Cell phone cameras – they’re practically everywhere. What’s more, they’re quite useful and versatile tools. In the top-end model smart phones of today, you can get a camera that packs the same resolution as a professional’s interchangeable lens body. There are people who make amazing images with nothing but their mobile phone cameras. (Don’t believe me? Check out Kalebra Kelby’s site: www.kalebra.com) Plus, your shots are ready to be shared on IG, Facebook, and Snapchat right away. You even get crazy filters in those apps to “improve” your images. With all these resources, who needs a professional – right?
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I hear it all the time, in its many forms:
I mean, you can get the same kinds of images out of your cell phone. They even have “portrait modes” that mimic the bokeh professionals get with their images (you can even *control* the depth of it!). Not to mention all the filters and resources you have to edit your images to make them look “better” or “professional”.
Then there’s the classic idea that taking a great image, “it’s just easy with digital – anyone can do it.”
Or, my personal favorite, “I could take pictures like that too, if I had a fancy expensive camera like that.”
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Every time I hear one of those phrases, or one of their cousins, my soul squirms. My heart goes out to the people who will have their events, birthdays, and family portraits documented by someone who doesn’t value the work of a photographer. After all, it makes sense on the surface. I get it. Why pay someone all that money to just snap some images that you could get with a cell phone, or your hobbyist friend/family member could do with their camera? Can’t they do what a professional does, but for free?
The short answer is, no. No, they can’t.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “But Ben – didn’t you just say that there are amazing cell phone photographers out there?” To which I reply, yes there are. There are also a lot of amazing hobbyists out there too – a lot of them are better than some working professionals. What you don’t see is the many, many, many hours of work and experimentation and (most of all) failure that went into developing the skills that make up the many, many images that wow you.
So that brings me to the whole point of this essay. Why hire a professional? I’ll give you 8 reasons that are on top of the excellent service, passion, and energy that a professional brings to a shoot.
1. Gear matters (sometimes), but what matters more is knowing how to use it.
“Wait, wait, wait! Didn’t you just say that gear wasn’t important?” I hear you cry. Well, by and large that’s not true – until it is. Hiring a high-quality professional photographer (one who has a reputation for excellence and honesty) guarantees that you get someone with the right equipment to do a great job AND the knowledge to use it properly. You’re not gambling that someone will show up with the wrong lenses, the wrong camera, or missing things like tripods and flashes when they will be necessary. You also don’t risk the (possibly) worse situation, a person with the right gear but no clue how to use it to its greatest effect (or sometimes even at all).
Professionals practice with their equipment until they can operate it without looking at it. Fluidly. Quickly. They don’t take 2 minutes to set up and check their light meter a dozen times while they fumble with settings on their camera body – and as a result they don’t miss as many shots. They’re always ready to shoot, they’re always ready to capture that split-second expression. You wouldn’t walk into the OR of your hospital to operate on someone – even if you were an expert butcher or chef. Nor would you walk into a renowned painter’s studio and insist you were just as good as they are simply after completing a single art course. So why would you insist that someone without experience should be your primary photographer?
Maybe you think I’m full of it. Okay – then let me show you a photo.
A Christmas tree - rotating.
How did I do that? I knew what I wanted – I wanted the presents sharp, the tree (which was rotating) to show its motion blur. Within seconds I had my tripod out, my camera mounted, my aperture and shutter speed set, my ISO selected, and my white balance and focal length ready to go. I knew what it would take to get my image and I executed. I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t take any more time than was physically required. As I recall, I had my set up done, and this image captured, in under 90 seconds. 30 seconds of which, was just capturing the exposure and another 30 waiting for the camera to finish processing.
A novice simply can’t do that. They don’t have the experience needed to make the rapid judgements necessary to make their adjustments before they set up their shot. They react, rather than plan. In a situation like this, that isn’t an issue. But when you’re photographing a wedding, or animals, or people – that’s how you miss moments.
2. They’ve developed an eye for composition.
What is composition? It’s the combination of visual elements to produce a pleasing result.
