Our rates are regularly updated and can be found on our rate sheet, which you can download and view below.
Quick guidelines for our most popular services:
- A professional photoshoot of your guesthouse starts at R1500 (including a not-happy money-back guarantee).
- In-studio head shoots, photos of you, your kids or your pet costs R500 per 5 professionally edited, digital images.
- A 1-hour outdoor photoshoot of you, your partner, family in natural light will cost around R1200, yielding about 20-25 beautiful digital images.
- Yes, through our partnership with Bhangazi Horse Safaris, we can throw a few horses in the mix, which costs about R900 extra
- Our wedding proposal photoshoots are also very popular. They start at R3900 and include the horses.
- See the rate card for details and specifics.
A little note before you get a heart attack ;-). We get the ‘Why so expensive? You only take a few photos?‘ question a lot. We find this interesting, as no one ever seems to question why having one X-Ray taken can cost as much as an entire photoshoot with us. Sure, we all know that an X-Ray machine is expensive, and so is the Dr. operating the X-Ray machine and interpreting the one photo you get to take home. That is why no-one complains about the costs of an X-Ray. Even though we only get to take home one black and white X-Ray, which looks so shit you wouldn’t even want to post it on social media, let alone print it to hang on the wall of your living room!
From the radiology department back to us… We are by no means expensive in our view. But of course, it depends on what you have in mind. We are professional photographers, using professional (and expensive!) equipment, delivering a professional service and professional high-resolution imagery. Sure, we are not doctors either, but you have to understand that we cannot charge the same as what your friend’s neighbor that owns an entry-level DSLR camera would charge.
Please consider the following when judging our pricing.
- An X-Ray machine is very expensive. True. But the camera and lens combination that we use for the most basic of photoshoots also costs R50.000 + R30.000 = 80.000 rand. And we have two cameras and about a dozen lenses… Let alone the accessories such as flashes (R10.000 a pop), filters (R23.000 for a full set), tripods, camera bags, batteries etc. Have we mentioned the powerful computers and high-resolution displays for photo editing yet? And all this equipment ‘ages’ quite quickly due to the fast pace of technological advances and of course because of wear and tear (photoshoots on the beach fill every nook and cranny of our equipment with fine sand and salt spray…) Long story short: We need to replace most of our equipment every 3-4 years in order to stay up to date in the professional field. So somehow, we need to depreciate 280.000 rand over let’s say a period of 4 years. That is close to 6000 rand a month. So we need to earn R6000+ just be able to have the equipment for the job. In other words: That is what it costs us to just ‘be’ a professional photographer. And then we haven’t even paid any bills yet.
- Then there is the time component, and admittedly, for clients it is difficult to understand how long the whole proces of photography takes. So let’s try to explain it with an example. Let’s say we do a 1-hour beach shoot with you. This would cost us a minimum of 30 minutes getting the right stuff ready and drive to the beach, then an hour on the beach, then 30 minutes to get back to the studio, then 30 minutes to clean all the sand and sea spray of everything, and then about 3 hours of editing. So when you see us busy for your 1-hour photoshoot, we’re actually busy for 5.5 hours. As a result, we calculate our rates on hours needed to complete everything, not just the time we take pictures of you.
- Believe us when we say that we are not greedy sharks thinking that we’re special because we haul a shiny big ass camera around. On the contrary, we are normal people, who want to be able to live a normal middle-class life. Nothing too fancy really. But the truth is: We have a family to support, bills to pay, medical aid, school fees, etc. Probably just like you. So you will probably understand that we cannot be a full-time photographer doing cheap photoshoots. It simply won’t add up in order to pay for the modest middle-class lifestyle we want our families to enjoy.
- In conclusion: We like photography, and we’re good at it. But our equipment is expensive, and while our time is reasonably priced, creating quality imagery takes more time than you would think. So, for us to make a reasonable living, just like you, we need to charge the rates that you see on our rate sheet. We sincerely hope you understand.
