Why Hire a Professional Photographer?

We might as well cover this one right off the bat!

It's a very valid question to ask.  Photographs are still very much a part of our lives and they continue to be one of the most thought provoking, artistic, and evocative means of communication we have today.  Photographs are used daily in all forms of news media and in print advertisements to drive messages home to a waiting and eager consumer base.  So that's all fine and dandy on the news and commercial side of things...but what about portrait photography?

So we ask the question again: Why hire a professional photographer?  Pretty much anyone can pick up a camera and take a picture, right?  With the digital cameras that are out there these days and the current crop of smart phones that have some pretty sweet built-in cameras, why would you pay all that money to hire someone to do a job that, basically, anyone can do now? 

Before we answer that, consider the following.  Current statistics have shown that nearly 50% of all couples will not hire a professional to photograph their wedding.  Of the remaining 50%, 20-30% of those couples will ask a family member or friend to photograph their day.  In layman's terms, that breaks down to about 6-7 couples out of 10 will not hire a professional to cover their wedding.

And it doesn't get better on the family portrait front.  The current statistical average is 1.2 portraits per family that will be taken by a professional.  That's one formal portrait per family, for the entire lifespan of that family, with one out of every five families getting a second formal portrait taken.  Children get the better part of the photography bargain.  Most children will have 2-3 portraits taken in a formal setting, but that's usually only within the first two years.  Granted, that's not counting those wonderful school pictures we all love and adore, where they whisked us all into a big room, and the photographer gave us a whopping 7.4 seconds in front of a camera, and before we could blink twice we were then stuck with an image that really was nothing more than a glorified mug shot, for many of us.

We also live in the age of the smart phone, where everyone is carrying a camera (er, phone) around with them..  I would venture to say that there are more pictures taken daily, at any high school you go to, than were taken by the entire yearbook staff of that same school, years ago.  Photography is that much in the fabric of our lives..  If you don't believe me, look at your average teenagers profile on Facebook, and see how many hundreds, if not thousands of images they have of themselves in their galleries, all before they turn the ripe old age of 16.

Photography is, literally, everywhere...but let's get back to our original question...why hire a professional?

Truth be told, there are many valid reasons to hire a professional.  We'll save and tackle many of those for future articles, and give them more justice than just a brief mention here.  But there are a couple of main reasons that we'll discuss next that I'd like for you to consider.

The first of which is quality.  One of the drawbacks of everyone having access to a camera and taking pictures is the acceptance of mediocre or poor (at best) quality as the norm.  Take a look at those pictures your teenager is posting on Facebook, and tell me if you don't think quality has taken a hit in recent years. Just because everyone has a camera doesn't mean that everyone is a photographer, anymore than just because we have pots and pans in our house makes all of us world class chefs.  Having access to the medium, and excelling at it are two very different things.  And by quality I mean a couple of things.  First, pros have better gear, plain and simple.  We've got better cameras, better lenses, better lighting, and most importantly, we know how to use all of them in conjunction with the other, because of the experience we carry with us.  Quality is also about the final product...the framing of the picture, the subject matter, the emotions it draws out, the lighting and mood...all of those things go into and are considered, in an instant, by a true professional.  We are, very much so, story tellers, and that story will be told through the various pictures of your event, much like the pages and chapters in a book.  Oh, did I also mention the work that goes on after the event, to "finish" the photograph.  We'll leave that for a future article...so let's move on to a second point.

Photography is more about the "when" and "how" than the "what".  Anyone can pick up a camera and photograph the "what" of a scene.  You've heard the expression that a person who's good at photography is said to have an "eye" for it?  Actually, what's meant by that is simply that they know the "whens" and "hows" of a moment.  Moments happen in a fraction of a second, and a professional will not only know "when" those instances occur, but they'll know exactly "how" to photograph that moment.  They'll know whether or not to take a high or low angle, whether or not to use natural or artificial light (or a blending of the two), they'll know whether or not to let things happen, or to step in and guide things along...and most importantly...they'll know exactly "when" to press the shutter.  I can't begin to tell you how many times I've been photographing key elements of a session, and there will be others with their cameras near me (the smart ones know to stand close to me, because us pros do know the "how" of taking a picture)  The moment happens, I get my picture, and I turn to look at the others that still have cameras at the ready and have taken a picture long after the moment has past, in the hope, I guess, that their cameras have the magical ability to go back in time a few seconds to when the moment actually happened.  Usually that's followed by some colorful metaphors or "I missed it" from the crowd.

A third thing to consider is the personality and training of the photographer.  Being comfortable in front of the camera is essential to a subject's true self coming out, and a professional photographer will have the ability to put people at ease, and draw out the true inner person.  I have a lot of people that come to my studio that will tell me (usually it's the parents that tell me this) that they, or their child, are not photogenic at all, or that they hate getting their picture taken, and they really hate how they look in photographs.  Usually I'll say something smart, in a joking way of course, along the lines of "well, you haven't been photographed by me before."  But that is a very true and important statement.  And I do get it, by the way.  Many clients don't want to spend good money on something that they feel might just be a more expensive picture of them not smiling or looking good.  I mean, if you can look bad for free, why pay someone to make you look bad, right?  I get that, and totally understand where that line of thinking comes from. Those people, however, have never been in front of my lens before (or as one of my clients said, they've never been through the Meadow Lane experience..which I think is a compliment...) and many of those same people, after seeing their pictures will say something along the lines of  "I can't believe you got him/her to smile" or "I can't believe you were able to capture the essence of my son/daughter."  It's because we're professionals...it's what we do, many times, instinctively.

So why hire a professional photographer?  Because we can provide you with the absolute best photographs of your special day or event.  We have the tools, equipment, experience and personality to draw out the best of all of our subjects, time and time again.  In reality, it's only your memories that are unfolding in front of your eyes.  Don't you think those memories and moments deserve to be captured and kept forever, in the best possible way?