Investing More Into My Photography - Printing

One of my frustrations is not having 100% control of the final product with my photographs. I look at my photographs as a full process that I cannot complete, and the next step in my photography world is printing.

Currently, I need to send out for each and every print. I've tested many online sites spending money on proofs, different papers, and so on. One of the things that I dislike greatly is turn around time. For example, a new image is ready for printing. I don't like to make prints available prior to me seeing what they look like on at least at 13x19 inch print. So this means I must go online, submit my order, and wait about a week for an order. If it doesn't turn out right, I need to repeat it until it is correct.  My screen is calibrated, but not calibrated with the printers I send to (which is a different issue).

I've been looking into what I need to be able to do printing at home, professional grade, up to a 13" print. I have been mainly looking at the Epson and Canon line due to their history and quality of prints in the inkjet world. I first came across the Epson R2000 and R3000 series. After initial review, the R3000 series was the number one pick due to the higher quality black and white photos. Next, I compared prices of what I was doing for prints, what type of media can I print on, and ease of use.

I have found that the R3000 has created a huge buzz in the photography world.  Amazing prints in both color formats, the large amount of printing options (including canvas), and would allow me to save up to 82% on printing costs (costs just based off of ink costs)! This would overall reduce prices of my prints, turn around time, and I would then have 100% control of my prints that are 13x19" or less on just about all mediums. For example, an 8x10 shouldn't cost more than $1 to product, and it costs me double.

To determine if a printer was a good route to go, or to continue with what I am doing, I had to crunch some numbers and ask some questions. How many prints have I done in a year? How many more prints can I expect to do at a lower cost? Can I maintain the demand?

With what I have currently sold and I assume, I could increase sales by 33% with the lower prices, I would almost be able to pay off the printer in a three years time. However, I also thought of some of the projects I could do with local businesses and events now that I have this at home, and it may be possible to increase sales by just printing photos for people. So I put numbers together of what I would need to do in a year to make up the printer cost. Why a year? That is the warranty on the printer. I can 100% foresee no additional cost with the printer on repairs or maintenance during the warranty time, and therefore create a better model of paying off the printer. I also included extended warranty models as well.

Example Sale Requirements

If I was able to dish out about 1600 general prints (not my own) of 8x10 size in a year, I could pay for the printer. Looking at the 600 number may seem like a lot of prints, but that is only 133 prints a month, and that does not include selling my photographs on this printer. Also, another key is to see that 16x24 have even more profit. Here is one of the example tables I came up with, this is no way actual numbers that I sell images for at the current time.



So with this I would  need to sell seven 5x7, forty 8x10, three 11x14, and five 13x19 a month to pay this off in a year. I don't know about you, but those numbers seem very possible with just printing for people. These numbers do not include selling my photos, but only printing other folks prints for them. Once we include figures for my photos, it would be cut down that number even more. These numbers proved that I should purchase a printer for myself next year, with the additional feature of printing other people's prints. Even if I don't pay it off in a year, the rest of the cost of me being able to control a print from shutter release to drying the ink is worth it as well.

With the holiday season coming around, I thought it would be the perfect time to purchase one of these printers. I was right! $200 off of the price, which means I could print even less to pay for the printer. Half of the amount of 4x6s and only fifty 13x19's in a year!  However, I found out that Epson has announced a new printer that looks absolutely amazing, including my love for printing amazing panoramas and high-capacity ink cartridges. It is able to print on canvas and art boards!

I hope that helps you look into my world of what I can do to make my workflows more of my own, how to lower prices of my prints while maintaining quality, and showing you my next step in my journey of making my photography more than just a hobby!

If you have any questions or subjects you would like me to cover feel free to leave a comment or find me at one of the following sites:

• Twitter - @SteveSFoto
• Facebook - www.facebook.com/StevenSantamourPhotography.com
• New Online Gallery - fineartamerica.com/profiles/steven-santamour.html

Explaining the Cost of a Photograph

Recently, I have been asked why I can offer my prints for so much less than many other photographers but my limited edition print costs so much more. I'm hoping this blog can iron out some those questions and help you understand the price of a picture or photograph.

In photography, the photograph is a product of the photographer. This product came to be with the cost of equipment, travel expenses, licenses, permits, time, and the actual cost of printing it. Not all photographers use the same equipment, travel around the world or print their photos themselves. Because of that, their price reflect what they invest in their photos.

Starting off with equipment this is the biggest investments a photographer will spend their profits and their own money in. Prior to starting to charge for my photos, I had already spent over $3,000...that's right over $3,000 in equipment. I started with a basic camera body, but I learned that buy the best glass you can afford. You can take the most expensive camera body and put on cheap glass (camera lens) and your photos wont be as good as if you reverse the scenario; cheap body with high quality glass you will actually get better photos. Over time I learned why tripods costs so much after the cheaper ones wouldn't even hold my camera because of the weight. I'm not saying that photos are only as good as your equipment, but you can't sell a picture if it's not sharp. Some wedding photographers charge $4k or more, but they can offer so many more options than what I can. For example, if the church doesn't allow flash photography I wouldn't have any options but to not use flash. Those who charge more may have options such as setting up equipment to increase the lighting in the church which would get around the no flash rule and therefor resulting in better photos.

