During a session you will hear me click that shutter a few hundred times (depending on the session type!), I am moving all around trying to get as many angles, props, poses as I can and yet my clients only receive 20-25 images? Why do you not receive every single image I snapped?
1. Amount
Some sessions I overshoot, I get a little snap happy and can (and have!) shot 400+ pictures…if your goal is to have one or two nice canvases made for your living room…do you know how long it will take you to go through hundreds of pictures? Hours…and you will get overwhelmed. I promise you, I am the professional and sometimes I get a little overwhelmed by incredible sessions! It has taken me a few years but I can now cull through a large amount of images to give the most variety, best expression, in record time because my eyes are trained to know what I should be looking for.
2. Editing Time
I edit every single image you see and that takes time (depending on the session and image, sometimes there is quite a great deal to edit and other times only a few tweaks). Half of my skills is the editing…I know how to make buildings disappear from backgrounds, scratches and bruises are done, skin is creamy and pretty, the colours are rich and true…a slightly prettier version of reality. You hire me because you see the lovely finished images, my skill is seeing the final product during the session, turning your loved ones into art. I cannot afford to spend days editing every single image off the memory card and you don’t want to view your images and have to imagine what they COULD look like after I edit them. Every image you see will be completed and finished to a high standard. Showing you an unedited image is equivalent to showing you an image that would be considered naked in my world.
3. Blinks
Do you know the average person blinks 15-20 a minute? Do you want a picture of your eyes closed? Me either:) I toss those ones because I haven’t had any requests for a family picture with everyone’s eyes closed yet.
4. Children Are Curious and Cameras are Boring
True story…the younger the more distracted. They look all around, they explore, they make funny faces, they babble and chat to us and sometimes I catch them looking at me…but I need to be ready. So I keep snapping in hopes of catching some eye contact and maybe if I am lucky a real smile.
5. Sometimes the Picture Doesn’t Turn Out
Some moments happen so fast and us photographers don’t catch it in time, the light changes suddenly and the camera was set for another type of light, someone was moving too fast for the camera, sometimes technology doesn’t always work and the focus (where the picture is true sharpest) doesn’t hot the subject (you want your subject in focus…not the trees in the background).
For an example here are some images from a super quick session with my (then) 20 months old daughter, Cecilia. She is a toddler, has a short attention span and really doesn’t care if Mommy has her camera…these are not edited.
Glaring at the camera.
Something was much more interesting than me calling her name.
And now the two images that did make the final cut and were presented to my family and friends for her 20 month pictures.
In 10 minutes I had snapped about 200 images of my very busy and curious toddler…my goal was 1-2 images and that is what I got! Those two images were printed so they can be kept and displayed, mission accomplished!
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