I grew up watching my parents run a photography studio. They were talented. Clients loved them. And they were perpetually broke. Not because of slow seasons or bad luck, but because they raised their prices exactly twice in fifteen years. The work got better. The rates stayed almost flat. When I opened my own portrait studio in Miami, I swore I’d do things differently. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to actually follow through on that promise.

So when I came across Hugo Korhonen’s video making the case that photographers should charge more, I wasn’t expecting to learn anything new. I was wrong. He sharpens the argument in ways I hadn’t fully articulated, even to myself.

Better Craft Doesn’t Automatically Mean Better Pay

The first thing Hugo addresses is a belief most photographers carry without realizing it: that improving your technical skills will eventually result in higher income. The logic sounds reasonable until you look at the data in your own business.

I track everything in my studio. Revenue per session, booking rate by inquiry source, average package value by quarter. What those numbers showed me a few years ago was uncomfortable. My editing had gotten significantly better. My posing direction had improved. My client retention was up. My average invoice? Nearly unchanged.

Hugo’s point is that the market doesn’t automatically reward better photography with higher pay. Pricing is a separate skill from photography. You can master one while completely neglecting the other. If you’ve been grinding on your craft hoping the income catches up, it probably won’t catch up on its own.

The Real Reason Skilled Photographers Undercharge

This section of Hugo’s tutorial is where he earns his credibility. He doesn’t just say photographers undercharge. He explains why smart, talented people end up doing it.

The core issue is that photographers often anchor their prices to what they think the market will accept, rather than what their work is actually worth. This leads to a specific trap: you look at other photographers in your area, you price slightly below the ones doing well, and you assume that’s the competitive move. But you’ve just entered a race toward the bottom that nobody wins.

Hugo also identifies fear of rejection as a major factor. If you charge more and someone says no, that feels like personal rejection. So photographers keep prices low to avoid hearing no. The side effect is a client roster full of people who hired you because you were cheap, not because they value what you do. Those clients are harder to work with, less likely to rebook, and less likely to refer others who value quality.

I’ve lived this. Some of my most difficult client relationships from my early years were with the people who pushed hardest on price before booking.

Price Isn’t the Problem. Positioning Is.

Around the eleven-minute mark, Hugo makes the argument I’d push back on the hardest if I hadn’t seen it proven in my own bookings. He says most photographers who think they have a pricing problem actually have a positioning problem. Meaning, the people seeing your work aren’t the right people to begin with.

If your inquiry pool is mostly people asking “what’s your cheapest package,” that’s not a pricing problem. That’s a messaging problem. Your website, your social presence, and your client experience are signaling who should book you. If those signals point toward budget shoppers, that’s who contacts you.

Raising prices without fixing positioning just means fewer inquiries, not better ones. The order matters. Get clear on who your ideal client is, build your presence around them, then price accordingly. Hugo walks through this sequence, and it lines up with every positioning change I’ve made that actually moved my revenue.

Working Less and Making More Is Math, Not Magic

One of the clearest moments in the tutorial is when Hugo breaks down the income math around fewer, higher-value clients. This is worth sitting with because it runs counter to the hustle instinct that a lot of photographers operate on.

Say you’re doing twenty sessions a month at $300 each. That’s $6,000 a month before expenses. If you raise your prices to $600, book only twelve sessions, and your revenue is $7,200 with significantly less time on the calendar. More time means more capacity for the work that actually grows your business, or more time not working, which has its own value.

I doubled my income over a single year by applying almost exactly this logic. I booked fewer sessions, turned away clients who weren’t a fit, and finished that year less exhausted than the year before. The math works. The psychology of letting go of volume is the harder part.

Where I’d extend Hugo’s point is this: you have to have somewhere to put that reclaimed time. If you use it to take more $300 sessions, you haven’t actually changed anything. The time has to go toward business development, toward raising your positioning, or toward genuine rest that makes your creative work better. Charging more is only a lever. You still have to decide what to do with what it gives you.

When to Actually Make the Move

Hugo closes with the timing question, and his answer is essentially: the right time is probably now, and you’ll always be able to find a reason to wait.

He’s not suggesting you double your prices overnight without any other changes. He’s saying that most photographers who are waiting for the “right moment” have already passed it multiple times. A reasonable approach is to raise your prices on new inquiries, hold your rates for current repeat clients for a set period, and evaluate the response over sixty to ninety days.

Your pricing is not a permanent statement. It’s a working variable you should be revisiting at least twice a year.

My parents waited fifteen years. I waited three. Neither of us needed to wait that long.

The single most important idea in this tutorial is that pricing is a skill, and like any skill, it requires deliberate practice. Stop treating your rate sheet as a fact and start treating it as a strategy.

Watch the full video for Hugo’s complete breakdown, including how he thinks about the transition and what to say to clients when you raise your rates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DluknMncI58