Professional Photos - what to look for?

I am thinking of getting some photos done of my kids (5 & 3). we have never had professional photos, and we don't take a great lot of photos :hide:

The main reason is whenever I start looking I get so confused as to what warrants a good package? how will I know I get what I pay for? (we didn't get our wedding photos and the photographer went bust, so I am very wary)

we have a digital SLR, but I am not a great photographer, and by the time I get the kids organised, they aren't in the mood for mummy to take photos..

Ideally with family scattered around the country, across the Tasman and in various parts of the world, electronic would be great as well as some physical prints..

So tell me, what should I be looking for when looking for a photographer?

Have a look around, look at their website, and their FB page and see what a typical family session of theirs looks like. Choose someone whose style of photos you love!! Decide what you're willing to pay and then find someone in that price range. You kind of get what you pay for though, don't get someone who will give you 100 photos on a disc for $50, lol.

Where do you live and I might be able to recommend someone??

I recommend looking for an AIPP member.
These are working professionals and being a member ensures they conduct their business accordingly.
They may be a little $$ but definitely worth it.
Depending on what state your in, but I can also recommend Suzette, she is amazing. Kristen Cook has also some amazing work. You can google their names, they are in Melbourne.

Heaven, I am on Brisbane northside..

Paying for quality has never been an issue, we do it with everything. We will go without something till we can afford to get what we know is quality and/or looks the way we want, so that theory is no different in this case.

MLR - am I right to assume AIPP members would advertise this in some way on their website?

Oh, well then I will PM you with some people to look at! :)

I've recently had pictures taken in Brisbane northside and they do on location shoots if that is something u are after? It was a scoopon but I think prices were within in range of so many others now a days. I was really happy with the number of pictures and the quality?

Not sure if I can make the company on here or not so if u like I can try and pm u the name?

I was very lucky to have found our photographer randomly, as a customer in my shop, the lucky part was that I knew that I liked her personally. To me that is a big plus. If you don't have that luxury see if you can find reviews of the photographer that you are planning on hiring to see what other peoples comments are.

Allow a couple of hundred dollars for the shoot alone. Decide if you want the shoot to happen in your home, a park or their studio and discuss with the photographer what other options for shoots they may have and how that will affect the pricing.

Allow $300 upwards to the photo package itself and then don't forget that you will probably want to purchase frames etc on top of this.

With my photographer, I've had 3 shoots now, DS's birth where she came to the hopsital just after he was born, DP got to see how she worked and he liked her too. At 10 months DS and I had a shot done for DP's Christmas present so that wasn't too expensive. Just recently we did a shoot where I dressed as Santa and she shot my legs only in the pants and DS was very happy because he knew it was Mummy but in the photo it looks like Santa. This deal was for a shoot, 10 x 4x6 photos and it cost $50. On that same day we had a family shoot as well. Seeing our photographer work with our DS and how much he loved her has sold us on her for all future shoots we do. When we left he was calling her by name, waving and even gave her a cuddle.

So after all the rambling I guess the most important thing is research, research, research. Good luck and have fun with it.

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 ...

:think:

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.