Reply To: So, AM I a photographer or fauxtographer?

[cassie]

A lot of it looks like just snap shots to me. There isn’t much thought put into the lighting for nearly every single portrait, and many of them the light is distracting and unflattering to the person. Many of the pictures are too soft (which COULD be facebook but some are definitely not focused on the person’s eye). For example this one the background looks sharper than the family: https://scontent-b-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/t1/1395825_601258973267079_654883671_n.jpg There is also a lot of spot coloring and general over processing. Some of them the color is off and the skin tones look bad. There are some pics that are OK in there but I wouldn’t consider them anything past snap shots, they almost seem more like the coincidental success from a string of spray and pray.

If anything, I think you should try ditching your photo editing software completely and work on nailing down the basics. Learn how to find the light, learn how to use your camera better, and practice practice practice. Looking at what you have up, I’d definitely say you aren’t ready to be shooting professionally. There are a lot of problems with your photos, but lighting I think is one of the biggest. Here is a video that I found REALLY incredibly useful. But it isn’t enough to just watch it- watch it and then grab an egg and photograph it like he says: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM7CcUrUD2g

Also just a heads up- you may want to consider changing your hours on your facebook site. We don’t like to think that someone would call at 10pm and wake up the kiddos, but it happens (I’ve had it happen quite a few times actually, even though I think I’ve pretty much made it clear that I have kids in bed by 8pm). Some people get upset when you don’t answer the phone right away either, so I’d change it to hours that someone could expect to reach a live person on the phone. True you might not schedule their appointments during that time frame necessarily, but it’ll save you some grief when someone tries calling you every hour until they reach you personally rather than just leaving voicemails and waiting until the next day or when you’re back from lunch (I’ve had this happen several times too). It’ll happen regardless, but at least it sets a policy in place for your business and lets people know you aren’t ignoring them or have crappy customer service.