Helping your photographer means essentially that you will benefit from a smoother, more efficient day with them on the photo shoot. Photographers will thrive on having all the information they need at their fingertips, well ahead of time. It’s disconcerting to not receive a brief or description until the day of the shoot, and proper preparation can only be made if your photographer really understands what it is they’re going to photograph. Here’s some tips to help you, help yourself, and help your photographer, if you know what we mean!

• Write a detailed brief outlining exactly what you’d like to get from the photo shoot - ie: unusual angles of exterior of building, or 150 products on white background, or as many creative shots of models wearing new seasons clothing etc.
• If you’re meeting your photographer at an arranged location, make sure you’ve given them (in writing) the full address including postcode for where they need to be, and by when. (Presume they will hit some traffic, and ask them to turn up half an hour before you need them.)
• Whether you’ve booked a half or full day with your photographer, plan the day strategically. It will help you immensely if you know exactly what order you want things photographed, so if it helps you, write down a shot list, and describe what you want briefly by each time. If it’s a busy day where you and the photographer need to be in 7 or 8 different places, think carefully about timings, leaving yourself some leeway for travel, as it’s dreadful to be behind schedule all day.

What can you expect from your photographer? Well we’ll be talking today about the nitty gritty of a photo shoot; how quickly you can expect to recieve your images, what happens if you have to postpone or cancel a photo shoot, agreeing to terms and conditions, and what sort of service you should expect are all reasonable questions which often only appear when it’s too late to ask. Well, we can’t speak for every commercial photographer out there, but we can tell you how we aim to deliver in terms of customer satisfaction. Certainly photographers can expect a certain amount of clear communication from their client, and it’s vital to supply your photographer with a clear brief.What can you expect from us?Our commercial package remains the same for all our clients, and there’s no hidden extras waiting round the corner as with many commercial photographers. We feel it’s important to be flexible, so we ask our clients to agree to some basic standard terms and conditions before booking a commercial photography shoot, but we’re here to talk through any special requirements - and we always aim to make life easier for clients wherever possible. So, back to what to expect from us:

• You will receive a branded DVD delivered to you in our sturdy ‘Post Secure’ packaging
• The DVD contains both high and low resolution images, optimized for Print (300dpi) or Email / Web (72dpi)
• A useful PDF contact sheet will also be stored on your DVD
• Your images are stored on a secure website, accessed via your own personal log-in

An ongoing issue for many photographers is finding the right workflow solutions that make life easier in post-production rather than more complicated. Our clients feedback has been very positive in relation to how they receive their images after a photo shoot - and we’ve had some time to fine-tune this process. The trickiest part of this package has been creating a simple PDF contact sheet as part of an automated process, that INCLUDES filenames of the images. After much hunting around we finally chose (in conjunction with Apple Mac’s own Automator script software) a handy little freeware script (by Karsten Luth) which does what Adobe and Automator to date haven’t quite managed in one user friendly solution. Essentially it allows the user to process a set of photos into one PDF document, and includes the filenames within the PDF, and saves it to a destination selected by the user (see screenshot).

Immensely useful, we’d recommend as part of any photographers post production processes.