Four and a half long years ago I wrote How not to hire a wedding photographer, an article that was a response to a Craigslist ad about someone who had very unrealistic goals about what they wanted.  In the article I broke down each and every absurd request the person had and gave reasonable answers.  I’m going to attempt to do the same thing with a recent Craigslist ad where a bride is flying off the chain at what she seems to think is a case of hanging out and shooting photos.

The original ad posted to the Seattle Craigslist:

Attn: Wedding Photographers (Puget Sound)

WHY is finding an amazing wedding photographer so difficult? :/

I am a Bride who is getting married this summer and have yet to find a decently priced, exceptional, amazingly talented, fun photographer.

WHY because the word “WEDDING” is involved photographers think they can change you $ 3,000.00 for wedding photos? Oh, because no bride is going to go without so they are going to pay it, because they HAVE to. They are ripping people off for all they have! Why when you want to get married it costs you AT LEAST 15 grand after all is said-and-done? Its such CRAP!! I love all you $ 3,000.00 photographers out there but i think your prices are WACK. All your doing is hanging out at a wedding taking tons of photos and editing them.. and thats owrth 3 GRAND!!! You’re making so much money its crazy. I just wish people would be more realistic. I mean the “average” persons salary for 1 freaking month is somewhere around 3 grand. (Thats making 19$ an hour) So you’re going to take someones WHOLE MONTH paycheck for one flippen day of photos? Just because you CAN!!?????? So that maybe they will not be able to feed themselves or pay any other bills they have, right? It makes me SICK!

I know im speaking for more than just myself right now. Alot of brides out there think the same thing. & I bet all you fancy photographers wont even read this. oh-well.
Maybe there are cheaper photographers that will read this and LOVE to take my photos

Like last time, I’ll pick this apart and give some depth to her requests.

WHY is finding an amazing wedding photographer so difficult? :/ Truth be told, it’s not.  There are more options now than ever, magazines and websites like The Knot that specialize in city searches and the abundance and growth of Facebook alone in the last two-three years means it’s only a matter of updating your status with Looking for a wedding photographer, can someone please make a reccomdnation? If you’re like most users, you should have a dozen replies within the first thirty minutes.

I am a Bride who is getting married this summer and have yet to find a decently priced, exceptional, amazingly talented, fun photographer. Well the old saying is, you can have two but never three of the following: Cheap, Fast, Good.  Also, what is decently priced to you may be very affordable to someone else.

WHY because the word “WEDDING” is involved photographers think they can change you $ 3,000.00 for wedding photos? Oh, because no bride is going to go without so they are going to pay it, because they HAVE to. Actually, yes, it’s partly because the word wedding is involved, but you’re also not fully understanding the pricing structure for a wedding.  We’ll talk about that shortly since you’re going to continue going off into the deep end about it.  And photos are optional, just like a wedding is.  I’m no expert at law but I’m pretty sure most states in the USA only require some paperwork to be filled out at a county courthouse, the actual wedding ceremony, for the most part, is totally optional, along with the reception.

They are ripping people off for all they have! We are?  If all you have is $3,000 then you should probably put that towards your cost of living, student loans and the such, not towards a photographer. 

Why when you want to get married it costs you AT LEAST 15 grand after all is said-and-done? Its such CRAP!! As I’ve previously stated, it’s actually not $15,000.00, that’s the to hire people who will provide you with the setting and facility to celebrate your wedding.  If you want a professional chef to come to your house and make your dinner, you can expect to pay more for it than if you went to their establishment.

I love all you $ 3,000.00 photographers out there but i think your prices are WACK. All your doing is hanging out at a wedding taking tons of photos and editing them.. and thats owrth 3 GRAND!!! You’re making so much money its crazy. I just wish people would be more realistic. Thanks for the love, can never have enough of that.  Now, I’m not going to argue the $3,000.00 figure you keep because that’s somewhat dependent on where you live, you’d be lucky to find a photographer in New York City for that much and in Po-Dunk, Anywhere it might be three times the going rate, so for this we shall stick to it.  We don’t hang out.  We run a business.  A business that has overhead, such as insurance, gear upkeep and maintenance, transportation, advertising, web design and deployment, brochures, sample books, etc.  All at a cost.  While most wedding photographers don’t have the overhead of an actual storefront, they still incur costs in their home / home offices such as lines for fax machines, Internet, computers, etc.  Also, there is no W-2 form when you are a sole owner or LLC, this means you need to pay taxes in most states quarterly, most photographers off-load this to an accountant, an added cost.  There are no paid sick days, vacation days, personal or doctor days, those are luxuries not afforded to a wedding photographer.  Likewise, business hours are virtually every hour of every day.  There is no show up at 8am, take lunch from 12:30-1:30 and leave at 5pm, it’s in your best interest to answer phone calls at 8pm while you’re enjoying a movie with your family or reply to emails at 1am, so the client always feels their wedding is the most important in the world.

