A friend of mine from church is a really wonderful photographer, particularly good with kids, so we just went with her, and got the photos on a CD. We paid full price, but got all the photos (ie: instead of asking for mates rates on her work, we just asked to get all the pictures, instead of just having the best 30 odd on the disc) and she gave us two sets, one for us, and one for my brother, who came with his wife and son.

The starting point for us was that we've seen her work, and know that her manner is good and comfortable, and she's great with kids, and we get along well. And we've seen her finished product, and we're very happy with that too.

Other than that, things I would be finding out to figure out if I would be getting what I wanted:-

1. how many locations can you use? (eg: we wanted indoor and outdoor, and perhaps would like to have some in a park if time allowed).

2. how many people can be involved? (we organised it with my brother, his wife and son, and me, DH and DS1 - so we all got different combinations of families and all togther, and split the cost)

3. how long does the photoshoot go for? (so you can determine whether you'll get a costume change in, if you want some formal and some casual, or some artistic, etc)

4. how many photos do you get? (I know very few people who actually buy the prints from the photographer as they're so expensive, and people normally seem to want to put them on FB etc)

5. what is the wait like, before you'll actually get them? (if you plan on using them before Christmas, or something specific)

6. does it include any photoshopping? (we got a few small things done - perk removed from a top, one face swapped [really good pic, but one person grimacing - swapped it with their face from one where they were smiling - huzzah! didn't know they could do that...] etc)

Ummmm ... yup, they're the ones I can think of.


All that being said, we're seriously considering going back for seconds, now that DS2 has arrived, and we're torn. My SIL's sister has a good SLR and we all went to the park one day (the whole extended family) and we spent about 90 minutes taking all different photos with different combinations, etc. We probably took between 500 and 1000 photos, but there would easily have been 30 worth printing for frames, a photobook, gifts, whatever. My SIL's sister isn't a photographer or anything, we just picked a day where the weather was likely to be good for photos, organised to meet at the park, and went for it.

Considering the cost of the photographer plus CD is not much less than the cost of a good SLR, I'm wondering whether we should do that instead of paying for more professional pics ...



But if I was going to go for another set of professionals, those are the questions I'd be asking As well as the price, of course! But the price isn't the main consideration. Those things are.