hiring a photographer

Retouching and Wedding Photos

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If your wedding photos will be important to you, hiring a professional photographer is essential.

Recently I received an email from a woman who wanted to retouch her wedding photos from this past summer. She hoped to create a wedding album in time for Christmas. She wrote that the pictures “need work and maybe a lot of work.”

After reviewing her wedding photos, it was obvious she was right. Her photos needed a lot of work.

Instead of hiring a professional, the couple had asked friends with cellphones to take the wedding photos. While that might have seemed like a fun and budget-friendly decision at the time, reality has now set in.
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The Four Steps of a Business Photo

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The four steps a business marketing photo has to accomplish in one or two seconds:

1. Get the viewer’s attention. You need good photography to accomplish this. If you fail to get the viewer’s attention then the rest doesn’t matter.

2. Once you’ve got the viewer’s attention, the image must lead the viewer through the photo so they can “read” the information you’re presenting. A good photographer knows how to compose an effective image.

3. The information you’re presenting must trigger an emotional response in the viewer. If there’s no response then the viewer’s attention and interest turn off. If you didn’t use a good photographer then you may have lost your connection with the viewer.

4. After reading the photo and having some sort of emotional response, what do you want the viewer to learn? What’s your message? What’s the takeaway? Hopefully you thought out the photo beforehand and used a good photographer.

Earn attention -> provide useful information -> create emotional response -> involved viewer = build trust and enhance your brand value.

Do you notice how important a good photographer is for your business marketing?

 

Know When You Don’t Know

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A portrait of juggler John Doyle, circa 1902, by Canadian-born photographer Joseph Pasonault in his photo studio in Cando, North Dakota, (US Library of Congress). Another photo by Pasonault was used in a previous blog post.

True professionals may not know what they don’t know but at least they know that they don’t know.

You may have heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect which affects almost everyone. It’s a cognitive bias where those with a low ability at a certain task are more likely to overestimate their ability at that task. But people with a high ability at a task know that they don’t know everything about that task and may underestimate their ability.
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Retouching Business Groups

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Probably not the best pose for a group of businessmen, circa 1890s. (Charles Milton Bell / US Library of Congress)

Retouching Business Group Photos

A company last week sent me 22 group photos of its employees and asked for a retouching quote. The photos were shot by a professional photographer whose name was in the embedded Exif data. A quick look at this photographer’s web site showed that she specializes in actor headshots and fashion/entertainment events.
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Photo Retouching – Higher Rates Can Be Better

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During a long day of photographing the same thing over and over again, such as shooting five or six tennis matches in a day, it’s good to find something different to photograph. Often I will shoot the players’ shoes as they serve, their hands as they hold a cluster of tennis balls, or their towel-covered face as they wipe off the sweat.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

Someone recently asked for a price to retouch two business headshots. I said my rate is $140 per hour but I would first need to see the photos. After reviewing the two pictures, I quoted them 20-minutes per photo or $93 total plus tax. They accepted the quote, I did the retouching, and they were happy with the results. Another normal day of photo retouching.
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Cheap Is Not A Bargain

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If you wear eyeglasses, this is how your business portrait should look. No reflections on the lenses, no greenish tint on the lenses from the anti-glare coating, no lens refraction on the sides of the face, minimal shadows caused by the frames, both eyes fully visible, the whites of the eyes are white, good colour in both irises, and nice catchlights in both eyes.

Many professional photographers know how to achieve results like this and it isn’t difficult. If your business headshot with eyeglasses doesn’t look like this then your photographer failed.

A company this week asked to have its business headshots retouched. The photos were shot by a cheap photographer.
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Perfect Business Headshot is worth $1,000

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Nineteen-year-old US tennis player Serena Williams holds her Jack Russell terrier named ‘Jackie’ after a morning practice session in 2001.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

Would you pay $1,000 for a business headshot?

The Wall Street Journal published an article about the value of professionally done business headshots for people seeking a career boost. (This alternative link doesn’t have the photos included in the original article but that’s actually a good thing. The glaring irony of the original article about the value of headshots is that the headshot examples are rather plain or poorly done.)

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