What Happens After I Take Your Photograph?
There’s a funny thing about professional photography. Most of the work my clients actually see me doing happens in a fraction of a second.
Click – Photograph taken.
But in many ways, that’s where the work begins.
I’m David Bailey, a professional photographer based in Ballarat and I’ve worked in photography for more than 16 years. Whether I’m photographing a wedding, a corporate event, a headshot or a portrait session, taking the photographs is only one part of producing the finished images.
So, what actually happens after I put the camera down?
First, your photographs need to be safe
Before worrying about making anything look pretty, the first priority is protecting the files.
Photographs are transferred from the camera’s memory cards and backed up. Particularly with something completely unrepeatable like a wedding, looking after those original files is every bit as important as taking them in the first place.
Only then does the next stage begin.
The cull
A professional photoshoot can produce a lot of photographs.
You don’t need every blink, duplicate expression, test frame or photograph of someone looking like they’ve suddenly remembered they left the oven on.
I go through the complete shoot and select the strongest images.
It’s not simply deleting the bad ones. Often there might be several very similar photographs and part of my job is deciding which expression, moment or composition works best.
That judgement comes from experience.
Editing isn’t an Instagram filter
Once I’ve selected the photographs, the editing begins.
Exposure, colour, white balance, contrast, cropping and consistency all need attention. Skin tones need to look right and a collection of photographs should feel like they belong together.
Good editing shouldn’t necessarily jump out at you.
Ideally, you should notice the photograph, not the editing.
There’s also a difference between editing and retouching. Editing is part of preparing the photograph. Retouching is more detailed work, such as removing temporary blemishes or distracting objects when required.
My goal isn’t to turn people into somebody else. It’s to produce a polished photograph that still looks like the person I photographed.
Then there are the boring technical bits
They’re not particularly glamorous, but they matter.
Images need to be prepared at the appropriate resolution, sharpened correctly, converted to the right colour space and exported for their intended use.
A photograph being supplied for a corporate website has different requirements to a photograph I’m preparing for a large professional print.
This is one of those areas where years spent working as a photographer make an enormous difference. You learn what happens to an image after it leaves Photoshop.
From screen to print
This is probably one of my favourite parts.
I’ve always believed photographs deserve to exist somewhere other than a phone.
Because I work with professional photographic printing as well as photography, I get to see the process all the way through, from pressing the shutter to producing the finished print.
Colour management, paper choice, resolution and print preparation all affect the final result.
A beautiful photograph isn’t much use if it looks terrible when it’s printed.
So what are you actually paying a photographer for?
Yes, you’re paying for the time I’m standing there with a camera.
But you’re also paying for everything that happens before and afterwards: experience, equipment, backups, selecting the photographs, editing, retouching, file preparation and delivery.
And perhaps most importantly, you’re paying for the years it took to know what to do at each of those stages.
I’ve worked as a professional photographer in Ballarat for more than 16 years, photographing weddings, portraits, businesses, events and people from all walks of life.
After all that time, there’s one thing that hasn’t really changed:
Taking the photograph is the quick bit. Making the photograph is the work.