Choosing photography services is not something you do every day. Therefore, not many people know what to search for when they need to hire a professional photographer.
Ending up with images you don’t like on your big day is a situation you want to prevent from happening. And in order to do that, you will need this guide to choosing photography services.
Take your time and pay attention to some of the important details – the final result will be by all means a rewarding one.
1. Set the budget
The first thing you need to do is set the budget. This way it will be much easier to search for a specific photographer in a sea of photographers. Anything between $2000 to $6000 is a regular price when you are hiring a professional photographer.
We would say that around $3500 is a normal amount of money for a great photographer with skill. This is a very expensive service. But you will have those beautiful photographs for the rest of your life and you will look back at them often.
Setting the budget in advance narrows down your search and therefore makes it much easier. Plus, you are more in control of your budget this way.
And when you have full control over your budget, you are less stressed. And being stressed before a photo shoot on an important day, like a wedding, is not one of the beauty secrets that will make you look better in photos.
2. Know what you want
Before you even start searching for photographers for your important occasion, you have to know exactly what you want or at least have a vision. If you are hiring a photographer for your wedding, chances are you already have some ideas in mind.
But if you don’t, it’s time to start getting inspired. Look at pictures of your friends and family and ask them for recommendations and advice if they have ever hired a professional photographer. Do some online researching.
Instagram and Pinterest are the best places for searching for photo ideas. Act as if you are searching for a hair salon with a hairstyle already in mind.
Once you have an idea of what you want your wedding pictures to look like, it is time to start looking at photography services available.
But before you do, there is one important thing that you have to remember. Settling for less will sometimes be necessary depending on where you live.
If you live in a big, urban city, then settling for less won’t be something you will experience. But if you live in a smaller city, the chances are, you will have to.
3. Start searching
Online listings, Instagram and Facebook are the places to be when you are choosing photography services. This is where you will be able to find the best services available in your surrounding.
It is very important that you look at a photographers work. This will tell you about how skilled and creative the photographer you are thinking about hiring is.
Check if other customers have posted some photos. If a photographer has a blog, make sure you check that out also. Do as much research as possible before you make a final decision. Compare prices, reviews, photos, equipment, etc.
Photography service is usually somewhere at the bottom of the list of things you have to pay for. A lot of people leave finding a photographer for the very end of preparing their big events. This is the wrong move.
Your research will only be good if it lasts for a longer period of time. This gives you time to see many options that are available out there.
Especially if you are hiring a photographer for your wedding day. You want your happy ever after preparations to be perfect.
How to figure out if certain photos are good or bad?
Everyone knows that photography is a free art meaning there are no set rules that you have to follow except “get everything that is needed inside the frame”.
But there are certain mistakes that you can notice even if you aren’t that familiar with photography. Here are a few things that you have to pay attention to:
1. Lighting
You have to estimate for yourself if the pictures have bad lighting or not. Are they too white or too dark? Is the flash obvious in the picture or not?
2. Editing
Every digital photographer edits his photos. It is a normal thing. And every good photography service offers photo editing.
But pay attention to if the editing is obvious or not. Editing shouldn’t be visible unless it is a filter or an artsy photo.
3. Colors
This is something that is mostly influenced by the photographers’ equipment. Certain cameras pick up colors much brighter than they actually are. T
his sometimes makes the photo unappealing to the human eye. This is something that can be fixed when editing, but you don’t want your photos to be over-edited.
4. Focus
You also have to look at what the main focus of an image is. If photos don’t have some depth, they might end up looking bad.
These are just some basic things to have in mind when you are hiring a photographer for your important occasion. Just as you would pay the best people, like wpfullcare.com, to manage your website’s maintenance, you should hire the best photographer.
How important is the equipment?
Like it’s already been mentioned, some cameras pick up colors differently than others. Some make them more vibrant and some make them duller. This isn’t an unfixable issue, of course. That’s why you have to keep in mind that equipment isn’t the most important thing.
Good equipment doesn’t mean that the person using it knows how to use it. Sometimes using too much equipment is a bad thing as it will only make the photoshoot longer. And if this day is important to you, you don’t want to waste a single second.