I mean the “average” persons salary for 1 freaking month is somewhere around 3 grand. (Thats making 19$ an hour) So you’re going to take someones WHOLE MONTH paycheck for one flippen day of photos? Just because you CAN!!?????? This is the part in the story where I honestly hope you are good at math.  I’m going to break down for you very simply what an average wedding consists of, time wise.

• 20 minutes: Initial in-bound inquirer from potential client via email or phone call + response
• 10 minutes: Follow up to schedule a meeting
• 60 minutes: Initial meeting, this is usually in a home office or a coffee shop of some sorts
• 30 minutes: Time it will take to draw up contracts, review discussions during initial meeting, send to you for review
• 10 minutes: Email reminding you that the first deposit needs to be sent to positively reserve your date
• 10 minutes: Email reminding you the remainder of the deposit needs to be paid in full 1 week prior to the wedding
• 60 minutes: Driving time to and from the wedding and between the wedding and reception.
• 10 hours: Provided you are getting married at 4pm and reception starts at 6pm and ends at 10pm, figure being at the Bride’s house by noon for the getting ready photos, the Groom’s shots, pre-bridal party posed shots, shots between the wedding and reception.  Basically starting at noon and ending at 10pm.
• 60 minutes: To import all digital photos and start the work-flow of editing, backing up originals and preparing for final images.
• 5 hours: Time spent editing photos.  This number varies for everyone, I’ve generally found in my experience that for every hour I’m shooting I can expect to spend one-half hour in the chair editing.  This is also weeding out bad photos and getting the final selection ready.
• 60 minutes: Time to export fully edited photos, catalog them and burn to DVD
• 30 minutes: To back up the edited photos and keep copies safe via external hard drive or more DVDs.

At this point we’re now at 21 hours.  This time has several variables in it and does not include sending files to a printer for photo prints, books, etc, plus picking them up, assembly of them or delivery to you, the client.  Rough math says that’s equal to about $142.86 per hour worked.  That is gross profit per hour.  Let’s factor in 15% taxes, that chops $450 off the top right there, factor in another $25.00 per month for insurance and a solid $150.00 per month for an accountant.  Then of course there is the cost of running a website, Facebook and Google paid ad campaigns, attending wedding expo’s, printing promo material, print advertisement in The Knot and similar magazines / websites.  Gas, car insurance and wear and tear on automobiles traveling to and from meetings and events.  All of this and I still haven’t said one word about the cost of actual camera equipment.  A wedding photographer who is charging $3,000 is probably doing so because they don’t want to undercut their competition but also because they’ve been doing it for a while and understand what it is to run a full business.  That said, they are probably bringing between $4,000 and $20,000 worth of camera gear with them to shoot your wedding.  This stuff is all wear and tear items that routinely need to be sent out for repair and replaced over time.  Let us not forget that this is for a paying client, not everyone who emails / calls will be a paying client due to schedule conflicts, priced too far above (or below, yes I’ve heard of clients saying photographer is too cheap for them), or other various reasons.  Same goes with the initial meeting, you don’t get up to bat and always hit a home run.  All that time is unpaid time spent working.

So that maybe they will not be able to feed themselves or pay any other bills they have, right? It makes me SICK!  It’s interesting you bring this up, as mentioned before this is a luxury, you actually don’t need any of this to get married.  I think what’s also worth mentioning here is that it’s customary here in the USA to expect an engagement ring equal to roughly three month’s salary of the groom-to-be.  By your numbers of the average salary, you’re expecting a $9,000 ring?  That’s a really nice used car.  Moreover, it’s worth probably about $1,500 if you try to actually sell it because the only thing of real value is the gold or platinum in the band, the diamond for all intense purposes is a thing of value only to initial purchaser, there is no publicly traded diamonds out there in the same fashion as precious metals.  It’s a number made up by those in control of the mines, that however is a whole other article.

