Here’s a different question for you. What brand of ice cream do you buy? Is it store brand, Haagen Daz, Dreyers? Why do you buy that brand? Is it cheaper, better quality, better variety? What does your ice cream brand say about you? You prefer quantity over quality? Ice cream is ice cream no matter what brand it is? You value high quality ingredients? You will spend money on a product you enjoy and value?
For me, I buy Ben and Jerrys. BUT I do not have a Ben and Jerry’s budget. HOWEVER I do have Ben and Jerry’s taste. What does it mean to me to pay more for Ben and Jerrys? It means I am buying a product that:
-has high quality ingredients that are better for me, (B&J uses milk that does not contain bovine growth hormone (rBGH) and it is important to me to use as many products as I can that are better for me, my family, and the environment.)
-offers more creative flavor combinations.
-is delicious!
-says to people who enjoy B&J that I am one of those people too!
Photography is the same way. Let me explain. To book a session with me you pay a retainer fee of $150 for my services. If you want digital files from your session you might pay $500 for almost the whole session. I am fully aware that $650 is a chunk of money that might not be in your budget for photography. Maybe $650 is a days pay. Maybe you have plans to spend that money on a big purchase like a new t.v. Maybe it’s not in your budget but you like what I do enough that you will save or pull some strings to have a session with me. One of my favorite clients (oh you’re all my favorite!) has a story that applies here.
Ms. M’s family is a 2 income household. Her honey runs his own businesses, Northeast Cyclery and Gold Ave Bicycle Co. Ms. M first saw my work on a mutual friend’s facebook page and contacted me immediately to book a session. She loved my unconventional and artistic approach to portraits. I met her family in Albuquerque’s Old Town to start and then moved over to the bosque. Everything went really well. Her family loved the pictures so much that her mom offered to split the price of the digital files. About a year later, Ms. M contacted me to tell me she would really like to do a 50′s style photo shoot and wanted to pay the session fee and buy her digital files right away too…before she saw them… before we even took the pictures! She knew that my style, my quality of work, her family’s portraits are worth paying for, and worth investing in.
So ask yourself these questions:
-Are my family’s portraits worth the investment?
-Do I want a photographer who has the lowest price or the best product?
-Can I afford or am I willing to save to afford the photographer whose work best represents what I want for my family?
-Do I want a photographer to just take our picture or do I want something more than that? (on location, different poses, style services, a concept shoot.)
All that being said, I am NOT the right photographer for everyone. Here are some very talented professional photographers in the Albuquerque area that I recommend:
Tammy Staley Unlike many photographers. Tammy specializes in newborn portraits. Hiring a photographer who specializes in a type of photography means they have fine tuned their process and focus their efforts and education on becoming the best at what they do. She loves working with babies (which requires too much patience for me) and donates time and services to the NILMDTS organization. She’s told me she has an over flowing stash of baby hats! She watches trends, explores new ideas, and offers a Baby Club program to document your baby’s first year!
Brianna Saban is Albuquerque’s best lifestyle photographer! A lifestyle photographer will work with your family to pick a location and possibly activities to document your family interacting with each other. And that’s the best thing about lifestyle photographers! The have mad skills in getting families to interact and be natural with each other to ensure you have family portraits that show what it means to be your family. They do coach you to get some posed shots, but those portraits show more emotion than a “box store” studio session.
Seth and Desiree Jones of Jones Photo Art have a studio near Albuquerque’s historic Old Town. They do high quality studio work, special sessions for couples who are already married, Desiree volunteers for NILMDTS, and they are awesome wedding photographers! The have a major talent for bringing out the real connection and feelings between 2 people.