That’s the academic definition. Practically speaking, it’s knowing at an instinctual level what makes an image easy to understand and pleasing to the eye. It’s knowing how to use the environment and light that is reaching the subject to really emphasize the subject, and free the viewer from distractions. After all – if you want photos of your wedding day, do you want a picture where you are the focus, or where the tree off to your left is more interesting than you?
I know what I’d want.
In photography – composition is king. Composition is *everything*. Technically perfect images (what most everyone can get from their cell phone, or from a fancy camera on full auto) that are sharp, and adequately exposed, still leave you feeling nothing without a good composition.
Don’t believe me? Fine, here’s some proof.
An old image - before I really focused on honing my craft.
Here’s an old picture of mine – I saw this interesting beat up mile marker on a walking path. I lined up my frame, I put my subject in the center, I focused and squeezed the shutter release.
*click*
That’s what came out. It’s okay. It’s sharp. It’s properly exposed. The white balance is a little off, but it’s not too bad.
It’s also *BORING*. Why? Because there is ZERO composition here. It was a snapshot.
Now, let’s look at something I took time to compose.
Leading lines, balanced visual elements, framing, color, juxtaposition of texture - all add up to create a pleasing and interesting composition.
This image I took a couple years later. I had developed a sense of composition. It isn’t technically perfect, but it’s still interesting. The line of the brick path leads you to the subject of the tree. Even though the tree is in the center of the frame, it’s only about 1/3 of the frame which puts it into context. The line between the tops of the trees and the sky, and the line between the grass and path create a frame that encloses the flowering tree. That flowering tree contrasts with the other trees – as they’re still bare. It also makes you ask more questions – where does that path go? What kind of tree is that? Where was that taken?
You see my point. A fellow photographer tells his students, “of all the things you control in photography, the five most important are composition.” He’s dead right.
Professionals have shot enough to have developed an eye for composition. We don’t need to think about it on a conscious level. We can stay in the moment and naturally create images that are of strong compositions.
3. They’ve developed skills to shoot in tricky situations.
Quick, what do you need to do to shoot an image at dawn? What about mid-day? Twilight? Night time? By candle light? Have you had an image ruined because your hand simply couldn’t hold the camera steady enough?
I know. My fellow professionals know. We know instinctively how to get the image under tricky lighting – we know what ISO we need. How changing the ISO will affect our apertures and shutter speeds. What shutter speeds we need to still shoot hand held instead of on a tripod. We can get that photo you so desperately want, but think is likely impossible – and we have the gear to pull it off.
4. They are sensitive to the many ephemeral qualities of light.
Do you know the difference between hard light vs. soft light? What about warm vs. cold? Directional vs. diffuse? Or is this all on the same level as a Star Trek technobabble?
Photographers have spent years, and I’m not kidding about that – years developing a sense for the various qualities of light. A strong photographer can walk into a situation and tell you if the light is hard or soft, warm or cold, directional or diffuse almost immediately. You might think that isn’t important – but it is. Harsh contrasts of light and shadow on the face can really make you look unflattering. A professional can adapt their technique, your position, and posing so that you’re in the best available light. Even if that requires *adding* or *removing* light during the shoot.
Don’t believe me? Fine.
Unflattering, out of focus, a typical cell phone snap.
Here’s a photo I took with strong overhead directional light. Notice the harsh shadows on my eyes and nose that make me look even more tired than I am? Not terribly flattering.
Even though this image possesses rudimentary compositional elements, It’s just not that good.
This image is more pleasing, because I used softer lighting to break the harsh shadows on my face.
Here’s an image I grabbed in softer more forward-facing light and overhead light. Classic for portraits. You can see my eyes clearly, my face doesn’t look so deeply grooved and wrinkled – and yes, I’d lost weight between the two.
Still, there are improvements that can be made. The ovehead lighting has caused the frame of my glasses to appear on my cheeks. Overall my face lacks dimension because the light is actually too soft. I also could’ve done with fixing my hair.
A side-lit self portrait. Classic lighting for men to bring out the ruggedness in the face. Shadows are present but soft edged - which creates a pleasing appearance, and light is just hitting the right spots on my face to clearly define my cheeks, mouth, eyes, lips and brow line. I learned from this image to never attempt to grow a beard again…
This is a self portrait that I took using soft, but still intense, directional side lighting. I knew just how to place my face to get the shadows and highlights I was interested in.
