Why is Boudoir Photography so Expensive?
Why is Boudoir Photography so expensive? This question gets asked so often, and there is no short answer. Typically, when shopping for anything from fashion to automobiles, price is equal to quality. Now, there is a tipping point that occurs where a brand is able to charge insane amounts of money simply based on their branding. For the purpose of this article, let’s focus on quality for price.
But aren’t all photo shoots the same? No, they certainly are not. The most important part of any session is the photographer. Their years of experience will certainly play a role in determining price. A photographer with years of experience will make you feel comfortable, know how to pose you, light you, interact with you, and seamlessly make adjustments to you and the camera. There is an art to directing a photo shoot that comes with lots and lots of experience.
After the photographer, there is the gear. Photography gear is expensive. The more you spend on it, the better quality and reliability you get. Producing high-end images for your boudoir clients means being able to produce consistent results. This means investing in cameras and lenses that don’t fail. This means investing in a lighting setup that will hold up to hours of use, day in and day out. This means investing in a powerful computer setup that allows you to edit with multiple programs, and a color-calibrated monitor that will produce reliably vibrant images, each and every time. This professional photography equipment contributes to a higher price.
In the debate on price versus quality, it would be wrong to not address time. This is one I feel often goes overlooked. Let’s say you do a discount boudoir session that was advertised on Facebook for $250.00. They promised you an hour session and (X) amount of images. You finish the shoot and patiently await your finished product. When it arrives, you are less than blown away. They removed that pimple from your cheek, but it looks washed out, oddly framed and you never noticed there was a cluster of cables between the TV and the chair… until now.
This photographer didn’t take the time needed to provide you with images of a superior quality. This is why they can charge so little. It’s a fast transaction, not unlike a drive-through burger. It’ll take the edge off and have you felling pretty good in the moment, but it won’t be long before you realize that wasn’t Grade-A meat and the initial satisfaction pales to a slightly upset stomach.
I’ll use myself to finish my example of time. We may also only shoot for an hour, but the back-end work that goes into your images would blow your mind. That pimple on your cheek, of course it’s gone. There is no washed out color-grading, as I have developed my own presets to bring every picture to a vibrant finish. That cluster of cables? I am a perfectionist and tend to be a frequent offender of pixel-peeping, as it’s known among my peers. This means that I will be zooming your pictures, unnecessarily, into about 300%. I won’t just catch and delete the cable cluster, I’ll see right into your family DNA and erase your great uncle’s DUI from 1973!
All joking aside, I’ve learned that a client might not notice all the little details that I do, but I want to leave no chance of them being distracted by anything but how amazing they look when they open up the final images from our boudoir shoot. I’ve spent a lot of years learning how to edit, manipulate colors and light, shape focal points and turn you into an absolute smoke show! All of this takes time, and time costs money.
To sum up, you get what you pay for. It’s as simple as that. Do you want a Luxury Boudoir Experience, or do you want a drive-through discount bellyache? The choice is yours!
Special mention: Some of these photographers who are charging less are not trying to undercut or undervalue the craft. Some of them are just starting out and they are trying to fund the purchase of new gear or education. Take it easy on them and understand that you do get what you pay for. We all started there and the ones that remain persistent always shine.