Not all photographers are created equal.

Photographer questions

How many gigs (weddings, 21st's, Couples, families) have you had?

Every photographer starts with friends and family, almost every photographer will include these in his/her portfolio. You can safely dismiss the first dozen as no-pressure practises with non-clients.
(As a side note, this is where photog's ego's are built. Friends and family tell them they are amazing and they start believing it without investigating what amazing is)

Can I see examples of your work?
(Be wary of seeing one or two (or six) examples from a whole wedding (or session).

Photographers naturally only want to show their best work. Are the ones they are not showing up to scratch? The old saying is that if you take 100 photo's, you will get one good one.

What genre do you usually shoot?

The different disciplines within photography are wide and varied.

Landscape photography, event photography, portrait photography are just some genre's.

All of them have different 'tricks' to learn, skills that are learnt through practise and experience.
The skill set required to record a stunning sunset does not mean they could anticipate the action on a speedway track, nor having the patience to catch a rare bird in flight relates to the patience required to catch a young child smiling in a family portrait.

The old saying that a jack of all trades, is a master of none.

A person who is devoted to one discipline is better than someone who dabbles in all.

(Although all photographers dabble and experiment in most genres)

Description of their own style.

How would the photographer describe their style? This is really a horses for courses question.
Are they a bubbly 'in your face' type person? Or a stand offish documentary type person?

Myself, I see a photographers role is to record an occasion, not to dictate or participate in it.

Of course experience teaches you when to swap between the two.

How will you handle the bright sunlight?

A clear sunny day is a nightmare for photography. It casts hard shadows (panda eyes), and the difference between dark and light is quite often too much for a camera to handle (dynamic range).

There are many ways to handle this, such as over powering the sun with flash, using shade, using reflectors and using scrim. If the photographer doesn’t have a clear cut answer (you don’t have understand it), it may show a lack of experience.
(And no, “my camera is amazing” is not an acceptable answer. Every camera struggles with a bright sun)

How will you deal with low/ambient light?

This is the other extreme of a camera's limitation. All a camera's sensor does is capture light.

If the light isn’t there, effectively the camera makes stuff up in the way of noise (or the shutter speed suffers, and you get shakey images).

Noise is created by increasing the camera's sensitivity to light by turning up the ISO setting. It results in a blocky appearance to an image which hides detail. Noise is bad.

This is where an investment in equipment is noticeable.

More expensive camera's handle low light better. As an example, my original camera, a 600d I could shoot up to 800iso without quality being degraded by noise, my current camera (6d) I can push up to 3200iso in a pinch. That is 2 stops difference, or it can capture twice the amount of light in dark circumstances. The difference, about $2000.

Camera flashes. A camera's strobe (or flash) can be good, or it can be very very bad.
It can provide the light that the camera needs in a flattering subtle way, or it can make an image look as if it was taken with a cellphone. Pop up flashes are the worst offenders.

A pop up flash emits a flat light which often does not take into account ambient light. Ambient light is important because it sets the scene.

A candle light dinner isn’t the same if you turn floodlights on because its too dark.

Ask if the photographer is familiar with OCF, off camera flash. When you mount the flash off camera, a whole new skill set has to be learned. It shows that the photog is familiar with technical issues, invested in gear, and is not a point and click owner of a camera.

The other issue which should concern the client is are they planning on using a flash at all?

Many circumstances suggest a flash is undesirable. The camera becomes intrusive and makes people aware and uncomfortable. Speeches, wedding vows, are personal moments. A flash of light often detracts from the moment. I would only use a flash worst case scenario in a church.

Catch lights

This is a real bug bear with me. The eyes are always the first place you want a viewer to look at when dealing with portraits. Without catch lights, the eyes are dead.

Catch lights is the sparkle in the eye when a light source is reflected. This can be obtained many ways including reflectors, flash etc.
Ask the photographer if catch lights are important to them. Straight away the answer should be yes.

Any other answer would illustrate to me that the photographer simply isn’t aware of what a good portrait is.

Editing.

Any professional grade photographer should be confident in editing images. Just as back in the days of film, a darkroom was important then. You cannot predict 100% perfection on every shot.

Editing an image means different things to different people. It could mean as simply as a one click 'instagram filter'. The industry standards are lightroom and photoshop.

If you ask what software you use to edit, you should hear either hear Lightroom or photoshop.

This should illustrate a certain amount of technical knowledge, but even that isn’t guaranteed with the relative ease now of subscribing monthly to abode(Back in my day photoshop was $1500)

Raw or JPEG?

Do you shoot raw or JPEG?

That is almost a Holden vs ford question, but if they not confident in answering, walk away.

A raw file is a digital negative of a JPEG file. It holds so much more data than a 'normal' image.

So if the image is taken in adverse conditions (too much/not enough light for example), there is enough information to salvage the image. The downside is that it has to be edited in lightroom or photoshop to be usable. I believe all images should be in RAW for peace of mind, but other photographers with time constraints, or deadlines may choose to shoot JPEG.

Black and white, or colour?

It is a simple question, but I will explain the importance.

Many photographers claim to 'love black and white'. Ask them why?
Black and white images are often used as a crutch for poor photography.

Many errors can be made more acceptable by removing colour from the image.

For example, colour balance and tint.

Sit on the grass, or under a tree, green will be reflected from the foliage. No one wants to be green.

Instead of spending the time correcting the green tint, the simplest answer is make it black and white. Multiple light temperatures are a nightmare to correct. For example in warm sunlight, people in the shade become blue.

Poor exposure is often made acceptable by black and white treatment. Over expose the sky and it becomes a milky blue white, clouds disappear. Easy answer. Black and white, no one will notice your mistake.

I am not advocating black and white images are bad, selective choices can enhance the timeless quality to a shot. Just be wary of the reasons why black and white images are created.

I will add here be careful of what people define as their 'editing style'. Often in reality a one click filter or action.

Made popular by instagram, and available on any phone or tablet, these add or detract colour in hopes when presented as a series will add a selective coherency to them. I view them as a fad, such as those bad 80's haircuts we all now cringe at. I hope we are not going to look back at this generation in the same light.

Meet with your photographer

The consultation is very important. Even more important if the occasion is a once in a life time event. It can be very awkward meeting a stranger who can be potentially be recording intimate moments (and believe me the nervousness from the photographers point of view is reciprocated).

The sooner the better, don’t box yourself into a corner with an unsuitable choice.
Don't mistake their confidence with ability.

The ego's in this industry is sky high, I hate being negative, but I have met some real twat's lol

The market is saturated, you have choices.

Finally, there are not many qualifications in this industry worth a damn.

It is smoke and mirrors in the majority. I would be very surprised if any one south of Christchurch could manage solely on an income from photography. I did a cost of living exercise based on photographic income and it was nigh impossible to generate income required for comfortable living.

If you look/act successful, people believe you are successful, and then you are successful.

Facebook 'likes' are a guide, but deceiving.

You can buy facebook likes. There are scammy 'like ladders', if you like my page, I will like yours. Finally, the measure of a persons social circle does not reflect their photographic ability. Use you eyes, look at their images they post and compare. Then ask questions.

Look internationally for inspiration.

I hold myself to international standards, your memories deserve that attention.

I hope his has been helpful to someone. I tried to keep the technical geekery to a minimum, but is important to me.

In the highly subjective field of art, photography is unique because there are rules which must be followed, and they have stood the test of time.

Cheers

Timothy Johnson

Exordium Photography