Why Hire a Professional?

So I don't share my before and after very often. But if you have ever asked yourself why you should hire a professional vs. a friend, family, or even yourself because they/you have a nice camera? Or why bother because, you can drive up the street to a place where you can have your prints in an hour? This image, is the perfect example why.

 I got to go to the park, with these three sweet girls, who are best friends, and take pictures with them a couple weeks ago. The only problem? The Mom's of the girls, couldn't meet, until just barely before sunset. Unfortunately, my flash was not giving me the look I needed, so I took a risk and just changed my settings to shoot in lower light. It's a risky move, because it can decrease the image quality, even if you are shooting in RAW. But I figured it was better to be too dark then too light. Most of the images, turned out pretty good, but by the end of the shoot it was just too dark. The result, I ended up getting more grain in the images, as I had to keep adjusting my settings. To add to the light issue, this picture was a struggle, because the bubbles just weren't working. So what are the results?? Well, your average person, would look at these images and just say, "Oh well, maybe next time." Why? Odds are, they don't shoot in RAW and they don't have non-destructive editing software.  So, they have no way to do anything with it. You see, every change made to an image after it is taken, decreases the quality of the image and causes what we call noise. If you look really close at a photograph, you should be able to see tiny little dots that make up the image, this is the grain. As the noise increases, the grain becomes more readily visible.  So the more you do, the worse it gets.  So trying to change this underexposed image as a jpeg, or say in iPhoto, it would literally destroy the image.

Fortunately for this image, I was shooting in RAW and have top of the line, non-destructive editing software.  So I am able to take an image, that would normally not make the cut, and I can make it into something beautiful and playful. Is there still some noise? Absolutely, but that is the advantage of hiring a professional photographer. I took what noise was left and made it look intentional. I made it part of the artwork. Then I took some bubble overlays and playfully added them in, to give the effect that the mom's of these girls were looking for.

So what does this all mean? It means, that when you pay for a professional you aren't just paying for images snapped on a camera. You are paying for hours of time after the picture and  time spent before making sure we have the best equipment, software, and knowledge available, to ensure you get the best image possible.

So should you hire a professional? Look at the before and after, and you decide ;)