For many years families were happy with the Wal-Mart or JCPenny cookie cutter photos, but times are changing. People want to be able to express who they are, and who their family is. They want more than a posed, and potentially boring photo. So now they are going out and they are finding photographers (which there are so many out there!) and discovering that there is more than studio shots to be had in the photography world.
Now I must admit there are some dangers in taking this wild leap into the sea of photographers available to you. First of all we are living in an age where anyone with a camera believes that they are a photographer. Be cautious of these individuals. If you are looking for quality and a great experience with your session you need to be very selective about how you pick a photographer.
The first people that you want to eliminate from being your potential photographers are the ones that say they are going to shoot your session with their phone. Yes.. people do offer sessions that are shot strictly with their phone, and they even charge money for it! Insane I know but people actually pay someone to do it. Please, I beg you, do not have these people take your most important photos!
Second I recommend jumping on Instagram. Believe it or not this is a great place to find photographers, and find their work. This gives you a chance to look at their work, with no regards to price, or feeling pressured to sign a contract or anything of that nature. You can just browse to your hearts content and make a list of photographers that you are interested in to investigated further. Now I am sure you are wondering, how am I suppose to browse to my hearts content? Instagram is famous for hashtags. Log into your account, and pick a location or city, for example lets say you live in Columbia, South Carolina. So in Instagram you search the hash tag #columbiascphotographers, and there will be photos that pop up for you to browse. You can click on photos that you like and it will take you to the profile that the photo originated from which will give you the photographer information. Some photographers will have their Facebook information, while others will have their website information. Either way this is a great starting point for you.
If it is not the photographer that you are worried about, but it is the location, you can do the same thing with Instagram. Look up the location via a hashtag and once you find photos of the location you can find potential photographers who have already been to the location using the same logic as discussed above.
Next you want to narrow down your list. Call at make appointments to meet with the potential photographers. Yes, I said meet with. This is not the point that you are going to book with them. You want to meet with them. Just sit down over coffee or drinks, and discuss with them what you are looking for, see what kind of ideas they have or suggestions they may come up with. Pay attention to how they talk to you. Do they listen to you? Do they take into account what you are looking for? Or are they set in their ways? Are they open to fun new ideas for photos? Most importantly do you and your family feel comfortable with them?
The last question is very important. You must be comfortable with your photographer in order to have an amazing session. Being in front of a camera tends to be very stressful for anyone and if you are not comfortable and trusting of the person that is behind the camera it is only going to make the situation that much more difficult for you and your family. You want this session to be as low stress and as fun as possible in order to get those amazing photos that you are looking for.
Once you have discovered
that photographer that you are most comfortable with it is time to book the session and start planning the session with them.
Sessions.... the fun begins here!
I hope that this information is useful. Please leave some further suggestions in the comments to help improve finding a photographer for other readers. Or if you have questions please leave them in the comments I would love to have a chance to answer them!
I look forward to hearing from you!
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