Do you really need professional business photos?  YES!!!

If you want to project a professional image for your business then you need professional business photos.  Plain and Simple.  There is a difference between what a professional photographer can provide and what you can come up with hubby’s Instamatic (do they even exist anymore?  LOL).

The thing about choosing a photographer is that you want to be careful that you’re choosing someone who is professional – really knows what they are doing, and has integrity.  I recently had some business images taken and found out, way too late, that the guy I hired really lacked integrity.

Get Pricing Up Front!!

Sounds pretty straight forward right?  When I had my business shots taken we also, as a family, took the opportunity to get some family portraits done.  The photographer gave me a price list which I later learned was ONLY for the family photos.  For 4 digital files the ‘listed’ price was $395.  Sounds reasonable right?  After the shoot, this photographer sends me the high res images from my business shoot.  I start using 2 of them thinking that I’ll be paying the $395 for these once we choose our family shots. It was later pointed out that it DOES state on the price list that prices are ‘subject to change at any time’.  Get a Guaranteed price for a specific time period.

Then he sends me an invoice for $100 sitting fee (that he had previously waived but I didn’t get that in writing) $100 for retouching that I had to fix (notice bulges and colouring), and $200 per image for a total of $1,000 for 4 digital images.  Robbery.

Unsightly bulges (yes I know they are MY bulges)	Smooth lines

Lessons Learned

• Get guaranteed pricing
• detail what your expectations are (ie retouching)
• Make sure they are reputable
• And, the most important thing, YOU own the copyright on those images!!!

In the End

I had already put the images out on social media when I received the startling invoice so, being a person of integrity, I knew that I couldn’t ‘un-ring that bell’ and I paid for those 4 images.  As for the family portraits, we knew that we could never look at one of them in our home without remembering our experience and the unpleasant person that we had the misfortune to hire.  We didn’t buy them but are looking forward to a family photo shoot this summer with a reputable photographer in our area.