This series of posts will help you clear up some myths about hiring a professional photographer. You’ll also learn why some add-ons photographers promise may seem worth it but in reality are just a waste.
Smartphones and consumer-grade cameras are getting better and better at capturing good photos. So why hire a professional photographer when you can just snap it yourself? Or why hire a seemingly “expensive” photographer when there’s a guy on Craigslist that’ll shoot it for $25? He’ll even throw in all the photos from the memory card, unedited, totally for free. Sounds perfect, right? Wrong.
Myth #1: I Should Get All Unedited Images Straight from the Camera
“The photographer says they’ll give me 5 edited/retouched images, but also all of the unedited images from the photoshoot, for like… FREE! This is awesome – I’ll have so much content to post.”
First of all, Photography is an Art.
You don’t just buy a paint brush and BANG you’re an artist. Whatever raw talent someone has, it needs to be developed. Photographers need to master how to use the camera, how to use light, how to help people feel comfortable and look their best in their portraits, how to fine tune the details, and most importantly how to make the photo actually say something or evoke an emotion.
A lot of that Art happens after the photoshoot.
Cameras can only do so much on their own. A great photographer will never give you an image straight from the camera. Rather, they’ll go through all the photos and pick the best, then they’ll make a number of adjustments to those raw photos including tweaking colors, tweaking lighting, maybe adjusting how sharp certain parts of the image are, and if there’s face in the photo they’ll do some retouching.
Realistically, are you going to post dozens of photos that are almost identical?
Or would you rather find the best photo of each set, tweak it to perfection, then post only that? Quality and quantity are not the same thing, my friends. No one wants to sift through social media mega-post or have to click all around your website to get an idea of your vibe, services or products. People want the info they’re looking for immediately, so put it up front and make it the best it can be.
So what happens to all of the unedited images that the other photographer was so kind to give you?
They sit in a folder, taking up space, never to see the light of day. Or worse, you post the best one or two edited photos, then follow it up with some of the unedited “meh” photos. Your audience gets the idea that you don’t value quality and don’t care much about how you’re presenting yourself or your company online. They might wonder if that half-assed approach extends to your products or services.
Pictures speak louder than words.
Let’s go over some examples of the images created by the camera (on the left) vs. the images created by the experienced photographer (on the right).
TIP: You can slide the little divider left and right to see the difference for yourself.
The photo above is part of a series I created for a major real estate company.
I shot this in 2016 in downtown San Diego. The “meh” photo on the left is what the camera thought was a good photo. The colorful, detailed, exciting image on the right is what I thought was a good photo.
Now let’s take a look at a headshot.
A LOT more thought and care goes into creating a great headshot. It’s one of the most important photos you could ever have. It immediately tells your story, let’s someone know a little about your personality, and helps them decide if they want to deal with you. Getting a bad headshot could mean that you lose business to your competitors, or you don’t get hired for your dream job.
Yes, this is me. How embarrassing!
I never want to make a client feel bad about themselves or feel like I’m picking on them. Your blemish secrets are safe with me 🙂 So I’ll be the example here.
I shot this glorified selfie after creating a headshot for a client.
Then, after basic adjustments, I retouched the photo to remove some blemishes, fix up my skin tone, reduce the shine, whiten the teeth, remove some stray hairs and a cowlick… you get the point. Sorta rough looking dude on the left. Sorta OK looking dude on the right.
The adjustments and retouching shown above are pretty drastic for the sake of this example.
Whatever retouching I do to your photo will look natural and only serve to reduce any distractions, NOT make you look plastic and artificially spray-tanned.
Here’s a group shot for a law firm that I created in 2015.
This is another drastic example to clearly illustrate my point. The window was their office’s best option for a group photo, but shooting with such strong backlight poses some challenges. If I set the camera to properly expose their faces, then the background will just be white. If I set the camera to make the background look colorful, then their faces will be too dark. So I ended up creating an HDR image that gets the best of both options.
Key Take Aways – TL;DR
Talented, experienced, and legitimate commercial photographers exist to deliver high quality photos. Those photos should tell a story, convey an emotion, and most of all benefit your business.
Cameras are a tool photographers use to get those results. But the camera does not make the photograph – only the photographer, as an artist, can do that.
Getting all of the images a photographers snaps at your photoshoot will not help your business. They’re sub-par and will just sit in a folder, cluttering up your hard drive.
Instead, look for the best of the best. Those images that have been edited and tweaked to perfection. It’s about Quality, not Quantity. It’s also a bit about Variety, but we’ll go into depth on that in a future post.
Let's talk about what we'll create together.
Featured On
