What do you do with ALL those photos??

I thought I'd use this blog post to address a question I've been asked more than once this week alone! "Can I get the unedited photos too?"

There are a couple things that need to be said before I answer, so that you have a full understanding of why I'm answering the way I am.  First, when I take a photo I'm not overly worried about the composition of the photo. Did a foot get in the picture when it shouldn't have? Not a big deal, if everything else is perfect, I'll just touch it up and clone it out.  I can change the crop in the editing stage as well, so that a photo with a lot of blank space or background becomes a much nicer portrait.

Second, I take a LOT of photos in a session. A one hour session typically has me shooting between 150 and 300 photos. Generally, the client will get between 35 and 50 photos, edited. The reason is, about 60-75% of the photos I take are almost identical. A tiny adjustment here, slight pan out there... Oh you blinked in this one... I shoot so many, because I want to be able to choose the absolute best photos I can for you. I want them to be perfect. But rest assured you will be receiving at least one of every pose we do - I dont' hold out on you!

So, when someone asks me if they can have the unedited photos, I'm wary about saying yes. Not because I'm hiding anything - trust me, you were there, you saw the pictures I was taking! It's because I want to preserve the perfection of the shoot - I don't want you to know about the blinks or the blurs or the overexposed. I want you to take your photos and just love them as they are! I want you to look at the edited photos and say "these are perfect", not see the mass of unedited ones as well and wonder what I was thinking!

So thats not to say you can't ask me - I understand that you want as many photos as you can! But trust me when I say i'm giving you the best of the shoot - if there's a picture in particular you think is missing, please tell me. There may be a good reason, but more often than not I can edit the photo and send it off to you!