{"id":6736,"date":"2014-08-11T08:18:19","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T08:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arjunkarthaphotography.com\/?p=6736"},"modified":"2019-07-24T18:19:37","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T12:49:37","slug":"indian-wedding-photography-costs-how-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arjunkarthaphotography.com\/indian-wedding-photography-costs-how-much\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Wedding Photography…costs HOW MUCH?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Disclaimer: This isn’t a post that justifies WHY wedding photography is expensive in the first place. There are plenty of posts online written by both brides and photographers – which explore both sides of the story. This post is only about wedding photography in India, and why it costs just as much here than it would anywhere in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n Whether you live in India or not – if you’re Indian, you’ve been conditioned all your life to believe that things are cheaper in India. It’s a general mindset that we carry around with us; it’s the cushion we use to comfort ourselves with when we’re frustrated with the lack of infrastructure and the various other problems that plague our nation. The light at the end of the tunnel always is the fact that’s been drilled into our brains – things are cheaper in India, so forget about the problems you face – and enjoy!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sadly, this is not the case. The largely capitalist-economy driven lifestyle that we lead costs just as much here as it would anywhere else in the world (in many cases much more!). A meal for two in a reasonable restaurant in New Delhi will cost you just as much as it would in New York. The latest pair of Adidas running shoes will cost you a little more (at full retail price) as it would cost you in Switzerland. I’m not going into an item to item comparison (don’t even get me started on the cost of real estate, and how much it costs to buy an apartment in Gurgaon, when you can buy it at half the cost in Brooklyn) in this blog post, but let’s just suffice to say that unless you shun the city life and everything that goes with it, India is a bloody expensive country to live in.<\/p>\n This reality comes as a fairly rude shock when couples who live in the west come back to India to get married. Expecting to get high quality images at a fraction of the cost as it would in the US or America (hey, it’s India! How expensive can it be?), couples looking for wedding photographers in India are often bowled over when they realise that leading photographers charge $5,000 and above for a wedding. So I’m just going to come out and say it: Like most other commodities and services, wedding photography as a product costs just as much in India as it does anywhere else in the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Of course, I’m only comparing apples to apples here. You can still get traditional wedding photography (or amateur wedding photographers who are starting out) at fairly reasonable rates, but that’s another story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For all those of you thinking, “But Arjun, isn’t manpower cheaper in India? And by that logic, shouldn’t wedding photography be cheaper?”<\/p>\n Well, not really. Since I love making lists, here are 5 reasons why wedding photography costs just as much in India as it does in the US or Europe (or anywhere else)<\/strong>:<\/p>\n Wedding photographers (at least the good ones) use the best gear. We can’t help it; the rigours of shooting a wedding call for high-grade professional quality camera bodies and lenses. We put our equipment through punishing assignments – they get exposed to the dust and rain, they get knocked about in a baarat<\/em>, they get knocked about with people, things and other cameras and just about anything else you can think about. For the sake of comparison, here is a screengrab\u00a0of the Nikon D4 (my favourite camera) in the US and in India.<\/p>\n#1 Camera Equipment costs just as much in India<\/h3>\n