Tauro Photography Blog » Life is wondrous. Share yours.

Note: this is a reposting of an article posted under “Notes” on my facebook page. But since I know not everyone reads facebook notes, I thought I would crosspost here (I won’t do that all the time though, so don’t worry). I have been posting some informational notes on photography, tips for you and your own photography, as well as some information about professional photography. These articles are meant to be general and informational, not specific to my services or work.  I hope you will find them helpful.

Not that many years ago, hiring a photographer meant one of a couple things:

1. you were getting married,

2. you were getting business head shots or maybe promotional images of your product

3. you had a dream for yourself or child to take on the modelling world and wreaking havoc on Cindy Crawford or Tyra Bank’s careers

4. you were very wealthy and wanted one of those ginormous portraits of you and your horse on your ranch with your jet in the background.

OR you went to a department store photography studio and got 101 prints in a ton of crazy sizes of the same image for $4.95.

There were not that many other reasons for the average person to hire a professional photographer. But in the last decade or so, photography in general has taken centre stage our very visual world and accessibility to photography has HUGELY increased – no longer does the average person have to worry about film and processing and albums and envelopes of prints and negatives. Everyone can take photos with cameras, phones, heck even my kids Nintendo Dsi can take photos. This shift is at LEAST as impactful on the realm of photography as the introduction of 35 mm photography many years ago, if not larger (certainly the shift has happened far more rapidly).

So our desire for photographs has increased exponentially. Most of the time our own snaphots will do the trick to satisfy our need to capture our lives and memories, but there is still a need for professional photographs at times, and in fact, many more people WANT something more professional in addition to what they create on their own everyday.

But that shift to digital photography has also lead to an explosion in the number of people offering professional photography services. There is a ton of differences that you will encounter among those professionals as well. So here are a few starting points for you to consider when you are looking at hiring a photographer to capture photographs for you, whatever the reason or need may be.

Since I tend to be alittle verbose about things, this is a two part article – this article will deal with the practical concerns. Next week, the more fun stuff (like browsing all the pretty blogs) will be up for discussion.

1. Are they legal? This one is boring and really important to you the consumer.  Be sure to consider if they are operating legally in their community with required permits, do they collect and submit taxes (yeah, taxes suck the big one…but its only fair and right that we all pay our share so that we all benefit from the services provided – if you don’t like the tax system, then find ways to fight it legitimately and fairly, for goodness sake), do they have  appropriate insurance to cover any mishaps, do they have a contract or agreement that protects both you and them? Just a few things to consider – if you have other questions, ask them. If they are transparent and legal they should have no problem answering the questions you may have.

2. Are they safe? No I don’t mean do they wear helmets and protective gear to shoots (although, sometimes that might just be a good idea haha!). Do they have backup equipment at every shoot? If one camera goes down during your   shoot, or say they were to drive over their camera bag on the way out of town one weekend, could they still cover your session (don’t ask me how I  thought to suggest that one…lets just say, it’s a painful memory I try not to think about very much!). Do they have a system in place to protect your images in storage while you are in the process of ordering?

Now, things can still go wrong, even with the most protective process in place (I know this from experience – not just from driving over my gear a few years back.. I once had a compact flash card go bad unbeknownst to me until it was too late, and I have opened older discs to retrieve images and the disc was unreadable.) Usually though, backup equipment and systems have saved me – the more a photographer can do to try to prevent difficulties, the better the odds that your images are safe until you have purchased your products.

3. Full time? Part time? Home studio? Retail studio? Cool warehouse? (that one is a bit of a dream for me personally though…someday)  On Location? Indoors? Outdoors?  Natural Light? Studio light?  Flash? Really, truly, and honestly…none of that stuff matters. It’s the results that matter. What can the professional do for you. Can they provide the finished product you need. These aren’t selling points as to why one photographer is better or worse than another, and they are definitely not things that should prevent you from hiring someone. Look at their work and hire them to produce more of it for you, if that suits your needs.

4. Qualifications:  this one is a grey area and it depends what matters to you. Some people feel better hiring professionals that have been vetted by some kind of official designation. That stuff doesn’t matter to other people. No one      has ever been born with a camera in hand, and full competency with photoshop (although if they WERE, I need to know about that baby!) Some people are great self learners, some people need structured learning of school. You decide what matters to you, ask them questions, and hire them based on their work results. Honestly if you love their style and quality, does it matter how they learned it? Or how they achieved it? (more on style and quality next week!)

5. Equipment: if the photographer uses anything other than Canon equipment, run very far away! Okay, just kidding…brand is totally irrelevant (nevermind all the silly photographer squabbles you might encounter about that – all the brands are perfectly fine). Having the biggest megapixels is also not really that big of a deal, unless you are looking for billboards or some such thing (and even those can be made with small image files if the printer knows what they are doing). There are quality considerations, yes. But if you look at a photographers work,  and check out their stuff in print (I suggest that if possible you do this) and you like what you are seeing, then whatever their equipment is just fine.

That is the boring official stuff…important though, because hiring a professional service provider of any kind is an investment of your time and money. So it is important to ask lots of questions. But the more fun stuff is picking someone whose work you love. There are probably at least 5 bazillion photographers website to view…so that can also be a big task. Check back next week for some things to consider when choosing the exact right photographer for you.