Are Wedding Albums Dead??

Well in my business here in the UK they are ..40 weddings 1 album and they were from New Zealand renounded for being 30 years behind the times.....

So are the only people selling albums those who do packages that include an album so you have to have it ???

By album I mean a proper digital one not a stick pictures in thing.

Reprints also a thing of the past .....

wait, you mean a printed book, right?

I don't think they're dead, it's just that a lot of people get them on their own now if they get anything. That's what I did anyway along with getting prints made.

I think its quit interesting that the top man seems unsure what a wedding album is ....

Quote "a lot of people get them on their own now"

Well you cannot get proper digitally printed albums (in the UK) anyway unless you go through a trade only outlet....yes you can get the cheapo printed on paper ones for about $20 ..Proper leather Mario Acerboni album below to illustrate what I mean.....about $300 +

There's no need to be like that - I asked because I didn't understand what you meant by this:

pistnbroke said:

By album I mean a proper digital one not a stick pictures in thing.

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In the film age people had an album consisting of slip in prints in mounts now the whole page is a blended image with photo background ..thats what I mean by a proper album .You cannot do it without the software from the album maker .....No offence was intended .I hoped other wedding photographers would say no no 80% of my customers have one or yes yes dont seem to sell them any more.....hey lets hope we dont have to lock this one !!

Trade only outlets?
That's a new one - there are 100s of businesses out there that offer photo books, in various qualities from 10's of £s to a few 100 £s.
Gone are the days when you needed to go through specialist channels in order to get unique wedding albums.

A lot of wedding photographers I've spoken to over the years tend to offer a slight discount on the album itself - making it cheaper then getting the prints and going off to get your own album printed, and their clients usually prefer this.
However, now a days with couples wanting to include honeymoon pictures in their wedding albums too, the off the shelf methods are a lot more popular then a professional photographer's offering.

Come to the Focus on Imaging show in March up in the NEC - you'll see that there are a lot of trade suppliers for this, but a fair few are more than happy to earn some retail profits too.

As for the traditional style stick/slide photo albums - there's a certain characteristic look to them that no digitally produced album can match.

At the end of the day, it really comes down to a few major points - budget and personal choice.

Perhaps I did not phrase it well I meant are albums dead as a sales item for wedding photographers? Yes anyone can get a paper printed thing from Photobox for £20 but if you want an Acerboni from Parkers ( UK supplier) then you need the software disc from them and a trade account. Simm and others similar..
Yes Focus always go... just up the road ..boring unless you want to buy some new kit ..already got the tickets ..hope there is a Nikon D7200 to look at but in truth I dont even want to look at it I just want to find it in stock at WEX and order a couple....

pistnbroke said:

In the film age people had an album consisting of slip in prints in mounts now the whole page is a blended image with photo background ..thats what I mean by a proper album .You cannot do it without the software from the album maker .....No offence was intended .I hoped other wedding photographers would say no no 80% of my customers have one or yes yes dont seem to sell them any more.....hey lets hope we dont have to lock this one !!

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Right, I know. When you said "digital album" a printed photo book doesn't come to mind.

Regardless, as long as the photographer is giving the client digital, high resolution images, then the client can create their own album. There's no special software needed since there are tons of online photo book options. Hell, my wedding photographer was reselling books from Shutterfly. The extra cost for her to do it wasn't worth it.

Well if you want a Mario Acerboni Digital album in the Uk you get it from Parkers in Birmingham ( or agent) and you need there software to submit it to them for printing in Italy...

But this is all off the point ...Are photographers selling albums any more??

pistnbroke said:

Well if you want a Mario Acerboni Digital album in the Uk you get it from Parkers in Birmingham ( or agent) and you need there software to submit it to them for printing in Italy...

But this is all off the point ...Are photographers selling albums any more??

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I'm not doing weddings so I wouldn't know. But you? If you're not selling albums, what are you selling? Do you just give them a DVD? Mixture of film and pics with music? Or just digital files? Used to be (film era 40 years ago) that actual print sales were the money makers in wedding photography. When I started, I had a B&W film back and I always had to do a few shots in B&W so that roll got developed and printed right away. A sales lady would then drive to the reception and make sales based on these shots.

I wonder what the money making product is right now.

WE work a 200mile radius with 40 million people and supply on memory stick ..thats what we sell ...album is a discounted option when booking or buy after the wedding as an opton....seems to be the way it has gone in the uk ..
Now if you are charging say $4000 for a wedding that type of rich client will buy an album ..but how many pay that much ....1 % ???

LOL - is that 40M people in the radius you work in, or you work in that radius and have 40M people to work with
If you're looking for a new wedding photographer to help cover the area at those rates - where do I sign up

40million people live within a radius of 200miles..maybe find a customer!!

Albums are only dead in the very budget conscious market. Weddings that have real budgets and the photographers shooting them are all using high quality labs that produce stunning albums and they are part of the package with individual prints as part of that package or as an option.

With hundreds of thousands of people getting the photo-bug each and every year, I predict wedding photography will soon go the way of stock photography. But teaching wedding photography, now that's becoming a very lucrative place to be.

Very true, Dave. This is why photographers that put a twist on things and have found new ways to shoot weddings are in demand and command high dollar amounts. These days everyone is an 'Uncle Bob' with a camera...lol

That's the key, isn't it? Evolve to a changing world or go extinct. Take, for instance, today's Presidential Inauguration, I can't count the number of articles which states "Are you going to the Inauguration? Share your photos with us" because it's so much cheaper to be given photos of an event than to pay for them. So even photojournalist are being heavily impacted by the growth of digital cameras. I'm thinking that someone like you, Robert, with a solid professional background, would do very well in the teaching photography field. Just like during a gold rush, better to sell shovels and books on finding gold than to actually dig for gold.

Dave_W said:

That's the key, isn't it? Evolve to a changing world or go extinct. Take, for instance, today's Presidential Inauguration, I can't count the number of articles which states "Are you going to the Inauguration? Share your photos with us" because it's so much cheaper to be given photos of an event than to pay for them. So even photojournalist are being heavily impacted by the growth of digital cameras. I'm thinking that someone like you, Robert, with a solid professional background, would do very well in the teaching photography field. Just like during a gold rush, better to sell shovels and books on finding gold than to actually dig for gold.

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Thanks, Dave. I do teach photography and lighting. It's a large part of my business.

if its budget thats driving photo albums down then a pick up in the economy should lift sales..but you seem to be saying that the average wedding client does not have the budget a this time....

I think people are definitely leaning towards saving more money. I know when my wedding was being planned, we cut things that we didn't feel necessary.

I see people I know posting their wedding pictures via Facebook all the time. I can tell those apart that are spending a lot vs budget photographer. Most of the time it is more on the budget side.

Think about what is next. 3d photos? Maybe that'll become the next "pro only" thing. It has for going to movie theaters.