I met this week with a potential client who had hired a different photographer and was quite disappointed with the results. It literally took him three months to get five, unretouched photos selected by the photographer. Nothing else. He didn’t get to review all the photos, his messages to the photographer go unanswered, and he feels ripped off.

 

This is why it’s important to hire the right photographer the first time around. If you want to waste money and time, by all means hire the cheapest photographer you can find.

 

If time and money are important to you, here are some tips when hiring a photographer.

 

1) Find someone who will meet with you for a no-obligation, no-cost, pre-session consultation. This step truly makes all the difference in the world. If a photographer is not willing to do this, I can guarantee you are not going to get the best photos. Photography is about more than creating photos – it’s about connecting with your model/client and creating the best photographs based on that connection.

 

2) Ask the photographer to meet with you after the session to review photos. I never used to do this. I used to simply send an online gallery of proofs and let the client select their favorites. Clients were overwhelmed, they often didn’t select the best photos, and it left them disappointed. I now meet with EVERY client after the session to review photos with them. They love it, I can make recommendations, and everyone is a LOT happier.

 

Seriously – those two simple steps of meeting with a photographer before AND after a session will eliminate disappointment. If a photographer isn’t confident enough of their work to show it to you in person, you probably want to keep shopping around for another photographer.

 

The model in this photo is someone I met and photographed in Miami. We later did another session on another trip I took to Miami. And just this week, she contacted me to see when I would be in Miami again. That kind of rapport is crucial to getting the best possible photos. We didn’t just blindly meet in a studio and start shooting. We actually met before the shoot to go over ideas and plan out the session together. That really is a crucial step.

 

model Valentina
© Pete Springer

 

Portland photographer Pete Springer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2013 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Fashion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.