TURN AROUND TIME
Understanding the photographers turn around time and their policy on sneak peaks ahead of time. Nothing feels worse than drowning on work and feeling like people are breathing down your neck. Most photographers I know burn the midnight oil during busy season to deliver sessions on time. I know what it feels like to wait for your photos with excited anticipation, but refrain from hounding your photographer for your photos. Photographers have lives and families outside of their business so if you them on social media doing something other than editing be happy for them. Turn around times are different for every photographer, if it’s past their expected delivery date it’s acceptable to send a kind follow up.
DON’T LEAVE THEM ON READ
Acknowledge that you received your photos. It shocks me how often I hear from photographers that their clients don’t even acknowledge the receipt of their gallery. This isn’t just a job for photographers, this is their art form, their passion. A simple thank you (or a super mushy-gushy text) means the world to a creative person! Plus, they ant to know if it went to the correct email. Bonus points for writing them a review or sharing your experience with them on social media.
DON’T ASK THEM FOR THE RAWS
So much of photographers job and their brand has to do with their editing. Not only is this the kinda ballsy it’s a really big risk for a photographer to have their name associated with an unfinished product. If there are additional edits for some reason you want the raws hire the photographer to do what you need, so you’re supporting their business and allowing them some ownership over the final product.
DOWNLOAD IMAGES
Download your images. DO NOT SCREENSHOT THEM from your online gallery. It degrades the quality and we’ve all seen our Aunt Karen upload the full screenshot, an in-cropped showing her battery life and the time of day she snapped her fav photo from her smartphone. Don’t be Aunt Karen.
You also need to download your images for your own personal keeping. Familiarize yourself with your photographers policy on how long they host a gallery online. They pay for the storage to host these galleries so often they set an experiential dates, if you don’t download in time there could be a fee for re-uploading your gallery. I personally recommend having these precious images backed up on a cloud service like Dropbox and/or an external hard drive.
NO FILTERS PLEASE
Have you ever witnessed the chef of a fancy restaurant see a patron smothering their steak in ketchup? This isn’t hard a bas as adding your own edits to your photographer’s professional edits. It’s very hurtful , misrepresents their work entirely. A lot of photographers have a clause in their contracts about tampering with their photos. If there is something truly bothering you about the edit, reach out to them. I’m sire they would be happy to tweak it. I always recommend paying close attention to a photographers editing style prior to booking to ensure it’s a style you love.
TAG YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER
Tagging your photographer every time you share their images online should be common practice. Sadly I see the opposite so often. One, it makes their day to get a tag and see you sharing their work. Two, that’s how their business grows. Three, it’s an established courtesy in our culture to credit the artist or creator.
