Title = Profession?

In the culture today all it takes is a website and a little validation to make you a “professional”.  We rarely find people in the wedding industry that do photography or other services as their actual profession.  While we have found over 215 advertised wedding photographers in Colorado with websites.  There were another 65 that ended their “businesses” in the past few years.  Of those only 10% appear to actually have a real business.  There are 63 active wedding photographers in Colorado from 2020/2021 that could report profits to obtain a Small Business Association (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Loan.  This is something that was for real businesses to get a way to fill the gap caused by mandatory shutdowns.  This self reported data shows that the average actual photographer makes $49611 per year or $4134 per month.  The data also shows that 71% of ‘wedding photographers’ do not have enough of a business profit to even collect the SBA PPP funds. We stopped searching when we got under 2K income per month so the number is likely a little higher in both total photographers and PPP participants.

Here is the implication – there are only 23 wedding photographers in Colorado that this could be their actual profession were they make at or above the average income in Denver. The reality is based on the PPP loan data there are actually only 11 true professional wedding photographers in Colorado as of 2020/2021.

We go into the numbers on why this is the case a bit in the Colorado Wedding Market Pricing article. The basic idea is that the industry only will budget about 66% on what it would take to actually make it full time.  The exception would be those being creative in types of work to increase volume.

This SBA PPP data means that most (>94%) Wedding Photographers are hobbyist or enthusiasts – not professionals.

So how can you tell the difference?

Signs of a Pretend Profession

Volume of Work – Blogs

Seasonality can lessen a consistent flow of blogs.  This is both in an off season and in season.  As there are variables what we are meaning to look at the big picture.  To illustrate in Colorado if you only see 5 blogs between winters then this implies they did at least 5 shoots but likely no more than 40 (8x multiple).  We have blogged less as we have gotten more busy but there is still a consistent flow.  If there are no blogs because they have no website then clearly this is not their profession.  There are 1040 profiles listed on the Wedding Wire network but if you look through them most do not have more than a few reviews – if any implying no wedding work.

Response Time – Slow

There are a lot of reasons for a response time.  On our contact form we set an expectation of a response in 24 hours.  The habit is that we can sometimes squeeze in a response between shoots or calls.  We frequently hear that when someone asked about using them for their services they never heard back from them.  If it is days to get a response on an initial contact then I would recommend moving on even if there is a response.  If someone is full time you could expect a response in hours most days of the week and around a day on weekends when shoots are in higher demand.  There are variables and a slower response might just mean someone is keeping very busy.

Editing Time – Slow

When it comes to editing there is this fallacy that more time meant you spent more time editing.  More time means you spent more time because you were doing more things.  It might also be that you spent more time because you shot sloppy or are trying to figure out how to edit.  The longer and more you edit over the years the faster you get.  The more you shoot the better you get at shooting in lighting, composition, and balancing that between different lenses.  The better you shoot the faster you can edit.  Outside of skill aspects of shooting and editing there is the hardware.  Top end hardware will reduce the lag time in processing but is very expensive.  Put multiple people on a shoot requires a lot more hardware but makes things even faster. The longest we have ever taken on a wedding was 3 weeks.  Most are under 2 weeks for us.  We commonly hear 1-3 months because people only can edit in the evenings after work.  The other trending factor is that people start to outsource editing which gets dangerous because you are then working with a 3rd party and not a consistent person.  They have a style developed but it’s still a variable as no two images are taken exactly alike.

Questions to Ask A Photographer

Magazine questions say to ask a bunch of questions.  Some of those can be good and others not as good.  For someone running a small business it might produce the opposite effect of what is desired.  We talk a little on this in our industry insight blog on what not to ask a photographer.  Here are the two questions we would ask if we were in your shoes as well as the thinking behind them:

• How many couples did you shoot for last year?  We have heard people say things like only doing 5 shoots a year – and deem themselves a professional photographer.  We also see people trying to sell exclusivity as a reason for having a low number of couples.  Where that breaks down for us is that no person running a real business would not break the limit of X couples per year if someone came saying they would pay 2x the price.  It is an arbitrary line of weakness sold as a demand factor for booking.  It’s not that one is selling product they cannot ship.  This is service so if you are not selling enough to sustain yourself it is a tell tale sign you are not actually doing this as your profession.
• How often do you pay taxes?  The thinking behind this question is that if they pay once a year or have not paid then they have no regular levels of income.  This is either because they are so new, skirting taxes, or not really running a business well.  If you are actually running a business you will be paying estimated taxes quarterly.  This will be based on the prior year performance.  We think it will likely catch someone off guard but that most are not using a 3rd party to manage the finances unless they are a large company.

Below are some other questions that we think would be good to ask.  We always would encourage you to first go and see what is on their website.  Most do not hide answers in there so go and look for answers to common questions.  We also would go and encourage your looking at the variety of settings they have shot in as if you only see outdoors this indicates a lack of experience in dark lighting conditions.  You can see answer to commonly asked questions on our Frequently Asked Questions Page.

• What kind of equipment do you use and do you have similar quality backups?  Most photographers we see have at best 2 cameras and 3 lenses.  Many go into shoots with one camera and one lens.  Accidents happen and equipment can get weird and fail.  Although phone makers upsell the camera capabilities of their phones I am sure you would be livid to see what you thought was a professional photographer using their iPhone to document your wedding day.
• Can I see a full wedding?  We let couples see almost whatever they want as we are not ashamed of our work in full.  That being said there are very rare occasions when someone requests to be more private.  Showing images is for marketing purposes and not for public domain use.  You really should look at what someone will deliver to others.  We make that self service via our Example Portfolio of real shoots.
• How many shoots have you shot?  You can get more specific down into the how many weddings, how many proposals, etc. As a bit of insight we find with weddings experience shooting made a big difference.  It was not experience at a specific venue as some might think as every wedding was different but experience with the flow.  After 100 weddings you start to get comfortable as not much is new or unique.  Past 200 the skill was there to be able to read variables comfortably before they even started to form.  At 300 you just know how to do things and a second photographer just feels like too much.

Takeaway:

We love our job but know it took years to build.  We appreciate all those who we have gotten to work with over the years.  Looking back we do not see many who make it.  Many start something up on the side.  They are here and gone in a few years.  When you go with someone who is less than doing this as their profession you are assuming risk.  We believe that risk should be factored into the cost and knowingly accepted.  We all start somewhere but to give the impression you are something more than you are is a problem.  Unfortunately this is very common and couples assume risk they were not aware of before booking.  We would encourage you to weight the risk / benefits.  Buying service from a real business rather than an image you kinda liked will help you in the long run.