I don't plan on doing portrait and event photography forever, my main goal is to become a nature and landscape photographer. For me to get these landscape and nature shots, I need to travel. Hotels, gas, oil changes costs add up quickly. My trip to South Carolina would have been pretty expensive if I went there just to get a few shots. I was lucky enough that my lifestyle already had traveling in it to help reduce these costs. Wisconsin also has great locations for what I like to take pictures of, so that also works out. However, I also want to be able to go on a cruise to Alaska and get less common photographs than what someone would normally see.

Permits and licenses are another factor when taking photographs. This includes a permit to shoot on private land such as in a Zoo or private establishment (example: http://county.milwaukee.gov/Photography9057.htm). Some cities require you to purchase a photographer's license just to be able to professional shoot within their city limits (Milwaukee for example is $100, http://www.milwaukee.gov/ImageLibrary/Groups/ccLicenses/profphoto.pdf). We aren't able to just walk in, set-up our equipment, snap some shots, and sell them. Like us with photo rights, private establishments have their own rights on who can come in and use their property for commercial use. Mainly, if you disrupt the flow of traffic on a sidewalk or walkway you will most likely need a permit.

Time. Like any job a photographer is paid just for using his time for the photo. With me, I don't live off of my photography. I actually use any and all profits to purchase and upgrade my photography equipment and website. How does a photographer figure out how much to charge? I go off of a few variables: Are you going to order prints from me, is the photo session/event only for a few hours, is it an all day event, is it on a Sunday? I also want everyone to be able to have at least one photo taken of them that they can be happy about. If you can only afford 35 dollars for a photo session, you can only expect me to give you so much time, use so much of my equipment, and offer you limited options. If you can afford 800 dollars for me to shoot an event, you can expect me to work my ass off the whole time. You can expect I will take time on photos to ensure they have the perfect color settings, exposure, crop, and other edits. You can expect me to offer you a discount on photo orders.

Cost of Printing. I don't print my photos at home, I don't have the cash to purchase a professional printer (those are about 800 now). I don't want to be in charge of printing, packaging, and shipping. Because of this, I use my website to do all of that for me. Because of that, they take a % out of the sale and I have a yearly fee for them to host my site. So when I came up with my pricing I had to figure out how much did I want to make on each photo I sold, how much it costs the photo to make, and how much of that I was going to pay to my web host. I believe I have found myself a great price for me and for you.

Limited Edition. So why is my limited edition print so expensive? First lets define what a limited edition photo is; A limited edition is normally hand signed and numbered by the artist, here is also a specified amount of prints that will be available, and once these specified amount of prints are exhausted it will no longer be printed.

So I will use my "Layers of Love" as an example. I first decided what I wanted it printed on. I found out that aluminium printing is a bit expensive, but the prints are waterproof. It is also done with recycled material and offers more detail than traditional printing mediums (canvas or paper). Because of these factors, I decided to go with this medium. I then decided on print sizes. I though this photo would look great down a hallway, so I picked 8x12. I also thought it would look good in a larger room so I decided to go with 16” x 24”. I also felt that there may be a few people out there that would want it larger than life, so I also chose 24” x 36”. Now to make this limited edition, I have to choose how many prints I want to offer. I figured a small number would be best so I decided on 25 and 25 for the first two sizes. On the last one, after finding how much it costs just to have it printed I decided to keep that at a very low number of 3. Now, the pricing of these photos. First is the cost of the printing was taken, added to the half day of shooting I did to get this shot, and then the profit estimate. I needed to determine a number that was fair to me, but worthwhile to still purchase. Once these 53 prints are sold, I can no longer print this photo which then makes it worthless to me. So I put a price on the photo; If someone asked me how much for me to buy the copyright of that photo, how much would that be. After I researched online on what a shot could go for, I divided that by 53 and added the total of the Cost and Time.

A picture of "Layers of Love" being displayed still wrapped from shipping

I've been asked, what if I print beyond the 53 photos? I technically can be sued. I am actually lowering the value of your print because it is no longer as limited as it previously was believed to be. So there is many reasons why I would not want to print beyond the specified amount of prints. By giving certificates, which I actually do print myself, it has very specific information about the print and print series to ensure that this is in fact a limited edition print.

Future limited editions. I also plan on keeping my limited editions to a very few. I decided that at the very most I will have one new limited edition each year. I want these photos to be my very top photos, so those who own the photos have even a higher appreciation of the photograph beyond just looking at it. I want them to be happy with their investment. By doing this, I am hoping that this will only increase the value in my limited edition prints.

So I hope this helps you understand why a photographer charges what they charge.

Also check out my website for photographs you can order: http://santamour.smugmug.com/