down. However I would not be able to survive personally on that amount of hours knowing how much money it would bring in and the question then would be are people really going to pay a thousand pounds or anywhere near for 50 shots ? I guess the yield or price per shot worked out a lot better in your day than mine 
I absolutely love seeing dreadful wedding shots on facebook from people who asked for a quote (bartered, moaned and groaned etc.) from me and went with someone else....
it's the best "f**k you" feeling ever
(well - up there anyway)
a lovely karma
they'll look at their ***** photos once or twice and then hide them away in shame....
(slightly tongue in cheek above by the way.....)
only slightly though
When the Registry Office was just across the road from his studio, one local colleague used to offer a £120 quickie package. His shooting time was limited to half an hour and he gave the couple something like 30 prints of a modest size like 7x5. His costs were miniscule and he spent less than an hour in total so it was certainly profitable. The punters had reasonable pix very cheaply indeed.
Then they moved the Registry Office to the other side of town!
As a comparison, you should look at some of the ar.... erm, 'art photographers' who are slapping price tags of several hundreds on copycat or basic filter works lol
Whether its weddings or studio, art or stock, there is always going to be folk cutting corners, undercutting or trying/hoping to rip off people and ridicule the work done by those of us with pride
Those of us who can show reliability/quality/originality will stand out (or should) and with the right approach and a bit of luck will succeed. And thats not a slight on newcomers by ANY means! I have been lucky to work with/teach folk with obvious talent that i honestly hope the best for. I was also one of those folks once (like the rest of us).
But for me, being fortunate to make a career out of my passion then make it my business, i just hate to see newcomers being shot down as soon as they try to find their feet and an almost wild west stand off between young and new. I guess i stand somewhere in the middle. Professional, but non specific (due to the nature of what i do, you cant 'just' be this or that, you have to be adaptive, inventive and a little bit lucky/pushy), a majority of working life in the industry but still (just) under 40, and still fortunately very passionate about art and photography so it has never become a chore or i become a button pusher. And most of all, being able to share, teach and advise others looking to get into photography (esp my daughter)
If it hadnt been for my dad's love/talent for photography, my mum modeling and a local pro photographer spotting something in my 'snaps', i might have ended up in an office job lol
Quote: If it hadnt been for my dad's love/talent for photography, my mum modeling and a local pro photographer spotting something in my 'snaps', i might have ended up in an office job lol
That doesnt quite sound right for some reason, lol. I mean my mum was a model in the 60's and seeing her portfolio encouraged me to do model shoots, and a pro photographer took me on as an assistant while i was studying art (he was a school/wedding/studio photographer)
Quote: Thats not impossible Focus_man as at the moment the crop of few hours for a few quid new photographers in the market are doing there best to drive the prices and times down and down. However I would not be able to survive personally on that amount of hours knowing how much money it would bring in and the question then would be are people really going to pay a thousand pounds or anywhere near for 50 shots ? I guess the yield or price per shot worked out a lot better in your day than mine
Well it was just an attempt at hilarity to lighten the proceedings!
I guess people, because of modern day "take loads of pics" would perhaps not easily pay £1000 for 50 shots, but I bet that their albums do not contain any more than 50 shots, that is not counting the loads of 6" x 4" that can be loaded 6 to a page, I mean full page 10" xs 8" shots.
But photographers do not need to survive on wedding photography alone. Most weddings take place on a Saturday, which leaves another 6 days (if necessary) to do commercial and industrial work. I think the problem might be to a lot of people (not you I feel sure) that whereas weddings are mainly cash jobs (no invoices which are going to be used in the B&Gs accounts) Industrial and Commercial incomes have to be fully declared to HMRC by way of, in my case, self-assessment and need to include VAT, mine did anyway. That must put a few off that kind of work.
There are quite a lot of differences now , weddings take place on mainly Fri Sat and Sun though we get mid-week bookings as venues offer substantial savings during the week and its easier to get a registrar for a civil midweek. Album wise as its all now mainly storybook albums there are no prints as such and on average including background and detail shots we would use over 100 in a 40 page book where the pages are the actual photos - there are some on my site linked via my epz pf if you havent seen them before. Due to the amount of work involved in editing photos designing albums etc there is no time left during the week to fit much else in as i spend mon - thurs editing all day and then weekends for weddings ! , and we take all of our bookings via bank transfer now so no cash involved !
I take great pride in my work and just hope that we can manage to keep an income from it as it is great to be able to spend your time doing something you love, some years ago we both worked as retail managers working 9-9 , 20 days a week for a pittance , and don't fancy going back to anything like that ! All we can do is hope people continue to see the benefit of having a professional and experienced photographer.
I quite enjoy the wedding day, it's like a gig to me - you're playing to the audience, so similar feeling to playing piano in a busy bar
It's the faff around them that does my head in - all that editing, planning, book-making and revisions.... adds up to a lot of time!
I've got 0 booked in 2013...
Working more on the commercial side - and the training business is starting to pick up more and more. Just spent Saturday teaching a group about the technical side of it all, and today I've been all around Malham and Settle with a group, taking photos of amazing ice and snow features.
Even doing websites... yes... IT again...
Proper mixture - become a bit of a polymath!
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