In any job, you will have what many think as of as “the purists”. Perfectionists are those who revere the way things have always been done and view new technologies in the field as upstarts and obviously of poorer quality than the tried and proven ways.
This is nowhere more true than photography. For many years the film and chemical processing method has undergone continual refinement to achieve higher and higher levels of sophistication and to find more pure means of quality. Small wonder that when the digital revolution came along, “the purists” were, to say the least, a little cocky about the idea of professional photography going in the right path.
But there are some unique reasons to at least incorporate digital technology into your professional photography business plans. These reasons are compelling enough that more and more we are seeing the big studios going all digital. So if you are running an sole photography business or if you are “just” a photography hobbyist (and thank God for the hobbyists), you may have to think through the advantage of switching to digital processing yourself.
User-Friendly.
The amount of frustration and mere “stuff” of doing a shoot digitally is considerably less involved than using the aged technologies. See how how the digital revolution in photography has revolutionized the personal camera world. Now camera users can take as many pictures as they want and have them to review in the blink of an eye.
Probably the largest leap forward in the use of digital photography is that you can do re-shoots quickly, easily and for virtually no cost. If you take a family portrait with a customer, you can have the “stills” of the session available almost as soon as the session is done. If a shot was good but not perfect, you can correct it and re-shoot immediately saving huge amounts of time and improving the chances you will get the portfolio you want and that the customer wants on the first session.
Good Customer Service.
The first thought we get when a technology delivers so much value to the customers is that quality will go down. But, amazingly, this is not the exact thing with digital photography. If anything, the quality of the photographs is as good or better than any we could do with prior technologies. And the cost both to you as the photographer and to your customer falls off so dramatically that the age old complaint the customer has had about professional photographs costing too much can be made to go away making the customer want to use your services more often.
Digital photography, being a youngster of the internet and the digital revolution that has entered our lives via personal computers, can be delivered in a assortment of ways and at a speed that was unheard of prior to the coming of this technology. We can deliver the photos via email, by posting them to an online gallery or by burning them to a DVD or CD so the consumer can order lots more shots for the same price and have them delivered in a way that easy to view and store.
Photo Enhancing has closely moved from the realm of the lab wizards to something any of us can do due to the sophisticated computer programs, such as PictureIt, that we can use to improve the pictures we take. It is really amazing the effects that can be imposed on a picture with this software. But more importantly we can so much more easily correct color imperfections with a photograph so what might have been a lost session can be improved to become really great with some clever use of camera software editing.
In virtually every way, digital photography, delivery and editing is superior to the way “the purists” would have us hold on to. It makes our lives as photographers easier, faster and more profitable. But mostly, this is something our customers want us to use. They get to enjoy their photos really fast, at a more cheaper price and the pictures can be emailed to colleagues and posted on their family web sites which is fun for everyone. So despite our desire to be “purists”, every reason we need is there to convince us that digital photography is the way to take photographs.
Author:Richard’s Photography Portrait Studios in San Antonio
Providing professional photography in San Antonio for 18 years.