Wedding photographers are like exotic car salesmen?
Here's the full text of the OP, for those not wishing to click through:
Call me old fashioned, but for me, the print is the thing. No matter how convenient online galleries on Flickr and Facebook seem, and regardless of how good a photo looks on a large television set or an awesomely calibrated computer monitor, something magical happens when one of my photos wears a mat and stands behind a nice piece of glass, held together by a simple black frame. Ditto for wedding albums.
Experts have long predicted the demise of prints now that digital is the only game in town. Just today (2/9/12), Thom Hogan is pre-mourning Kodak’s soon-to-fail stake in photographic prints. "The future of displaying images isn't on paper," he tells us. Thom is a smart and savvy guy, especially when it comes to photography. He may well be right. I just don’t see the sense in his prophecy coming true.
While we can embrace and even rejoice in the many other ways we can distribute and display photos, we need to ask what in the world we need with more and more megapixels or increased high ISO capabilities, if all we’re going to do is show a 640 pixel wide – if that – picture on a computer screen. Rather, it would seem that a camera like the much hailed (and wailed, but that’s another story) D800 would benefit exactly those who need to print -- and print big.
When it comes to wedding photography, we struggle with a similar issue. Burn a disc and hand it over to the bride and groom, or provide them with an album? Which will hold more long-term value? Which will be an heirloom, an inheritance to be passed down to future generations? Which will be reviewed and treasured decade after decade? Can we say that wedding albums will suffer the same fate as printed media? Or will they be an exception? Time will tell, but my heart hopes generations to come continue to appreciate and desire the value in a wedding album.
If you have been shaking your head ever since you read the first sentence of this post, humor me with this homework assignment: head out to a local gallery where high quality photographs are displayed in those nice frames I mentioned, pick your favorite, stand in front of it for 60 seconds, and imagine how that same photo would look on Facebook. For extra credit, find a family or friend’s wedding album – a good one – and go through the same exercise.
Here’s a prayer that rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums are not only premature, but roundly incorrect.
p.1 #2 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
The problem is with that argument that although the above is evidently true, the trend of the modern world has been away from valuing that kind of quality/experience to the extent of paying for it. Not talking about wedding photography but everything. Heck do you think that Walmart or Ikea would have sold a single thing in generations gone past? The accent these days is on disposable, cheap, transitionary. Marriages are just the same given the current divorce rates so I can see why selling an investment in a life time worth of quality in a top tier album or beautifully frames wall print might be eroding as a business model. Those who value that kind of service are rapidly turning that part of the market into a substantially niche one.
p.1 #3 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
I think one of the problems is that most people don't know what to actually *do* with large prints, there are only so many things you can put on the wall and lots of pictures you may love you wouldn't want on a wall anyway. A friend of mine recently got married, as part of the package she got 6 11x14" prints; she loves the pictures and the prints but since she doesn't want 6 big prints of her wedding on the walls of her flat they sit in a cupboard somewhere. Would she have ordered them if they were not part of the package? Probably not, for this reason. This is why prints and albums are very different things. Blurb, labs and portrait photographers (whose main income is usually print sales) have now cottoned on to this problem hence the popularity of photo books of different kinds.
I have a load of pictures I love but have not printed. They are there for if/when the time comes but if they are not for a printed portfolio what am I going to do with them?
p.1 #4 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
The way I see that Mark is, that in the way distant future... those prints are going to be easily viewable....you can just hand it over and FEEL what they represented. I found family prints from 1892 in a drawer.. wow. I scanned them and seeing them on a tablet is Def not the same feeling as holding a print.
p.1 #5 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
Mark_L wrote:
6 11x14" prints; she loves the pictures and the prints but since she doesn't want 6 big prints of her wedding on the walls of her flat they sit in a cupboard somewhere.
6 11x14 prints is an awful lot. But a bunch of nice 8x10 and 5x7 prints can easily find a nice place in any home and office, in my opinion.
p.1 #7 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
I have a friend that has a framing store, and also sells lots of litho's. While his business is off due to the economy, people are still buying S/N L/E litho's. He also sells prints, and he says they sell just as well as the litho's. So, at least in one instance, photographic prints are doing well. Your results may vary
p.1 #8 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
I think we live in an age where things are changing so rapidly that if you tell them the future is so and so, they just buy into it. Prints will always have a place. Families don't gather around a computer screen on holidays. They pull out a wedding album and reminisce. Yes, they could do the same with an iPad/Android tablet. But what's that? The battery is dead? Cousin Pete forgot to load the pictures on them? Little Bobby deleted them to fit Transformers 5? That doesn't happen with a wedding album. And no one decorates their living room with screens either, they hang prints.
p.1 #9 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
You know, they say a record sounds better than Ipod, but who the hell owns a record player anymore. Times change, and business's that don't evolve with them WILL be left behind.
p.1 #10 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
Photographers just need to learn how to tell them. If you put them online, you are diminishing their value and educating your client that online viewing is the best way to do it. It's a hard trend to buck, but honestly, it's photographers faults.
