“Do I get ALL the images from our shoot?” is a question you might be tempted to or have possibly asked your photographer in the past and you’ve more than likely gotten a varying array of answers all invariably saying the same thing – “Ummmm, NO. You won’t be getting ALL the images from the shoot!” And with good reason. It’s not because your photographer is being selfish or mean. They are in fact trying to make sure that your photoshoot is a good experience, from start to finish. And that includes receiving only the very best images from your session.

I thought I’d list 3 very quick reasons why you wouldn’t actually WANT your photographer to send you ALL of your images from your photoshoot.

1. Image Overwhelm

The advent of digital cameras and smartphone cameras means that we are used to having copious amounts of pictures at our disposal – ALL.THE.TIME! And while this is a fabulous thing in some ways it is also terribly overwhelming. A lot of the time we take 10 pictures of the same thing, do a quick scan through them and only select the best one!

During a photoshoot I am what you would call an overshooter. As hard as I try to limit the amount of times I shoot a particular pose, I ALWAYS end up with A LOT more than one picture of said pose. This is to make sure I get the perfect image and because the more excited I get, the quicker I shoot… :p. If you’ve ever taken any kind of picture you will know that more often than not, your subject will blink or turn their head literally as you press the button. So you always take more than one picture – to be safe.

This true for me. The BIG difference though, is that my camera can take a lot more images in quick succession. Because of this, I end up with a lot of images that are almost identical. When you get your final gallery and you have to scroll through hundreds of pictures the task of choosing your favourites just becomes overwhelming because you have too many pictures to choose from. Eliminating duplicates before you get your gallery makes your job of selecting easier. And makes the selection process much less overwhelming.

2. Missed Focus

Not every picture I take is going to have crisp focus. Often when working quickly and especially when working with moving children (or furbabies. 🙂 ) it’s easy for focus to end up missing the right subject. Missed focus ruins a good image! Nobody wants to get an image that looks awesome in a small thumbnail gallery only to be disappointed when it opens and the beautiful face smiling back at you is blurry. As your photographer I only want to share the best images with you and that means I’m not going to send you the blurry images!

3. Unflattering Images

Let’s be honest – NOBODY wants to see bad pictures of themselves. Everyone has bad pictures during a photoshoot – it’s impossible for EVERY picture to be perfect. At some point the wind will blow your hair in your face or you’ll blink or scratch your nose at the wrong time. And who wants to see pictures of themselves looking like they fell asleep on their feet?  hahaha.

We all have insecurities of some sort and are usually overly critical when it comes to pictures of ourselves. So sending you the outtakes (or bloopers) from your shoot would only make you hate your pictures and you’d focus on the bad ones, instead of falling in love with the great ones! Because of this, these are the first images to be deleted after your shoot is done.

As your photographer I’m always going to send you the best images. Sometimes even the duplicates because if I love them so much I’m not going to not share them with you. I generally love your pictures as much as you do and will always, ALWAYS include all the GREAT ones.

I’m including some of the hilarious outtakes from my recent headshots to drive my point home. These are funny to me because they sparked the idea for this blogpost as soon as I saw them…don’t judge me… hahahaha, you’re allowed to laugh at these – that was the intention and really I’m good with laughing at myself every so often!!

But if I was a client, I really wouldn’t want to see all these bad images of myself in my gallery. (I can guarantee you wouldn’t either!!)  And let me just say as you see the last image….I have NO idea what caused that face!

I hope this makes you feel a little better, knowing you can trust me to make sure the gallery you get at the end of your shoot will include all the images that show you at your best!

Please feel free to comment below. I love hearing from my readers and read and reply to all my comments.

Mandy x