Nicholas Dawkes Photography

So back in the not so golden days of film cameras. A portrait session would generally consist of 36 or 72 photos (that’s one or two films) and after your session, a week or so later (depending on the development speed of the photographer) they would send you some lovely glossy contact sheets that would consist of all of your frames, often with ones marked that they like.

This wasn’t such a bad thing.

Having something solid in your hands meant you could sit and lay them out and mark the ones you liked, making your selection process easier but with the downside that each shot was often no bigger than a matchbox.

Nowadays, with the digital revolution official taking over, you will find yourself with digital galleries, great for sharing with people, sending to your agent and posting on facebook for peoples opinions, but can often lead to what I like to call photo-flooding.

The idea of a photo session with 700-1000 photos taken may sound appealing, but in reality, no photographer should take that many photos. If nothing else, they will be buying a new camera every year when the shutter wears out, but also no model or client can sit for that long, a photographer should be able to capture something within the first frame, or at least the second. I was guilty of photo-flooding myself when I started with digital, but you soon realise a client can’t cope with a gallery of 500 photos online, and this leads me to one of the biggest drawbacks of internet galleries.

If your Internet speed is slow and you are trying to load lots of pictures, you will end up despising looking at photos of yourself!

But what are the alternatives? Some photographers still print contact sheets from digital sessions, it’s very easy to do, but unless they are printing on a high end photo printer, the quality is no where near as good as the old contact sheets and the cost can add up. Some photographers give you a digital gallery on cd, this you can normally go away with at the end of he session, but depending on what file format they are shooting on, they may need processing into jpegs which can take time.

Bear in mind all these things when booking in for a session with a photographer, the front end of the session may seem attractive, but bear in mind the back end of the shoot that you will have to cope with afterward.

When you book in with Nicholas Dawkes Photography, you will be given access to your own client area, where you can view photos in either contact sheet thumbnail grid, or large size individual, also, with the added function of being able to mark favourites as you go through, making it easier to go back, but also cross reference with your agent to find the ones you are both happy with.

I’m always keen to see know peoples opinions on these matters, so why not leave a comment and tell us what your post session viewing preference is?