Hello,
My name is Phillip Pilkington, I am a professional photographer and I want to help people when it comes to choosing a photographer. There are many ways in which people can be conviced by a great sales pitch and end up using a photographer who can not create great images like what they said they could. Or in some cases the photographers portfolio looks great but the images they create for you may not be as good.
Here are some questions you may want to ask a photographer you are thinking of using:
How long have you been a professional photographer?
Experience is very important in this industry, if the photographer is in-experienced then when the pressure is high at a business shoot there is no room for mistakes. Shooting with incorrect setting could mean the shots are too bright (over exposing), issues with this would be loosing detail in the highlights and would look poor when they get printed. Shooting images that are too dark (underexposing) this is something that can be altered in post-production but it does loose quality if it is overdone. Also can result in the image looking poor all over and a loss of detail in the shadow areas.
What qualifications do you have?
In my experience most photographers do not have any qualifications. Instead they may say they are self taught as if that was better than being taught. I would say that qualifications are important as it shows that the photographer is a professional and not just a person who owns a camera. It also helps with the experience issue I mentioned earlier, studying photography full time for 3 years will produce a well rounded and experienced photographer.
What equipment do you have?
This can be a sensitive issue, mostly to people who do not have high level equipment. I think it is an important issue, photographers can create great images with in-expensive camera equipment, I would say that better cameras do produce better quality images. One thing to ask for is do they use a full frame camera? This is a large type sensor which records high levels of quality, the tones, colours and detail are a step up from a cropped sensor camera, Most DSLR cameras are cropped sensor types.
Everyone has heard of megapixals, this does not determine the quality but the size of print that can be produced. The high MP means bigger images but also a chance to crop an image and still have a great print.
Also ask, do you have more than one camera? This is important as sometimes camera equipment fails, it is rare but when it does happen the photographer will need a back-up otherwise on a shoot the client will be very upset because of the time wasted and may even sue.
Are you proficient with Photoshop?
Photoshop is the industry standard for Photographers to use as a post-production tool. It recreates all the darkroom techniques that the old film photographers used and more. I think it may be worth while asking for examples of Photographers Photoshop skills, to see a before and after image to see if there skills are as god as their sales pitch.
I hope this has been helpful to people looking for photographers, I welcome the chance for anyone to ask me these questions and I will happily answer you. Please email or Phone me for more information.
Many thanks,
Phillip Pilkington - Photographer
Pack-Photo
07743 721063
[email protected]
