 A view of a whale shark and fish at the Georgia Aquarium, which I visited earlier in the week. The regular general cost of admission (for an adult) to the Georgia Aquarium is $27 (for $35 total, you can upgrade to a premium ticket, which includes admission to Deepo's Undersea 3D Wondershow as well as entrance to the Titanic Aquatic exhibition). The reason I mention the price of the ticket is that after visiting the Aquarium, I was thinking: 'Is the price of admission too much?' With my general admission ticket, I was able to traverse the entire Aquarium at moderate pace in about two hours (it would have been longer if I bought the premium ticket). So that comes to about $13.50 per hour of enjoyment. Those with whom I went said it was too expensive, but I think you have to analyze the price of the ticket based on what it costs to run the Aquarium on a daily basis. There are ushers to welcome you to the Aquarium, caretakers that feed the animals, veterinarians on hand who take care when the animals get sick, guides who are present at every major exhibit to explain about the animals, cashiers who ring up your lunch order or souvenir purchase, and countless other employees (a lot of whom are probably invisible) who make sure your visit runs smoothly day in and day out. All of these employees have to be paid. Now, re-evaluate whether the price of the ticket ($27) justifies your pleasant experience (and the fact that the Aquarium has to incur costs to make sure your said experience is pleasant), and you will begin to see that the price of admission is more than fair. Which brings me to my next point, the pricing of my prints. With the conclusion of the spring prints sale today (thanks to those of you who ordered a print), I wanted to bring up several points. When you buy an actual print, you're not just buying the paper on which the print is made (the paper on which a print is made is probably the least expensive part of a print purchase, in general). Say you order a print. Yes, you're getting a high quality print which is designed to last one hundred years in a typical home display. Yes, you're getting a print that won't fade under most lighting setups. Yes, you're getting a print (if you get a metallic finish) that is resistant to tearing. But is the cost of the print equal to its price? If you were buying just the paper on which the print is made, then the answer is yes. The other cost of the print is yet to be ascertained, however. So what else goes into the cost of the print? How about the time that went into producing the image (i.e., post-processing or post-production work)? If I spend an hour post-processing a particular image, is the amount of time I spent worth the $20 for which an 8'x10' sold in the spring prints sale? If I spend more money on a lens than I did on my first car, shouldn't the price of the print also (at least partially) reflect the equipment with which the image was captured? And if I travel to distant locales and put my gear (and sometimes myself) at risk to get the shot, am I not allowed to incorporate that into the price of a print? I hope your answer is yes. If you still have doubts, just think back to the pricing of the Aquarium ticket and relate the strategy to pricing a print. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know your thoughts (regardless of whether you agree or disagree). I should mention that when photographing portraits or weddings, the business model is entirely different. For that kind of work, you're paying for the photography (i.e., hourly rate, when appropriate) and post-production work, since you would end up getting a DVD with high-resolution images to print at your favourite lab (this is my preference; there are other photographers who charge both for time and then separately for prints). Indeed, fine art/landscape/cityscape photography is inherently different from portraiture/wedding photography with regard to pricing. |
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