“Why is custom photography so expensive?”

Custom photography is all about the client and the experience. Your photographer will provide one on one attention without worry of who is next ‘in line’ or the feeling rushed in a crowded portrait studio. Keep in mind that when you go to a chain studio, as a customer you don’t have the benefit of one on one attention where you’re allowed a more introspective experience of being comfortable and catered to.

• A custom photographer will typically show you a fairly extensive gallery handpicked to show only the best images that meet the photographers’ creative standards.

• Custom photographers are also known as boutique studios, offering a range of products and unique service.

Why Does Custom Photography Cost More?

The digital revolution has brought amazing flexibility and ability to control various factors during the image taking and making process. Photographers, the hobbyist, the professional, the amateur all benefit from this ability to manipulate pixels. However, with flexibility comes a price. Digital camera equipment is still considerably more expensive when you factor in it’s lifespan, the need for additional resources for processing those images, the time it takes to get a usable image and the effort that goes into creating a work of photographic art. We all know that you can go to the local Walgreen’s and pay a $1.99 for a print – as a client you may wonder why you may pay upwards of $100 for a custom photography print.

Making a future investment.

Some clients want to take a more active role creating memories for themselves or their families, and have portrait work that is truly personalized. These more insightful clients have been known to create time and a budget specifically for a custom photography session. Many clients opt for it to be a once a year special experience, some opt to have custom photography sessions done to record special stages in their lives. Understanding that custom photography is not in everyone’s budget, it is something that most families save for to splurge on from time to time to record a specific moments as they really are (not posed and primped in the cookie cutter studio setting).

There is a great deal of time involved in creating high end custom photography sessions for a client. The luxury of great service, better choices and a superb end product. The result is images that offer a legacy for your family. The time invested at the session is only a small portion of time involved in this process.

Custom photography can be broken down into even more levels. There are:

1.  on location
2.  studio
3.  mixed studio/on location
4.  specialty location
5.  destination
6.  event photographers

Not every photographer specializes in studio photography, not every on location photographer specializes in event photography and not every event photographer can shoot photojournalistic style portraits.

The beauty of custom photography is in the choices and in the luxury of those options. The customized service level you are sure to experience will be amazing. The knowledge that your final images are the result of someone caring about those moments so much that they take extra time ensuring that the artwork you receive is good enough to stand by with their name on it. That level of quality and commitment is all but lost in the age of “mass produced,” “mass marketed,” corporate “everyone is a number”. Custom photography is based on being unique to you. How great an experience would be, to be able to sit back and allow a photographer to do this highly custom work for images that you will most likely cherish for a lifetime?

This article was written by Marianne Drenthe of Marmalade Photography http://www.marmaladephotography.com and can be found at the Professional Child Photography site at http://www.professionalchildphotographer.com