Quote:
Originally Posted by mexico531
Thanks everyone for all your advice and feedback on this topic. It would seem that it's just not feasible - at least not in the U.K. It may be different in other countries where people seem to have a much better appreciation of quality pictures in general. From what I've seen on the net, wedding photography seems much more important to couples in the states than it does to couples here.
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If people in this country paid the prices they do in the US I would be happy to shoot film. To give people the same coverage that most demand, you would be looking at 15+ rolls of 36 Exp. That is quite an overhead in film and processing, and if you want to provide a book of proofs or disc as most people want, you will have to scan, thats a lot of scanning and you would need a professional quality neg scanner (more overheads) you could produce prints yourself, but if you do it full time you just wouldn't have enough time.
If you could swap to film, and not have to do anything digital in your work flow then it's possible, but knowing what I know of the wedding clients, they will be asking for the proof books, discs and storybook albums most of which involve digital work flow.
My mum lives in the US and she always keeps saying to me, "you should see how much they charge for wedding photography here" it is just not the same in the UK and never will be. If you reduce the coverage of a wedding to keep the film usage down, the clients would see this as a retrograde step, I very much doubt they would book you. Most of my couples are always asking for more, bridal prep, speeches, table settings, first dance, I have photographed weddings where they have had bouncy castles, bucking bronco machines, magicians, bubble machines, firework displays and they always want photos of whatever they have.
I am selective about what I photograph, when I shoot the reportage shots, I wait for a moment before pressing the shutter and try to catch something special. But even with this approach I average about 500 shots per wedding, though you often take 3 or 4 of each group to avoid blinking eyes and strange expressions (more if kids are present) but even after editing they usually have 300-350 photographs in there proof book.
I would love to go back to the days of film, where I did a quarter of the work for only slightly less profit.
Neil