I know im speaking for more than just myself right now. Alot of brides out there think the same thing. & I bet all you fancy photographers wont even read this. oh-well.  Well this photographer did read it and I’ll be sharing it with other ones for sure. 

Maybe there are cheaper photographers that will read this and LOVE to take my photos Pull your nose out of the clouds, photographers love to photograph, it’s one of those service oriented jobs where most who do it chose to do it, and they truly love their craft.  They also love to get paid for it, and if you aren’t willing to pay for their experience, talent, skill and professionalism, then you have missed a great opportunity.  There are plenty of new shooters who bottom-feed and try to start at $500 a wedding, your photographs are going to look like they were shot by a $500 wedding photographer.

You complained a lot about a wedding costing you $15,000, if the photographer is going to make up roughly one-fifth of your total investment.  That means that four-fifths of your budget is going to be spent on consumable, forgettable items.  I’m sorry, on your one-year anniversary no one is going to post on your Facebook wall about how much they loved the duck breast and mashed squash they had for dinner or how great the DJ was.  They are going to leave comments on the photographs, that’s how people will remember and more importantly, relive and rejoice at your special day.  For your guests, it’s just a day they had to get dressed up, eat some marginally OK food, listen to music they probably don’t like and give you a gift that you probably don’t need or money that will be used to re-coupe the cost of this whole event.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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Cupcake Flavored Toothpaste.  Yes, start your morning off with cupcakes.  If it’s too sweet for you, there is the old standby of Bacon Flavored Toothpaste too.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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• Change oil & filter
• Adjust tire pressure
• Fill washer fluid
• Check all bulbs
• Check all belts for signs of cracks
• Replace wiper blades
• Replace air filter
• …and on and on

Part of the new-to-me car ritual for myself and many others is the dawning of an air freshener to help cover the smell of rank ass, wet dog or cigarette smoke the previous owner left for you.  I’ve done it myself, standing in the auto parts store or mega box store’s auto section wondering what exactly black ice smells like, or if I am too manly for a clip-on-vent style freshener thus putting me back to the traditional tree section.  There’s a solution for all of this, but it’s in a different isle.

Modern car maintenance has pretty standard intervals depending on who made the car, they are usually around 30 or 50k miles with another big one around 80-100k miles.   Most people who buy used card rarely take them to the dealer for these interval checkups, opting to do the previously mentioned stuff themselves or from an independent, local mechanic, and that’s fine!  What is possibly the most missed item is the one that can not only help your car smell new and fresh again, it’s actually better for your health, and takes only five minutes to do.

The cabin air filter is similar to a home furnace filter and does just what the name implies, filters air from outside to within your car.  These should be done on most every car every 30k miles or so.  If you live in a damp and wet party of the country like the Pacific Northwest you may want to do this every year, regardless of miles, or even twice a year.  To help cut down on mold, mildew and other allergens.

They install in minutes with no tools for most cars and come with very good, very detailed instructions.  I actually found how to change mine by watching a short YouTube video clip, so if you’d prefer to see someone do it than reading a piece of paper, search there for your make and model.  When I changed mine the old filters looked look a squirrel had lived in there with leaves, dust, pollen and small sticks covering the filters.  It was gross to say the least, and that’s what the air I was breathing was passing over every single time I turned the heat on.  Two of my friends also bought used cars recently and I shot them a text message about the new filters I found, both got them and had very similar experiences, cabin air filters covered with debris, dust and just grossness.

Within the first few miles of driving after changing I could already tell it was working, the air just seemed cleaner, the previous owner of my car had been a heavy smoker.  The other thing I instantly noticed was the heat felt hotter, faster.  It’s been cold here lately and my car comes up to temperature pretty fast and the heat has been really good, but now it’s really nice and toasty.

The most amazing part of this whole ordeal is that none of my local auto parts stores stock the Fram Fresh Breeze filters.  Wal-Mart had them, of all places, but the biggest of big box stores was actually more expensive, to the tune of nearly $4 over ordering from Amazon.  Regardless if you’re mechanically inclined or not, you can do this simple routine maintenance item in five minutes or less for under $20.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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The world is going to end in a year, so why bother making New Year’s resolutions?  More importantly, why use it as the kick-off for any goals?  A year is 365 days, nothing we do is measured by that number, and we Americans use the most complicated form of measuring on earth because we’re too stubborn to convert to metric!

