Tips on Working with a Photographer and Getting the Exact Photos you Want

As a seasoned photographer, I’m used to the unexpected.  My life revolves around photographing events at locations I’ve never been to, where I know no one and need to interact with everyone, where timelines and events can be running early or late, or where the lighting can be unpredictable and difficult. Like many other professional photographers around the world, it’s just another standard day at work.  What makes these days at work better, is when clients over communicate their needs. Yes, I said ‘over’ communicate. Here are a few helpful tips and important things to communicate to your photographer so we can do our best work.

• If it’s an event, offer a pre-event visit to the site. Being visual artists, knowing exactly what the site looks like helps immensely! It shows us what to expect for the most important part of taking photos, lighting.  We need to see things like: how high or low are the ceilings, what are the walls and ceilings made out of and what color are they, are there windows and how many, what sort of lights are on site, are there balconies, what is the actual size of the location, and so many other things that are just hard to explain the why of why they are important.

• Provide one main person as the go-to person for information. It’s hard photographing something where there is more than one planner involved.  Who do we follow as the top leader and who has the final say on times, locations, photo lists, payment, and any issues that arise?  This is the person we need to fall back on when others step in to change our path, or if we have questions.

• Turn around time for photo processing takes time. Make sure you communicate when you need your photos by.  Let your photographer know this information during the hiring phase of communication. If you only need a few images right away, let them know the deadline. It’s easy to pull out a handful of images for immediate use as opposed to getting every single image to you right away.  It may be the era of instant images, but that really only applies to phone photos and unedited images.

• Sharing photos seems like a great idea, but make sure you talk with your photographer about this. We make our living by selling our services and our images. Handing image files out to everyone cuts into what we earn, as well as limits us in connecting with other companies.  We wouldn’t hand out your services and products without talking with you first.  Connect us with the companies that are interested in the photos taken at your event/company/photoshoot and we can take care of working with their business’s photography needs. After all, you paid for the photos for your or your company's marketing needs, not theirs.

• Hire us for what we do. Meaning: don’t hire a family and kids portrait photographer for a corporate event or a wedding photographer for a commercial product shoot.  Sure, we photographers could probably take photos in any genre, but we all have our strengths and our weaknesses. There are enough of us out there who specialize in a certain area of photography that you shouldn’t resort to hiring the only photographer you know.  (which normally ends up being your wedding photographer or old high school senior photo photographer) Look for the photographer with the ‘strength’ that you need and be specific about it. You’ll only end up with exactly the photos you need that way.