The question always arrives the same way: "This is probably weird, but — could you just come with us?"
It isn't weird. Bringing a photographer and videographer on a trip used to be something only brands and celebrities did, and now it's families booking a once-in-a-lifetime anniversary trip, founders documenting a product journey, and couples getting married somewhere that isn't Nebraska. What people actually want to know is what it costs, how the money works when travel is involved, and whether it's going to feel intrusive for a week.
Here's the honest version of all three.
How travel work is priced
Travel coverage is quoted as production days plus travel, not as a flat package, because no two trips have the same shape. The components:
The production day. Our standard full production day is $1,100, delivered color-graded. A half-day is $600. A production day on a trip is the same work as a production day in Lincoln — it's just happening somewhere with better light.
Travel itself, quoted separately. Flights, lodging, and ground transport are quoted at cost based on the destination, not marked up. What varies is whether travel days are billed as production days. On most trips they shouldn't be — if I'm on a plane, I'm not shooting.
The edit. Delivery is scoped with the days: a highlight film, a set of stills, or both. Vertical social cuts are usually worth adding if any of this is going anywhere near Instagram.
For a rough shape: a three-day trip with two shooting days, a highlight film, and a gallery is a four-figure engagement, and where in the four figures depends almost entirely on the destination's airfare.
The part that actually matters: how it feels
This is the thing people are nervous about and won't say. They picture a photographer following them around a beach for six days making everything into a shoot.
The way it actually works: we shoot in blocks, not continuously. A morning block, an evening block, and the rest of the day I'm a person on a trip who happens to have a camera nearby. The best travel footage is always the stuff nobody was performing for — it's the dinner where somebody told a story badly and everyone laughed, and it only exists if the camera was already boring by then.
If you want the documentary version of a trip, the single most useful thing you can do is stop introducing me as the photographer. Two days in, everyone forgets.
Destination weddings
Same structure, different intensity. A destination wedding is a full production day for the wedding plus usually a half-day for something else — a welcome dinner, a morning-after session, the thing that makes it feel like a trip instead of a ceremony. Travel quoted separately, and for most U.S. destinations the travel line is smaller than couples expect.
Worth knowing: for a destination wedding, hiring someone who flies in with you is often cheaper than hiring locally at the destination, because destination-market wedding vendors price for destination-market weddings. The wedding photography cost guide covers the baseline Nebraska rates the travel version builds from.
The questions worth asking anyone you hire
- Who owns the footage? With us, you get the masters and a full usage license. This is not universal — ask.
- How many production days are actually shooting days? Some quotes bill travel days at the full rate. Ours generally don't.
- What's the delivery window? Travel edits take longer than local ones because there's more material. Get the date.
- Do they have a passport and can they legally work at the destination? For international trips this is a real question, not a rhetorical one.
- One person or a crew? For travel, one person who shoots both stills and video is usually better than two specialists — smaller footprint, lower cost, and everyone relaxes faster around one camera than three.
Booking it
Travel and destination work is scoped on a call because the variables are real — dates, destination, how many days need coverage, what you want delivered. Details are on the travel photographer & videographer page, and you can book a free consultation to talk through a specific trip.
We're based in Lincoln, Nebraska, we travel regularly, and the passport is current.
