You are having a new baby and you want to capture that fleeting newborn look to remember it forever, or perhaps little Johnny is turning one year old, or Suzy Q is graduating from high school and you want senior pictures taken, or your whole family is getting together for the first time in years. You’ve made the decision to have portraits taken. Now what?
Choosing a professional custom photographer to meet your needs can be overwhelming if you don’t know where to start. Most likely you asked around for a recommendation and your friend told you about X Y or Z photographer. What often happens is that you turn to the internet and start searching local photographer websites. There are all types of photographers available these days–from those who may have just learned how to use their camera to those that have been in business for years–those that only shoot on location and those that have long standing studios, to those that only shoot weddings. The choices are many! So where do you start?
When searching for a photographer to meet your needs, these are a few things you might want to to think about.
Integrity. Does the photographer stand by their work? Are they reliable?
Style. Does the photographer’s style match what you are wanting from a portrait session. If a timeless portrait of your children or family is what you are wanting, choosing a photographer that uses tons of props in every image and distracting wrinkled backgrounds may not be the best match for you. Or if you are thinking fun pj style shots, don’t choose someone that focuses on formal, posed, traditional portraits.
Cost. Remember, custom photography is an investment. Although it may seem expensive, remember that a good photographer must pay for quality equipment (and backup equipment), training, continuing education, insurance, and numerous other things that factor into the final price of a portrait. It’s not just about the price of the paper the portrait is printed on. Getting the session and all the images on disk for say a hundred bucks may *seem* like a great deal to some, but usually those that offer that kind of “bargain” are just starting out and building portfolios. Personally, I see those kinds of offers as a huge red flag in the world of custom portraiture. An age old saying goes like this: You get what you pay for.
A client of mine recently compared choosing a photographer to buying a blouse. You find a blouse on sale at the department store. Its not the color you like and it doesn’t even fit that great, but you bought it because it was just way too good of a deal to pass up. The blouse then sits in your closet forever unworn because you don’t really like it after all. Then there’s the blouse from Nordstrom. It may have been more expensive, but its style is enduring and quality the highest in design and you wear it over and over through the years. It still looks as good as the day you bought it, and you love it just as much now as you did then. What’s the better purchase? Cheapest is not always the best choice.
Experience. How long have they been in business, and just as important–what is their skill level and how can you tell by looking at their online portfolio?
A well trained photographer will know how to balance color, expose an image properly, be able to use lighting correctly in all situations, how to pose a subject in a way that makes them look their very best, and these days they’ll most likely know how to use Photoshop to its fullest–including how to retouch and convert an image to black and white.
Here are a few technical examples that are easy to spot.
The first is black and white conversion. The simplest way to convert an image is to push the “grayscale” button. But grayscale doesn’t account for tone and contrast. It just washes out the blacks and muddys up the whites.
Color balance (or custom white balance). Are the portraits balanced correctly? Even the untrained eye can see the difference here.
Are the images exposed properly? I don’t think there’s anything worse than an underexposed or overexposed portrait (with blown out whites and completely washed out skin tones).
Well, there you have it. I hope you have found this helpful!
Awesome article Andrea! This is such an informative article. I love the examples! If only everyone knew what to look for in a custom photographer, the world would be a better place