The popular phrase “don’t sweat the small stuff” might be good advice for a happy life, but you may be sure that phrase was not coined by a professional photographer.
Why hire a professional in a trade?
Why? Because for professionals in any given discipline, it’s all small stuff.
When you hire a professional, you assume that person or firm will attend to details you might not consider. You can be confident a professional knows the tools and knows how to be business-like.
If that professional is a plumber, it might be tight solder joints.
If that professional is a woodworker it might be perfect dovetails.
If that professional is a roofer, it might be sealing the roof/chimney joint.
Professional photographers likewise look for the things a non-photographer appreciates subliminally but might not be trained to pay explicit attention to. It’s less about the equipment we bring and more about the experience we bring.
For portraits, we look at hair, highlights, and neckties.
For product, we look at angles, texture, and intersection.
For interiors, we look for stray wires in the corner and cushions askew on the sofa.
At events we are attentive to distractions in the background. (You know, the hilarious lampshade on the head.)
Professionals don’t have supernatural powers. We have just learned to look for things other people might not pick up on.
Like what?
Let’s consider portraits
If that professional is a corporate portrait photographer it’s looking for fly-away hair, shiny foreheads, loose necktie knots, and glare (or smudges) on glasses. It’s sensing when the subject is anxious and uncomfortable, and helping them get past that. It’s making sure garments look crisp, necklaces are centered, and a myriad of other small details.
Consistency from session to session, year to year is another mark of a professional corporate portrait photographer, because it’s not uncommon for firms pitching a new account to assemble a team using photos taken many years apart.
And then there’s post production
Post Production is what happens between the image capture and the image delivery.
No matter how careful and attentive the photographer is at the photo session, final touches applied in post production are equally important to the final result. Since corporate portraiture is a significant part of what FayFoto Boston offers (as distinct from fashion or editorial portraiture), let’s look at …
Some examples
I do a lot of business portrait photography, and I do most of the post production on the images my colleagues and I capture. In case you ever wonder what the value of post production is (or why retouching might be an additional fee) I’ll show you a few examples to illustrate why hiring a professional can be money well spent. All of these examples are tightly cropped to preserve the anonymity of the subject while at the same time illustrating one specific area. The differences are obvious when you look at the before/after views, but in real life it’s only the retoucher who sees the difference. Your audience only sees your personnel in their best light.
By the way, none of these corrections were done at the special request of the subject. This is just what a professional who is proud of his or her product brings to the craft. This is what you can expect when you choose to work with FayFoto Boston.
Sometimes at the end of an editing session I say “you’re welcome!
But only to myself.
To say it out loud wouldn’t be… professional!