While the names and locations in this  story are fictional, it is based on real and unfortunate photography  horror stories that we have heard first hand from friends, contacts,   etc.

It Always Starts with the Same Line

“My  Uncle Joe has an amazing camera, I think I am going to just pay him to  take my family pictures.” While Uncle Joe may be very good, here are a  few reasons to go with the professional.

"You  get what you pay for" remember hearing that when you was searching for a  tattoo artist? photography is so much more than just having a nice  camera. Uncle Joe may have a nice camera, in fact, let’s say Uncle Joe  is a lawyer and photography is his passion. So, not only does he have a  nice camera, but he has the best camera money can buy at the moment, the  Canon 5D Mark II ($2,700). Even more so, Uncle Joe loves shooting in  his spare time so much that he even bought a full set of Canon L Series  lenses and accessories ($15,000).

Already,  we are assuming that this Uncle Joe is much more prepared than 99% of  the Uncle Joe’s out there. Now let’s assume that Uncle Joe frequently  goes out, once or twice a month and shoots nature and urban scenes with  all of his great equipment. Uncle Joe even had some of his work  published.

Your family picture time  comes, and Uncle Joe is feeling great and confident that he is going to  do an awesome job. Uncle Joe starts with some outside shots of the  preparation location and then Uncle Joe steps inside the museum where he  will take photos inside. Uncle Joe doesn’t like manually exposing his  pictures, so he shoots with the cameras help. Unfortunately, the camera  is only so smart.

Uncle Joe starts  snapping shots and notices that his lens isn’t wide enough. So, he  quickly goes out to the car to swap out his lenses since he wasn’t  anticipating this problem. Uncle Joe didn’t take any time to check out  the lighting prior to the shoot, so he has no off camera lighting, or  any additional lighting equipment. So, Uncle Joe figures that he can  just raise his ISO settings super high so that he can capture enough  light to properly expose the scene. This works, however, little does he  know, that every picture shot will be too grainy to blow up beyond a 4×6  print. 

Uncle Joe heads to where his nephew is getting ready with his  son and looks at the scene and adjusts his camera settings based on what  the camera reads. Uncle Joe's nephew and son have planned to wear black  unfortunately, because there was so much black in the scene from the  outfits, the camera was over exposing all of the shots to compensate.  Uncle Joe didn’t realize though, and just kept chugging away.

Let’s  say this is a simple session,  Uncle Joe scopes out a great spot, pops  on his zoom lens, and waits. Uncle Joe tells the family to walk toward  him holding hands. Joe shoots them like a pro snapping 50 shots as they  are walking toward him. The only problem is that all 50 shots are out of  focus because the subject were walking towards Uncle Joe, and his focus  settings were not set for moving subjects.

Since  Uncle Joe doesn’t have the software, or even know how to post produce  images. He simply gives the family a DVD with all of the images burned  to it. The family sits down, dying with anticipation and pop the DVD  into the computer to start looking through their uncles beautiful work!

100  pictures into the 2,000 pictures Uncle Joe shot, the family is already  in tears, as every photo is too dark, too bright, blurry, or just not  that good. Furthermore, the nephew and wife notice that there is no  clean shot of the entire family.

While  this story in particular is fictional, each one of the events and  outcomes are from real situations that we photographers hear about all  of the time. In fact, so many of our client’s guests have approached us  during a shoot to tell us about their “Uncle Joe” experience, and how  they wish they had hired us. So, why does this happen to Uncle Joe?  Because the bottom line is, while Joe had all the professional gear  (which is unlikely in the first place), and experience shooting nature  and outdoors scenes he doesn’t have the following:

1.The  ability to quickly adjust his camera settings based on different  lighting scenes. Most of the time photographers have 2-3 seconds to  adjust settings on the fly.

2.The  knowledge of how his camera reads and interprets light in order to  compensate for under or over exposure. In these situations the  photographer must rely on his experience rather than the camera’s  readings.

3. The foresight to be  prepared for each situation with a secondary camera prepped with a  different type of lens. Professional photographers will always scope out  the location and scenes prior to the shoot date and plan ahead.

4.  The carrying cases needed to always have his necessary equipment and  accessories on him at all times. Professional photographers will always  have their equipment readily available on their person, or nearby.

5.  Experience shooting fleeting moments that you only have one chance to  capture. Sometimes babies are only in a good mood for so long, and you  don’t necessarily know exactly when it is going to happen. The  photographer must be staring through his lens, ready and prepared for  this moment to happen.

6. Experience  and knowledge required to anticipate angles and approaches to each  scene. Knowing where to stand, and what angles to shoot is something  that only comes from experience.

7.  The ability to create unique lighting scenes, and supplement natural  light with his own lighting. Understanding light and lighting is  something that comes from study, training and experience. Being a master  of lighting is impossible unless you have tried shooting in every  possible lighting situation.

8. Experience in guiding and directing large group formals. How will you interact with the family?

9. The knowledge of advanced focus techniques.

10. Experience in taking extra shots of crucial pictures in case of blinking, awkward expressions, etc.

In  addition to all of this, there is so much more that Uncle Joe would  need in order to take professional quality photographs from start to  finish.

While there are a lot of  areas in your budget that you can save money on, family photography  should not be one of them. If you want to have professional- quality,  creative imagery of your family day that will be timeless heirlooms to  be shown and handed down to your generations to come, you will need a  professional photographer.

Often  times, photography businesses such as my own, will work with clients in  customizing their packages in order to fit within their budget. If that  is the case, choose quality over products. I do offer slideshows, and  photo books/prints, but lets focus on taking the photos rather than  product if you are on a budget. We understand that families are often on  a budget, as they me just starting out (lets face it kids are  EXPENSIVE.) To sum it up, while you can always order products later, you  can never order better quality and more creative imagery after your  event.