People see £350 for a 2-hour shoot and immediately do the maths wrong.

Two hours. £350. That is £175 an hour. Sounds steep. Sounds like a lot for someone pointing a camera at you.

But that is not what you are actually paying for. Not even close.

Here is what £350 actually buys

The shoot itself is 2 hours. But the work around it is not.

After you leave, there is a minimum of 3 hours of editing. Not a quick export, not a filter slapped on in five minutes. Actual editing, because the images you receive have been worked on properly. Then there is the time spent exporting, downloading, uploading galleries, sending selects for you to choose from, and re-sending finals after any edits are requested.

That is 5.5 hours of work at an absolute minimum. Usually more.

£350 divided by 5.5 hours is around £63 per hour before tax. That is the starting point before a single business cost is factored in.

Then take away everything else

From that £63, subtract tax. Subtract National Insurance. Subtract the cost of the equipment, which does not come cheap and does not last forever. Subtract Adobe subscriptions, fuel, travel, storage, hard drives, and the general costs of running a business.

Then factor in something most people never think about: freelance income is inconsistent. There is no guaranteed salary, no sick pay, no employer pension contribution. Every quiet month comes out of the same pot.

Suddenly £350 does not look like a premium rate. It looks like a fair one.

What you are actually paying for

Yes, it is still above minimum wage. It should be. You are not paying for someone to press a button for 2 hours.

You are paying for experience. For creative direction. For consistency and quality. For someone who has spent years developing the judgment to know what works and the skill to deliver it reliably.

The photographer who charges £350 and does it properly is not overcharging. They are pricing the full cost of doing the work well, not just the hours you can see.

That is not a rant. It is transparency. Because the amount of work that goes into creative work is consistently, massively underestimated by the people paying for it.

And understanding that gap is the first step to getting genuinely good results from the people you hire.

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Want to know exactly what goes into a Hozzphoto shoot? Get in touch.