Our own government has a list of popular New Year’s resolutions right on their official website! What’s not there is how quickly you will fail at them.  This isn’t for lack of trying though, it’s just set in our brain that we need to start on a specific time and reach a completed goal to feel successful.  The problem is, there is no metric, or systematic way of measuring most of these goals.  Just to go through some of the list our government has put forth will open your eyes and realize it’s a stupid idea to make a resolution for the New Year, make a life change instead and start now.

Drink less alcohol.  Great, I think as a culture we drink too much as it is.  How much did you drink last year?  Oh, you don’t know?  Well then you have zero clue if you’re successful for 2012 unless you stop altogether.

Eat healthier food.  I like this one, but sadly the food education is a cluster that deserves it’s own article, hell it’s own chapter.  There’s good fat, bad fat, good calories, bad calories, sugar is good, sugar is bad, eat more fruits and vegetables but don’t eat too much fruit because it’s too high in sugar and don’t eat too many potatoes because they are high in carbs and carbs are bad unless you’re an athlete and you need to carb load and drink lots of water but not eight glasses a day.  The amount of misinformation out there is rather scary, the number of restaurants that prepare sub-par food as a whole is appalling and the fact alone that Amazon has more than 50,000 cookbooks for sale should indicate that we really don’t know what the hell is good, tasty and healthy.

Lose weight.  I’ve struggled with this, going on a serious yo-yo diet over the last 5 years.  The goal should never be to lose weight but rather be fit and active, forever!  A P90x program will put you in great shape if you are true to yourself and complete it, but what happens after 90 days and you’ve met your fictitious goal weight or strength training?  There’s no excitement in doing it again because it’s not new and you know you can complete it.

Reduce, Reuse & Recycle.  Again another really great resolution, why aren’t you doing that now?  Or rather, two days ago when you bought and wrapped all your presents just so you could throw all that paper and ribbon away? Is it that hard for you to separate those items that have a recycle logo on them from ones that do not?  Do it now!

Manage stress.  I really don’t understand this resolution or why people try to commit to it.  Stress for most people I know comes from work, money and family / relationships.  It’s safe to say that what is stressful in your life on December 31st will more than likely be stressful for you on January 1st too.

My goal isn’t to crush any grand illusion you may have for the resolution you have next week, rather to ask yourself why it’s not starting today?  Why must we as a culture treat resolutions like a 12-step program in that we get rewarded along the way?  Should we hand out coins at 30 days of proper recycling?  Hit the all you can eat buffet after you lose the weight you wanted to as a celebratory gift for ourselves?  Eat something decadent and bad for us because we went 45 days of eating healthy food? Order two pitchers and line up the shots because it’s been three months since our last drink?

Be honest with yourself,realize that it’s silly to start a resolution simply because it’s the start of a new month and a new year, when you could make changes now and stay moving in that positive direction for the rest of your life.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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There seems to be a million single-use kitchen gadgets to solve all your problems.  I’m a big fan of Alton Brown‘s theory on kitchen tools, the only single-use tool in the kitchen should be a fire extinguisher.  Of the tools I use the most, a cutting board is near the top of the list.  A quick note about cutting boards, they hold true to the old saying bigger is better.  I see friends use these super small cutting boards, mostly because they are easy to store or are cheap and wonder how the hell they manage.  Your cutting board should be at least as big as your biggest knife diagonal on it.  I personally prefer end grain butcher block style boards, without the grooved channels as seen in the photo above, but everyone has a preference.

The biggest problem with nearly any consumer grade cutting board is that they are thin and don’t weigh a lot, because they are meant to be stored off the counter when not in use.  Because of this they can slide around while you’re working on them, especially if there’s a little water or oil on your counter top, causing an unsafe working environment.  A quick fix can be made with non-stick shelf liner, a more green alternative to wetting some paper towels and putting them down and throwing them away after your done.  Best of all, it’s usually at the dollar store, or at nearly any discount store like Big Lots for a few bucks.  It can be cut to any size you want, washed and if it tears, cheaply replaced.  Several other sites also suggest placing kitchen towels under a cutting board, my experience is that the towel is always too big, has to be folded so many times that it makes the cutting surface unstable.

The photo used above also showcases my favorite knives, Global.  Hands down, one of the best investments you can make in a kitchen is a quality chef knife.  There’s little need for a 27 piece knife set, one good chef knife will do 90% of the work you need to do in the kitchen.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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The parent category is Weird Stuff, and there is just that, a lot of weird stuff.  I did see a bunch of Nazi stuff, which I guess there’s a market for, but then you’ll find something you never knew existed but now need, an egg white separator called A Booger Boy / Snot A Mug.

