Well, $8,000 is how much Mr Hwang Chi Kuang charges for a day's work.

'Five years ago, these prices were unheard of,' said the owner of 39 East Photography.

When he started, he said, the high end was around $2,500. Wedding photography was once considered to be at the 'bottom rung' of photography's ladder.

It was felt that only those who failed to become fashion shooters or news photojournalists became wedding photographers.

They were not seen as creative professionals.

Mr Kelvin Koh, 33, owner of LightedPixels, said: 'Wedding photographers were considered no different from taxi or bus drivers.'

But those days - at least for a group of young, highly-educated, elite photographers - are long gone.

Mr Koh said he charges $4,000 to $6,000 for each wedding shoot. He does three or four a month. Nowadays, he noted wryly, even some glamour photographers are dipping into wedding work.

Mr Stephen Loh, 33, of Lyrical Moments said that while he pondered whether he wanted to enter the business, he heard from friends and colleagues about people who went all the way to Australia and the US to hire top wedding photographers.

Why? Because they weren't available here.

But that has changed. Mr Hwang said that in the last few years, people who would otherwise have chosen to become lawyers, engineers or doctors chose to become wedding photographers instead.

Mr Hwang himself is a University Of Southern California journalism and international relations graduate who worked for newspapers in the US before returning here, just after the Asian economic crisis.

Unable to find a job, he decided to go it alone - which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, he said.

Mr Loh is a former teacher and Mr Koh worked as a regional sales manager earning $5,500 a month before he plunged into the wedding photography business 2 1/2 years ago.

These photographers also get overseas work regularly. Next year, for example, Mr Koh will be going to Loire Valley to shoot a US couple.

Quality

And while the amount they charge may seem astronomical, Mr Hwang said 'it is actually very low for the level of quality that they get, both in the album and the images'.

And not everything they earn is pure profit.

There's the price of the photo album, equipment depreciation, transport, rent and other costs to calculate.

And unlike what one may think, work goes far beyond the eight or 10 hours they put in during the wedding itself.

There are hours spent marketing, liaising with vendors, talking to the couple and photo editing. Mr Koh said he spends 13 hours 'post-processing' on each wedding.

Mr Loh said that while what they earn may seem a lot, it's not that much on an hourly basis. Make-up artists earn far more on that basis, he said.

'I work with one of the best make-up artists around and he's charging my client $1,000 just to touch her face for two hours,' he said jokingly.

This article was first published in The New Paper on November 14, 2008.