I can size up the light in a situation – and I know how to best use it to make the images that I (or you) want. How to make it flatter instead of showing every flaw. I’ve only been able to do that because of my extensive practice.
5. They know how to properly edit an image.
We’ve all seen it. The horrific Photoshop jobs. The brides with blue dresses. The people who look dead. Or the image that would be just *perfect* if only that random dude hadn’t walked into the shot and photo-bombed you.
A professional can handle all those things – or knows someone who can fix most of these things without it looking like it was done in Photoshop. What’s more – they often can give you some images that are styled in a way that is custom tailored to you and your tastes. (For more information on that, stay tuned for my how-to guide on Choosing the Right Photographer for You.) They know how to take away blemishes and scrapes and scuffs, they know how to get out the stain from the coffee you spilled that morning, or the mustard from your sandwich at lunch. They can take away the winter chill on your skin and give you a sun-kissed glow.
6. They also know where to stop with editing.
Much more common in today’s phone images – a professional knows just how far to push the image to keep it looking natural. They know where to stop brightening and sharpening eyes, they know just how much blur to put into the skin texture so that you don’t look like a plastic doll, but also so that you appear just a little more youthful. They know just how much contrast, saturation, and color you can handle to have a pleasing image that also has punch without looking faked or “Photoshopped”. I don’t know how many photos I’ve seen of people (always selfies) that are so over processed and over filtered that it’s arguable that the person still looks human let alone good.
How do they know where to stop? Practice. They have honed that sense through editing and correcting thousands of images over the years. Henri Cartier-Bresson is credited with saying, “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” That’s because those are the images that you use to develop your sense of composition, your feeling for editing. It’s like becoming an award wining violinist. You develop a sixth sense for when things are pushed too far, or just how to get what you (or more importantly your client) want.
7. They make images that capture more than just a moment in time – they can communicate emotion.
“Wait – emotion?” I hear you ask. Absolutely. A professional knows not just how to light, pose, and compose a great image. They know how to combine those things to give an emotional response to the viewer. Think of all the greatest images you’ve ever seen. Every. Single. One.
I bet you that all of them made you go “wow!” or audibly gasp or pause for just a moment as you were scrolling through your feed. Maybe they sparked love, or longing, or sadness, or loneliness, or hope, or anger, or fear, or they just made you get awe-struck by how cool they were.
Don’t buy it? Fine – here’s a photo for you that I took to convey a feeling.
A bride and groom sharing a kiss. Look at the hand on his chest, the closeness of the embrace. There is love and happiness and desire all wrapped up in one image.
Look at those two. Look at her hand on his chest. The feeling of love and longing. The sense of us viewing a very private moment, given to us by the composition and the isolation from the depth of field. Look at the security communicated by the posture of the groom, and the desire communicated by the posture of his bride. There’s a lot of emotion there, and almost none of it is focused on the kiss.
8. They know when to depress the shutter.
They know when the decisive moment to release that shutter is going to happen. This is something that can only be done with practice. You have to anticipate the moment and then time things just right. Even with the ability to capture images in bursts up to 12 frames in a second – you still need to know just when to start capturing that burst so that your camera can keep up and you don’t miss the shot you want.
I use this in wildlife photography all the time. Knowing just when to begin my burst ensures that I get that “wow!” shot instead of one that’s just “meh”. Like this photo of a squirrel chasing off a mourning dove.
Squirrel - telling a dove to get on out of it’s territory.
I can only do that because I’ve practiced. I know my gear, I know my elements of composition, I can work fluidly and quickly. I’ve spent years developing and honing those skills. I wasn’t caught up in the moment - fascinated by what I saw - which let me capture the moment.
So long story really, really long. If you want great images, if you want memories that you will look back on for decades and be able to recall the emotion, if you want works of art. You need a professional photographer with good experience and reputation (or at least a suitably experienced and willing hobbyist). You need someone who’s dedicated time and emotional energy into creating great images.
Otherwise, you’re rolling the dice – and you might roll a natural failure (with no saving throw) …
Any tabletop gamer will tell you, it’s never good to see a roll of 1 on a d20…