Our culture is definitely moving into the digital realm! There are more and more digital scrapbookers, more digital picture frames, many using social networking sites, etc, etc. Your friend snaps some pictures and “throws” them on a disc for you or puts them on Facebook and tags you, giving you your picture for free. So, why, you may be wondering, do you have to pay what seems like a high price for your digital images from jh Photography?? (I do have to argue that I am priced very competitively, in fact quite low, compared to the industry standard. Many photographers I know charge $100 per image on a disc with a high minimum purchase price for a disc of images.)
I have just a few quick reasons why there’s a cost for having your photos put on a disc:
-First, your edited pictures on a disc represent much time for the photographer. (See the other link for Why Does Custom Photography Cost More?) It’s much more than “just quick throwing/burning” your pictures on a disc!
-Second, think of your digital images as our negatives. 10 years ago, we never would have thought of asking our professional photographer for the negatives from our session. Well, and if we did, they would have said, “No!”.
-Third, most photographers put time and thought into how they edit a picture, into the crop and composition, coloring, etc. We each have a style that is uniquely our own. Most of us also use a professional lab for our printing needs. So, many of us fear what will happen when our images are on a disc for anyone to alter however they want on the editing program they have on their home computer and then printing at a lab that doesn’t hold the high standard we are accustomed to. I don’t necessarily want my name on an image that has been edited/altered and then printed poorly. The danger is there everytime we hand out a disc with our copyrighted images on them! (For that reason, if you do purchase digital images from jh Photograhy, the are not to be altered in any way.)
-And, finally, to be brutally honest, we as photographers know that as soon as we put pictures on a disc for a client that our chances of getting any kind of a print (enlargement) order are slim to none. Most of us count on print orders as part of our income. We are in photography because we love the art, but let’s face it, we need to make a living, too!
Thanks for reading my “soapbox” thoughts & I hope that I have only educated, not offended! ;)