If you want to better understand the value of your photographer, follow them around start to finish for an entire shoot workflow: First, start off by watching them for hours putting together marketing materials, posting on social media, passing out business cards to random people in grocery stores and coffee shops, and encouraging them to check out your work. Next, when a client schedules a shoot 6 months later, hang out while the photographer messages the client for an afternoon about everything shoot-related, giving wardrobe advice, suggesting hair and makeup artists and providing their contact details. There will probably be a conversation about planning a concept, as well. The photographer will spend time looking up locations on Google maps, coordinating background scenery with the position of the sun at the time of the shoot. Watch them provide an address and parking instructions, making sure they dont miss their family members birthday on shoot day or something else along those lines. Then, once the shoot is scheduled, see how the photographer sends out an invoice for the session deposit and attempts to get a contract signed and delivered back in a timely manner. On shoot day, ride with the photographer to shoot location and see how they message the client to make sure they are still coming. When the client arrives 45 minutes late, notice how the photographer messages his friends or family and apologizes for being held up at work. Watch as the photographer knows their lighting and angles, and gives the client some really great posing advice and cueing. Note that the client picks up some really helpful information that helps them develop their own posing skill and technique. See how the photographer can change their shoot technique with varying lighting conditions that often change shot-to-shot. Maybe they completely change shooting style several times during the shoot for completely different looks and feels to the images. All of this is done while entertaining the client and the boyfriend they brought along while everyone present is having a great time and laughing and joking. After the family event that the photographer is late to, follow them home as they copy images to their computer. Thatll take about 20 minutes, though, which is perfect because they have to post to Instagram and message other clients back, too. Next, grab that coffee because this is going to be a long night.... The photographer spends time in Lightroom sorting and organizing client photos. Initial adjustments are made and bad photos are tossed out. Selecting one of the best photos, the photographer prepares for export to Photoshop, where retouching happens. This will take probably a half-hour or more, depending on the photo selected. Remember that 5 photos were promised to the client, so youre going to be sitting at the computer for a few hours at least. At this point, youre probably ready to go home yourself, so dont worry about the rest of it...delivering photos to clients, dealing with requests for more edits without additional compensation, spending an hour of your day prepping digital files for magazine submissions per client request, updating social media profiles and website with new photos, answering a dozen requests a day asking for free shoots, etc. So when you admire a photographers images, keep in mind that they work really hard to create the best product they possibly can. Whats their value? What are they worth? Theres no easy answer for that, but certainly theyre worth much more than nothing.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 20:17:40 +0000