Within the Weird Stuff category are three more sub-categories, that get stranger.

Slightly Unusual brings some more weird stuff but appears to be a slight cover-up for the adult section of eBay, which is typically very deeply hidden.  The last sub-category is Totally Bizarre, and it’s just that, bizarre.  Items you’ll find in here will range from I <3 Mudd stickers to several listings for pictures of women’s feet.

So now that I’ve gone ahead and ruined your productivity today, what strange or weird things have you found or bought on eBay?Similar articles that might also interest you:

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Back in the summer of 2007 I joined Twitter and while four and a half years isn’t very long, it’s forever ago in technology times.  The micro blogging service was quirky and no one really had any full understanding as what they were supposed to do with it.  It wasn’t long before I asked WTF was I thinking using Twitter? and vowed never to update it again.  Well, I have, and a lot.  By 2008 I was finding useful reasons to use it and for all intensive purposes, it’s a staple in my tech life and virtually everyone I know.  Twitter is so large now that I see TV commercials who no longer advertise their website or even Facebook page anymore, they are simply promoting the use of a #hashtag, this goes for major networks too.

Just over three months ago I joined SponsoredTweets, a site that links advertisers and tweeters together.  The company has some very high profile celebrities and some quick searching on Google made everything here seem pretty legit.  You fill out a short profile, including tags of things that both interest you and that you talk about on a regular basis.  Based on the date you joined Twitter, the number of followers you have in relation to the number you follow and a few other specifications, SponsoredTweets suggests a price for you per tweet.  When I initially signed up I had about 920 followers and it’s suggest price per tweet for me was $1.27 based on the tags I chose. When an offer comes in, you can accept or deny it, then use the given guidelines to write a tweet which will both include a link to what the advertiser wants and a disclaimer of your choosing, such as #ad, Ad:, #sponsored and a few others to indicate this is indeed an affiliate link.  When you accept and write your tweet it’s then sent for review by the advertiser, if they approve it SponsoredTweets will automatically tweet for you within a given time frame that the sponsor chooses.  Provided a few people click the links, you’ll get paid.  Wanting to actually see if I could make money, I set my asking price to $1.00 and waited for offers from advertisers to come in.  The site also has an available advertisers section that will show several lower paying offers, sometimes as low as $0.05.  These offers pay per click when they get tweeted as opposed to the pay per campaign method when you set the price.  If you get 40 clicks on a link at $0.05 you’ll make $2.00.  Because I couldn’t wait to see if any offers would come in I took a few of these lower paying offers ranging from $0.05 to $0.15 per click and saw an average of 2-10 clicks per campaign.  It’s important to note that I only chose ads that I think people who follow me would be interested in reading.

SponsoredTweets actually doubles your price per campaign and that’s what they charge the advertisers, so an advertiser would have to pay $2.00 if they wanted me to tweet something. After a month and a few successful programs I saw my suggested price to charge per tweet jump to $1.98, so I adjusted my price up to $1.50 and found that a full week went by without an offer.  I changed it again to $1.25 and got one offer the following week then moved it back down to $1.00 and the offers started to flood in again.  My suggested price after being with the program for three months is $2.93 however I’m still sticking with $1.50 because I feel I get more offers at this price range and an advertiser is more likely to spend $3 several times with me than $6 once.

So the nitty-gritty, am I making money?  Well my Twitter account is up to 1,003 followers at the time of writing, I’ve done several dozen sponsored tweets and made just about $30.  The payout threshold is $50 although they allow withdraw prior to that for a $2 penalty.  Total time invested is maybe 10 minutes per month and at $10 per month my actual pay rate is $1 per minute or $60 per hour.  I’m fine with that ratio and will continue to use SponsoredTweets for the future.

How has the reaction been?  Actually, it’s been pretty favorable.  I made a disclaimer tweet when I signed up so my followers would know I was doing this and have actually had some really good @replies to the tweets, mostly because I stick to computer, technology, entertainment and photography sponsored tweets, which is what I’m tweeting about all the time anyway.  I’ve not changed any other aspect of my tweeting habits but am aware that the more followers I have, the more interaction I get, the better the chances are an advertiser will choose to use me.

Sign up for SponsoredTweets now and give them a try, this actually is not paid for by them.  Follow me on Twitter @mikepanic.Similar articles that might also interest you:

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