This article has been spread to many photo forum and blog and it's damn well written.  I copy directly from http://www.caughtonfilmphoto.com/costofphotography.html  don't know who's the exact author was. 

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Why are Professional Photographers so expensive?

In this digital age where everyone
has digital cameras, scanners and home "photo printers", when people
upload their photos to a local drug store website and pick them up a
few hours later, we hear this all the time - How in the world do
Professional Photographers charge $55 for an 8x10 when they cost just
$1.50 at the drug store?

Here's why.

Simply
put, you're not just paying for the actual photograph, you're paying
for time and expertise. First, let's look at the actual time involved.
If you don't read this entire page, at least read this first part.

For a two hour portrait session:

- one hour of travel to and from the session

- two hours of shooting

- 30 minutes of setup, preparation, talking to the client etc.

- 30 minutes to load the photos onto a computer (2 - 4 Gb of data)

- 30 minutes to back up the files on an external drive

- 3 - 4 hours of Photoshop time including cropping, contrast, color,
sharpening, saving a copy for print and a copy for the internet and
backing up the edited photographs

- 2 - 3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions, receive their
order and payment, order their prints, receive and verify prints,
package prints, schedule shipment and drop package off at Fed Ex.

- For local customers, we also print a set of all of their photos, and
meet them at our studio to review the photos and place their order.
Meeting and travel time averages 2 hours.

You
can see how one two hour session easily turns into more than ten hours
of work from start to finish. So when you see a Photographer charging a
$200 session fee for a two hour photo shoot, you are not paying them
$100 / hour.

For an eight hour wedding:

-
I won't bore you with the details, but an eight hour wedding typically
amounts to at least two to three full 40 hour work weeks worth of time.
Again, if they are charging you $4,000 for an eight hour wedding, you
are not paying them $500 / hour.

Now for the expertise.

Shooting
professional photography is a skill, acquired through years of
experience. Even though a quality camera now costs under $2,000 taking
professional portraits involves much more than a nice camera.

Most
Professional Photographers take years to go from buying their first
decent camera to making money with their photography. In addition to
learning how to use the camera itself, there is a mountain of other
equipment involved, as well as numerous software programs used to edit
and print photographs, run a website etc.

And
let's not forget that you actually have to have people skills, be able
to communicate, make people comfortable in front of the camera - and
posing people to make them look their best in a photograph is a skill
all by itself.

Think
of it this way - the next time you pay $X to get your hair done, a pair
of scissors only costs $1.50. But you gladly pay a lot more to hire a
Professional.

What about the cheap studios at the mall?

Please
don't compare us to the chain store studios. But if you must, consider
all of the time and work that we put into our photographs, compared to
what they do. Good luck getting a two hour photo shoot at a chain
store. Not to mention they won't come to the beach! And of course, look
at our work compared to theirs. You get what you pay for.

The truth is, most of the mall and chain store studios lose money. In fact, in 2007 Wal-Mart closed 500 of their portrait studios
because of the financial drain they were putting on the company. What
the chain stores bet on is that you'll come in for some quick and cheap
photos, and while you're there, you'll also spend $200 on other things.
They don't have to make money, they are just there to get you in the
door.

Conclusion

We
hope that those who have taken the time to read this page will have a
better understanding of why professional photographs cost so much more
than the ones that you get from your local drug store.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.