Why you should never rush your photographer
There are actually quite a few reasons why you should never rush your photographer. When your photo shoot / wedding is over, the work is just beginning for your photographer. Its not just about grabbing a camera and snapping a few shots.
FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE
The first thing you need to remember is that your photographer probably has 1-3 photo shoots / weddings already in the que by the time they shoot yours, plus maybe even a few other photography work and possibly some commercial jobs to go through. This means it could be at least a few days before they even start your photos. Remember, rushing your photographer will push them to work faster and ultimately everything gets a reduction in quality especially your photos. Three to four weeks is a reasonable amount of time to allow your photographer to process your wedding pictures and at least a week for a portrait photo shoot.
EDITING
So, here is a typical workflow once your photographer starts the job. If it’s your wedding, they will edit from the 2000-3000 images they took down to the top 600-800 photographs.
During a portrait photo shoot, you can easily shoot between 400 – 500 photos. This needs to be worked down to about 100. Usually for wedding photos, they would have to go through all the family photos to pick the best one, remove the blinks, blurry shots, test shots or bad exposures. Next they go back and forth between similar images to find the right one that has the best smile, the best hair, the right motion of you walking or best pose of a bridal party shot, etc. This editing or deleting of photo process can take anywhere from 4 hours to 2 days depending on the job.
PROCESSING
Most pro photographers shoot in a format called RAW. These files are large data rich files that need to be processed into Jpegs in order for you to see them, to print from or to make albums. Your photographer will meticulously go through every single image and adjust the exposure, contrast, black and white points, colour temperature and a variety of other things. This process can take days!
PHOTOSHOP/ LIGHTROOM / EDITING SOFTWARE
Next the images go into Photoshop or a similar editing programme where they will use various techniques to give it their own signature look. This process can also be very time consuming and rushing through this will produce less desirable results. This can also take 1-4 days depending on the Photographer.
In summary, don’t rush your photographer! Give them at a few days before reaching out to them. This will ensure that they finish their other jobs and work on yours for the full amount of time necessary to complete it properly. Plus, there is also all the other parts of running the business besides just production. When you call them and start asking for the work, they feel rushed and will start trying to speed up the workflow on all their jobs and it affects the quality of the work down the entire production line… especially your job since they might be burnt out by the time they get to it.
Celeste & Son