People that buy 30x40's and larger are blown away at how awesome it is. They will cherish it for years. But, they'll never know how awesome their wedding photos can be until you show them what a large print looks like in person.
p.1 #11 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
sboerup wrote:
Photographers just need to learn how to tell them. If you put them online, you are diminishing their value and educating your client that online viewing is the best way to do it. It's a hard trend to buck, but honestly, it's photographers faults.
People that buy 30x40's and larger are blown away at how awesome it is. They will cherish it for years. But, they'll never know how awesome their wedding photos can be until you show them what a large print looks like in person.
Don't you use Zenfolio for proofing or is that only available after your clients see their proofs in your studio?
p.1 #12 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
I guess I am lucky, we still sell a lot of prints each month. We did a poll for customers that purchased a disk instead of those who got the disk and prints and only about 20 percent that went all digital ( disk only) actually made prints. About 25% said they were not sure where the disk they purchased was. The poll was aimed at customers whose session/event was at least 18 months old.
One thing I think that helps us is that we have prints and canvases on the walls of the studio and portfolio books on the tables. When clients come in they inevitably look through the books.
We always sell an album with each wedding and about 50% by at least 1 extra copy for the parents.
Books (layflat) are sold a lot to high school seniors, new born sessions , family reunions and corporate events.
I don't see print and albums going away anytime soon.
p.1 #13 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
Most of my real photography is products built in my ironworks shop. I have found that when I go to sell the work, that a portfolio of 8 x 10 photo's gives the work more legitimacy and holds the customer's attention longer than digital images on a laptop or screen.
p.1 #14 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
gravygraffix wrote:
The way I see that Mark is, that in the way distant future... those prints are going to be easily viewable....you can just hand it over and FEEL what they represented. I found family prints from 1892 in a drawer.. wow. I scanned them and seeing them on a tablet is Def not the same feeling as holding a print.
Going through a very similar experience with my wife's grandmother's prints. Digitizing them just seems wrong, like it robs them of something real. Playing devil's advocate, though, I wonder whether this is photographer-centric viewpoint, i.e., something only photographers would appreciate.
p.1 #15 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
HubbardJA wrote:
Don't you use Zenfolio for proofing or is that only available after your clients see their proofs in your studio?
I only use it for wedding galleries. I hate it though, I hate presenting them online. But, I do have couples come in after the wedding for a real sales session. Their main package is already a good amount, but post-sales keep going up and up.
p.1 #16 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
sboerup wrote:
I only use it for wedding galleries. I hate it though, I hate presenting them online. But, I do have couples come in after the wedding for a real sales session. Their main package is already a good amount, but post-sales keep going up and up.
Good to hear that. I keep hearing similar comments from successful, active wedding photographers, yet I don't hear that from the rest of the photography community, nor from leads that approach me to shoot their weddings.
p.1 #17 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
i was born in the year 1990, and i value images based on the image, not the medium of display. i like photos when i see them on the back of my camera sometimes, too!
p.1 #18 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
Sergio Mottola wrote:
i was born in the year 1990, and i value images based on the image, not the medium of display. i like photos when i see them on the back of my camera sometimes, too!
p.1 #19 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
Our print/album sales consist of a large amount of our total sales. Recently we have begun offering digital files. The uptake was good too. But the album stuff is where the heart string is felt the most.
I wish we have a proper home studio where we can display large prints. Because I ain't gonna display images of other people in the house!
IIRC those digital photo frames were quite popular. I think they have died down.
Feb 13, 2012 at 02:20 PM
marti.g3 Offline • • • • [X]
p.1 #20 · Rumors of the demise of prints and wedding albums
Back in the film only days, we used to do a lot of post sales...a lot.....but once digital came into play and clients wanted that disc of files, that all stopped. I'm considering NOT supplying the disc for wedding jobs anymore.
