A Photo by Ashley: May 2009

Sunday, May 10, 2009

CONGRATS Paul & Keisha!

What a lovely day for such a beautiful wedding! I have been so fortunate to have such great Brides & Grooms to work with, what great families I have met.

Paul & Keisha are such a happy, funny and loving couple. Being able to capture their wedding moments today was such a joy and honor. Enjoy your Honeymoon to Jamaica Paul & Keisha!!!

Stay tuned for more....

Friday, May 8, 2009

NEW Tab

There is a new tab that is added to the site.

www.aphotobyashley.com

Give me feedback if you like it or not. This will be a way for the public to view more images of an event instead of limited posing and jumping around to different categories!

Enjoy!!!

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Senior Pictures

I was so excited to receive the email about "Guy" Senior Pictures!!! That sounds silly, but I always shoot girls! So it was a lot of fun to have a boy to change things up. Austin (not my husband) was a trooper!

Kelsey was a cute girl to work with, it's always so funny at the beginning of sessions because I know how uncomfortable they feel but she got the hang of me being all in her face real fast and she gave me some great shots! The day was beautiful but we had to work with the wind blowing every which-a-way!

Prom 2009

I must say I really enjoyed yesterday's sessions! Something different and you know I love different!!! Here are a few shots of the couples I had the privilege of capturing their Prom Moments.

Enjoy!

Saturday, May 2, 2009

The Blogging World!

As most of you know I am in the process of updating my blog! However, I am on a waiting list to have this done... so with a little patients and anxiousness, I am sooo looking forward to it being completed and looking great! I am swamped with the busy things I have going on in my life... so I am working on a work pattern that I have been slacking for awhile. I will be working on organizing my work flow better and changing A LOT of things around here as far as Equipment, Weddings, Wedding Packages, Products, Packaging, and working towards becoming a Green Photographer (yes that is such a thing)

As I try to make all these changes, I chose to do so at the start of a busy year, so hopefully late nights won't catch up with me!

I want to say an extra THANK YOU to Cassie Spencer and Heather Hall for doing such an amazing job getting the word out and bugging your Facebook Friends to become a Fan of A Photo by Ashley. I truly appreciate it! Cassie won a FREE Session, (1)8x10 (1)Set of Wallets, Free Frame AND a FREE Clipper from mayfairlane.com! Since Heather came in second and did an awesome job as well... she won a FREE session too!

Why are Professional Photographers so expensive?

Why are Professional Photographers so expensive?

(This article has been very well received by the photography community, and is now referred to by countless Photography websites, blogs and forums (such as LDPT, ILP and DWF)around the world).

In this digital age where everyone has digital cameras, scanners and home "photo printers", when people upload their photos to a local drug store website and pick them up a few hours later, we hear this all the time

- How in the world do Professional Photographers charge $55 for an 8x10 when they cost just $1.50 at the drug store?

Here's why.

Simply put, you're not just paying for the actual photograph, you're paying for time and expertise. First, let's look at the actual time involved. If you don't read this entire page, at least read this first part.

For a two hour portrait session:
- one hour of travel to and from the session
- two hours of shooting
- 30 minutes of setup, preparation, talking to the client etc.
- 30 minutes to load the photos onto a computer (2 - 4 Gb of data)
- 30 minutes to back up the files on an external drive
- 3 - 4 hours of Photoshop time including cropping, contrast, color, sharpening, saving a copy for print and a copy for the internet and backing up the edited photographs
- 2 - 3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions, receive their order and payment, order their prints, receive and verify prints, package prints, schedule shipment and drop package off at Fed Ex.- For local customers, we also print a set of all of their photos, and meet them at our studio to review the photos and place their order.
Meeting and travel time averages 2 hours.
You can see how one two hour session easily turns into more than ten hours of work from start to finish.

So when you see a Photographer charging a $200 session fee for a two hour photo shoot, you are not paying them $100 / hour.

For an eight hour wedding:

- I won't bore you with the details, but an eight hour wedding typically amounts to at least two to three full 40 hour work weeks worth of time. Again, if they are charging you $4,000 for an eight hour wedding, you are not paying them $500 / hour.
Now for the expertise.
Shooting professional photography is a skill, acquired through years of experience. Even though a quality camera now costs under $2,000 taking professional portraits involves much more than a nice camera.
Most Professional Photographers take years to go from buying their first decent camera to making money with their photography. In addition to learning how to use the camera itself, there is a mountain of other equipment involved, as well as numerous software programs used to edit and print photographs, run a website etc.
And let's not forget that you actually have to have people skills, be able to communicate, make people comfortable in front of the camera - and posing people to make them look their best in a photograph is a skill all by itself.

Think of it this way - the next time you pay $X to get your hair done, a pair of scissors only costs $1.50. But you gladly pay a lot more to hire a Professional.

What about the cheap studios at the mall?
Please don't compare us to the chain store studios. But if you must, consider all of the time and work that we put into our photographs, compared to what they do. Good luck getting a two hour photo shoot at a chain store. Not to mention they won't come to the beach! And of course, look at our work compared to theirs. You get what you pay for.
The truth is, most of the mall and chain store studios lose money. In fact, in 2007 Wal-Mart closed 500 of their portrait studios because of the financial drain they were putting on the company. What the chain stores bet on is that you'll come in for some quick and cheap photos, and while you're there, you'll also spend $200 on other things. They don't have to make money, they are just there to get you in the door.
Conclusion
We hope that those who have taken the time to read this page will have a better understanding of why professional photographs cost so much more than the ones that you get from your local drug store.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Shawn, Pamela & Gavin RichterCaught on Film Photography

A Photo by Ashley

Sunday, May 10, 2009

CONGRATS Paul & Keisha!

Friday, May 8, 2009

NEW Tab

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Senior Pictures

Prom 2009

Saturday, May 2, 2009

The Blogging World!

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Why are Professional Photographers so expensive?