REVEAL: the two biggest myths about working with a photographer
I just want to (kindly) dispel two major myths out there about professional photographers and their business practices:
✨ MYTH 1: THE PHOTOGRAPHS THE PHOTOGRAPHER TAKES BELONG TO THE CLIENT BECAUSE THEY SIGNED A CONTRACT AND THEY ARE IN THE PHOTO
This is definitely a myth and is absolutely FALSE. Think of it like when you plagiarize an article real quick for your English paper that’s due at Midnight and it’s 11:59 pm so you either quickly rephrase some stuff that you read or copy verbatim what someone else wrote and turn in your paper. Maybe you don’t get caught, but it’s still the wrong thing to do. Taking someone else’s photos, even though you are in the photo, and you are the client and signed a valid contract, is a lot like this. Plagiarism is plagiarism and copyright is copyright.
Regardless of the camera settings, the photographers’ eye, the photographers’ equipment, or the way in which they go about taking the images, those photographs belong to that person who took the photo and are the sole copyright of that person’s work. If you want a deeper dive into copyright law, I can use my business degree and give you a deeper explanation if you want. Or, you can email me here if you want more explanation: Email Laura the Photographer!
If you want to print the photographs that your photographer took for you, if you want to post them on social media, or if you want to even download the images onto your computer that the photographer took, make sure they have given you permission to do so in the contract that you signed, and ALWAYS sign a contract with your photographer.
ALWAYS.
It protects you both and is so incredibly important.
If you choose to work with me, after you sign the contract I will always give you the printing rights, will let you post the edited images that I provide to you in a private online gallery, and will give you permission to download the images to your computer that I send to you in your online gallery.
But unless the photographer you are working with has given you express permission to do this, you, unfortunately, aren’t allowed to do any of the above and things between you and your photographer can get sticky really quickly (cease and desist letters, lawsuits, etc.). Make sure that you have this conversation with your photographer ahead of time and thoroughly read your contract before you sign to make sure that their policies are in line with your needs as the client. If you don’t feel that you are a good fit, don’t settle! Find another photographer because there are plenty of them out there!
✨ MYTH 2: EDITED PHOTOGRAPHS ARE THE SAME AS UNEDITED (RAW) PHOTOGRAPHS AND THE PHOTOGRAPHER SHOULD ALWAYS PROVIDE BOTH
This, of course, is obviously FALSE, but it is such a widely held belief that I just have to discuss it!
And listen, I totally get it. 2020 has made me more hyper-aware of the things I actually WANT but also the things I DON’T.
If you want a photographer to provide you with the unedited (raw) images, please be aware of what this means. Some photographers WILL provide them to you but they will come at a VERY huge price tag, usually $500 PER IMAGE. This is because they are essentially selling you the license, printing rights, and copyright to the photos they have taken. Once you have purchased the unedited (raw) images from them, those photos are no longer able to be used by that photographer for any reason because they don’t own them anymore. That means they cannot edit and use them in their portfolio, they cannot post them on their social media, they cannot use them to further their business in any way. The biggest way a photographer is able to make a living is by producing high-quality images and then using those images in their portfolio to grow their client base so if they are unable to use those images, it defeats the purpose.
To me, and many other professional photographers out there, no amount of money will replace those images, which is why it is the industry standard that we don’t give out unedited (raw) images at any price.
So what are raw images, anyway? It’s a file format (like jpg, png, or tiff) that yields higher quality images that are uncompressed and lossless, meaning that they are essentially HUGE versions of the photo but haven’t lost any of the detail and are perfect for editing. But if you don’t have the proper programs to edit them in you won’t be able to edit them anyway because they have to be converted and exported from those programs in either jpg or png in order to be printed or posted on social media.
If you were to receive the unedited (raw) images from your photographer, and you chose to edit them yourself, you would first have to purchase Lightroom and Photoshop programs (around $100), purchase Dropbox storage for the photographer to send you the unculled, unedited (raw) images - they take around 10,000 per wedding, by the way! - (around $200), purchasing professional presets (around $100), spending the time culling and editing the images to match the photographers’ editing style (roughly about two weeks’ editing time at 4 hours per day), storing the images into an online gallery on your computer to share with family and friends (online storage for the number of photos that you need in storage is around $50/month), purchasing an external hard drive to store the images on because most computers do not come with enough storage on their own to keep the unedited (raw) photos on (around $200)
That means, if you were to pay for the unedited (raw) images from your photographer as well as do all the editing yourself you would be paying around:
$50,000 for the raw images themselves + $600 per year (online gallery storage) + $100 Lightroom/Photoshop programs + $100 presets + $200 Dropbox + $120 time spent editing at minimum wage ($15.00/hour for four hours a day for two weeks) + $200 external storage drive = $51,320
$51,320!!!
That’s a TON of money and time that your photographer invests in you. Do you want to spend that much money or would you rather pay someone who does this professionally and has it factored into their cost of doing business?
But beyond that, unless you have the equipment, editing knowledge, and the time to do everything above, those unedited photos that you purchase will not look great.
TRUST ME.
I use a custom preset that I created myself that I use on EVERY image that I take. When I take the photos in the camera, I underexpose all my photos to ensure that I don’t lose any detail when I apply my preset to that image. But the original photo looks terrible AF. You wouldn’t want to gift it to your worst enemy.
But this is why you pay a photographer what they are worth because they know and are skilled in taking a janky ass photo and turning it into art.
So, to wrap up this myth: edited photographs are NOT the same as unedited (raw) photographs and should never be treated as one in the same because professional photography is about taking the photo AND editing it.
A photographers’ finished work cannot be compared to its unfinished work, just like you wouldn’t compare flour, sugar, eggs, and butter to a cake.
Peace and love <3