Getting ready photos. When and how much

It is only about shooting people. Processing portraits takes several times more time than architecture, landscapes, etc., since this is coupled with basic retouching. It includes all kinds of wrinkles, pimples, spots on clothes and skin, the correction of unsympathetic zones in the body shape, and unwanted items got into the shot.

How many photos will be done as a result of the shooting?

Treating each new shooting “like the first time”, I realize that, in 95% of cases my clients are people who have never participated in the photo shoots. Ie, a professional photographer never took them off, and, therefore, no qualitative recommendations they had received. No experience what to do and no idea what the result will be looking like. And I believe that nobody should.

On this basis, I’ve empirically determined that by following my style of work I’d deliver minimum 25 photos for each hour of the photo shoot. This does not mean that if we get 26 good ones, I will not process the 31st. Moreover, if there are more than 2-3 times, I will edit and give away them, but minimally, guaranteed there will be 26 photos.

The number is not an indicator

Do I shoot more? Of course. Each photo session is not less than five hundred shots. I do a lot of pictures during shooting, often duplicating previous frames and change camera angles quite a bit, thus, achieve the maximum effect. Each person is unique and each has his own advantages and disadvantages. Acquaintance with you continues in the process of shooting, and as I find some new quality of yours, I try to discover them and highlight them. Someone needs just 10 minutes to “open up”, but for someone even a hour is not enough. IMHO, it’s better to spend half time on “chatting”, to help the model to relax and pose naturally, and get 10 excellent shots than to take three boxes with either blue.

How much time it takes processing?

The answer to this question is quite simple: “3-4 weeks”. And here often occurs the proportion of indignation:

1. “Just 60 photos and process takes so long?”
2. “My friend would retouch this in 4 hours!”
3. “We got our our wedding photos after a week!”

I feel the need to give a reasoned answer.

So, because of having shoots almost every day (and sometimes more than one), there accumulate a large amount of material that must be processed. In addition to the selection (and selecting, as a rule, means 100 photos from more than a thousand) and color correction of all photos, preparing for return to the client, each photo goes through the stage of retouching. In short, processing each shot takes several times more time than shooting itself.

Detailed article: Why do photographers take so long to edit photos?

Thus, within 3-4 weeks, most time is spent on processing the shooting, which were before you. I pay attention to every shot and that’s not in my rules some short 1-hour photo shoot skip ahead of the queue. Thank to this I always deliver the photos in time. By the way, terms of delivery of top photographers “on the mainland” due to the high workload can easily exceed 30 days.