Why Photography Quotes Always Say "Contact Us" — And Why I Published Mine
If you have ever looked for a photographer, you have run into this. The website is full of beautiful images, and nowhere on it is a price. Just "contact us for a quote."
So you write to three studios. You wait. The replies come back, and now you cannot compare them anyway, because each one is shaped differently. One quotes a package with twenty-five retouched images included. Another quotes an hourly rate with travel billed separately. There is no common scale to put them on.
I worked this way until recently. I do not any more. The full basis for my pricing is now published, and you can work out your own number before contacting me at all.
Here is why I changed it.
Hiding the price usually isn't malice
Photography genuinely does cost different amounts depending on the job. A two-hour portrait session and a full wedding day are not the same work. Shooting inside my own studio and travelling three hours round trip to a venue are not the same work either.
So the sentence "I need to know the details before I can give you a price" is simply true.
The problem is what comes after it. "The total depends on the details" and "the method of calculation is a secret" are two different claims. A taxi fare also depends on distance, and yet the base fare and the per-kilometre rate are printed on the door. Enter a destination and you get an estimate. It may not be exact, but nobody gets into a taxi with no idea what the ride will cost.
There was no real reason photography could not work the same way.
I dropped packages entirely
I used to sell packages. The shooting fee included twenty-five retouched images, and anything beyond that was charged per image. This is how most of the industry does it.
In practice it failed in both directions.
People who don't need twenty-five images pay for twenty-five images. Many portrait clients want three or four frames they genuinely love. That is it. But the package bundles twenty-five, so they have already paid for roughly twenty they will never use.
People who need forty get an unpleasant surprise. Past the twenty-fifth image, the per-image charge starts, and fifteen extra frames can add as much as the shoot itself cost. For a wedding, where the raw take runs to thousands of frames, twenty-five is nowhere near enough to begin with.
A package is a garment cut to the average. It only fits the average person.
So I separated the two things completely.
When the shoot is over, you get every raw frame. You look through them yourself and pick however many you want. Three is fine. None is fine. The retouching fee is settled after you have decided.
I removed the travel fee and started charging travel time instead
My old terms had a travel surcharge — a flat amount per region, the way most studios do it.
That turned out to be unfair too. Two locations in the same region could be thirty minutes apart or two hours apart, and both were charged the same flat fee. Clients close by were overpaying; distant jobs were costing me. You can subdivide the regions further, but then the table gets complicated and the people who fall near a boundary still feel cheated.
Now travel time is simply billed at the same rate as shooting time.
The clock starts at the studio in Samseon-dong, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul. I add the public-transit travel time from there to the location, as given by Naver Map, counted both ways. Two hours round trip adds 140,000 KRW. There is no separate travel fee on top.
The part I like most about this method is that anyone can check it. Put the address into a maps app and you will see immediately whether the number I quoted is right. You don't have to take my word for anything.
If we shoot inside the studio, travel time is zero — and I don't charge a separate room fee either.
What that adds up to
| Situation | Calculation | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Inside the studio | 2 hours shooting, no travel | 140,000 KRW |
| Outdoor session in Seoul | 2 hours shooting + 1 hour round trip | 210,000 KRW |
| Wedding at a Seoul venue | 3 hours shooting + 1 hour round trip | 280,000 KRW |
Then add however many images you later choose to have retouched, at 7,000 KRW each. That is the whole structure.
Why payment is upfront
Bookings are paid in full in advance. Once payment clears, I stop taking enquiries for that slot.
Photography sells time, and I cannot be in two places at once. Weekends especially are dense with weddings, so holding one booking means turning down others. Paying upfront is what makes that slot genuinely reserved.
The cancellation terms are published in advance as well, in the cancellation and refund policy.
Weddings are the one case with a contract
Weddings are billed at the same hourly rate. They are also the only work for which I use a written contract.
A wedding cannot be reshot. When something can only happen once, it is safer for both sides to have the scope written down rather than remembered.
The standard scope covers the bridal room, the ceremony itself, and the formal group portraits at the end, with one photographer. I arrive ninety minutes before the ceremony starts and stay until the group portraits are finished — three hours as standard, plus round-trip travel time.
Not included: the after-party, the pyebaek family ceremony, arrival-car shots, and coverage in the makeup studio. If you want any of these, tell me up to seven days before and I will adjust the scope.
Raw files are delivered within seven days of the shoot. Retouched images follow within six weeks of your selection.
If you are considering wedding coverage, it may help to read what actually changes with one photographer versus two.
Why I decided to publish it
Asking about money should not be awkward.
Writing to a studio without knowing the price, waiting for a reply, and then discovering the budget was never going to work serves nobody. If the budget does not fit, you do not have to send the message at all — and you should have what you need to decide that before you write.
When the arithmetic is settled first, what remains to discuss is the photography itself: what you want the pictures to look like, how the day will run. That is the conversation I would rather be having.
In short
The complete rate card and worked examples are on the pricing page. Run your own numbers, and if they work, get in touch.
Booking information
Booking and enquiries
Tell me the location, the date, and how many hours you need, and I will confirm availability and the exact figure. If you only need the space itself, you can see open slots directly below.
Services by Botonglee