Photography Business Tips: 4 Things to Do Before A Photo Shoot

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Article: description: Not every photo shoot is alike, but there are a few standard tips you can rely on to prepare for your next photo shoot. Check them out in this quick photography business guide!
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Photo by andresr via iStock

A photo shoot is at the heart of many genres of professional photography businesses. Planning a photo shoot is vital in order to create the best images of our subjects, whether these subjects are buildings, products, or people. 

Otherwise, we’re simply gathering snapshots together, not creating a well-crafted image. Even though we have the skills to make those snapshots much better than when we first got interested in photography, the images will all come out better when we do these simple things in preparation for our photo shoot.

Table of Contents:

What Kind of Photo Shoot Is It?

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What kind of photo shoot are we talking about? We’re going to make portrait photography the primary topic for today. Other types of photo shoots need things done ahead of time as well, so you may want to check out a few of our articles on Photography Talk if your primary niche is real estate, product photography, or events of some kind.

Within the genre of portrait photography, there are several separations of exactly what type of photo shoot we’re doing. Some categories are formal portraits, headshots, glossies, environmental portraiture, family portraits, bridal portraits, outdoor portraits, group portraits, and the list goes on.

Many of the ideas from one form of portraiture transfer over seamlessly to other forms, but other types may have more involved lighting configurations, posing variations, or a need for props or backgrounds. 

Discuss Client Ideas and Expectations

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This leads to our first thing to do when planning a photo shoot, get everyone on the same page. That means conversing about the photo shoot and the desired results. 

This is where we present and ask for ideas concerning posing, lighting, location, what style of photography, high-key vs. low-key, formal or more casual, glamorous or contemporary, how many people, and what type of prints will be ordered.

If we offer photography packages, this is the time they choose one. This step will also discuss if any deposits are needed, contracts agreed on, releases signed, and how long the photo shoot will be. You can show them model-released samples of your previous work to see what styles, lighting setups, and poses most please them.

Confirm the Time and Place of the Photo Shoot

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Is the photo shoot at their office? Your studio? A local park? You may have Google Calendar, or iCal set up to give you reminders or another automated program for texts or email reminders. Still, nothing beats a personal text as the photo shoot draws near to remind everyone of the particulars. 

This also serves a purpose for the photographer, it has us look at the agreement and the previously discussed ideas, so we aren’t going in with not much of a clue of what the photo shoot is supposed to be. It’s good customer service and helps guarantee against no-show cancellations. 

Clean, Charge Up, and Adjust Gear Before the Photo Shoot

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The photo shoot is confirmed. Now it’s time to double-check our camera gear and other photography equipment. The first step points us to what gear we will use or take with us if it’s an on-location photo shoot.

This step involves charging batteries, cleaning lenses, formatting memory cards, and arranging photo bags. A good idea is to make sure our backup gear is also ready to go since that will be needed at a moment's notice if and when it’s necessary.

It is also a good practice to go ahead and set up our cameras to the general settings we’re likely to use during the photo shoot. This keeps us from making large-scale mistakes concerning things like file types and sizes, ISO settings, and the like.

Choose a Reliable, High-Quality Printing Service

In this step, we go right back to the first step, discussing with our clients what type and how many prints they want from the session before the photo shoot. The printing service we use should be reliable and also provide high-quality prints. 

Shiny Prints is a premium printing service for making top-quality metal prints from our finished photo shoot. A metal print of the best image from the photo shoot will look absolutely fantastic as an enlargement. 

Metal prints are the sole product from Shiny Prints, and they do it right. You have options of sizes up to a gigantic four-by-eight-foot print, and they have various surface finishes from which to choose. They make a special metal print suitable for being used outdoors, and they have custom shapes that can be made.

Having some modest-sized metal prints from Shiny Prints, such as 11x14 or 16x20, made from previous photo shoots is a good method for showcasing your work, leading to more sales and, thus, more profit.

Wrap-Up: Things to Do Before a Photo Shoot

Photo by Poike via iStock

You should watch this informative video “How To Survive Your First Portrait Shoot – 4 KEY Tips” from Mitch Lally to see some of these photo shoot tips in action.

Discuss particulars with the subject ahead of time, verify where and when the photo shoot is, set up and check out your camera gear, and have top-quality prints made from the images captured. Those are 4 key steps for having a great portrait photo shoot.

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