09/18/2026
i used to think that when my photography business slowed down, it meant someone else was doing something I wasn’t.
maybe there were too many photographers. maybe everyone was charging less. maybe I needed to lower my prices. maybe I needed to become more competitive. i kept blaming it on an over-saturated market of low end offers.
and then one morning, I saw someone asking for a newborn photographer for $150.
my first reaction was anger.
but the longer I sat with it, the more I realized there was something underneath that anger worth getting curious about. what happens when we reduce photography to the amount of time someone spends holding a camera?
because a photograph might take three seconds to make. but the person behind it has spent years learning how to see.
how to anticipate moments in the stillness, how to create safety, how to work with light, personalities and unpredictability. how to know when to direct and when to step back. how to recognize a moment that will be felt years from now.\
a session will end, but the image doesn’t.
somewhere along the way, i have made peace with the fact that there will always be someone charging less than me.
i don’t have to compete with them. my pricing doesn’t need to make sense to everyone. it just needs to make sense for the business, the experience, the art, and the life I’m building.
this isn’t an essay about why photographers should charge more. it is about value. it is about what we’re actually asking people to pay for. it’s about being curious, and thoughtful.
photography, to me, has always been about something much deeper, and often times something hard to express into words.
the telling of a story. legacy. ripples. impact. intention.
so i wrote a piece on: why the price isn’t the photograph, what experience actually gives us, and the peace that comes from realizing you don’t have to be the photographer for everyone.
read the essay here: https://nicholepricha.substack.com/p/the-150-photographer?r=u1cog&utm_medium=ios
