What should I do when I receive photos from my photographer? A Photographer's Advice For Clients
If you’re like me, you want to share the photos taken by your photographer immediately after receiving them. Like on all the platforms. Am I right?!?
I’m a photographer so of course there are a few things I would LOVE for you to do immediately after receiving your gallery from me. I desire for each and every client to have the most incredible experience possible. Once I deliver the photos though, it’s in their hands. That’s why I wanted to give you some helpful hints on what to do with your photos once you receive them from your photographer. Once they are delivered to you, it’s on you to preserve them and it’s my job to ensure you have the best experience possible.
Are you ready? Let’s go!
Back ‘em Up (and then back them up again)
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that you dropped a decent amount of money on your photo session. It’s even likely that on top of the session fee, you also paid for the digital files or prints. So, let’s face it, the last thing anyone wants is for those precious (and expensive) memories to be lost forever. To my clients, not to worry, I keep your session or wedding on my gallery deliver site for a year before archiving it. However, after that it’s up to them to safely store and protect them. I can’t stress this enough, please back up your photos on your hard drive and then back them up on an external drive after that and then store it in a cool dry place. I have had a few scares over the years with technology and trust me, these photos are too precious to leave in technology’s fickle hands.
You’ve got to print it, print it!
Look I get it. We live in a digital age. It’s so easy to let our precious memories live on our digital devices. But one of the best things about photography is that it is meant to be printed, displayed and shared for years to come. Printing your photos is probably the easiest ways to preserve them. Some of my fondest memories are those spent sitting in my living room sifting through old photographs of myself and loved ones from decades past. I promise you will not be sorry if you get your photos printed! And here’s a bonus tip, if you are looking for a great place to have them printed, Artifact Uprising is my fave and also the company I used to print the photos you see pictured below!
Reach out to your photographer
When you receive your gallery from your photographer take a few minutes to send them an email or text message letting them know what you think! Ok, I get it, often when you receive your photos, you’re so excited and busy sharing them with your family and friends that it just slips your mind! But friends, us photographers get anxious when we send out galleries. We put our everything into creating our art specifically for you and we want you to love your photos as much, if not, more than we do! When you don’t respond, we think you don’t like our work even if you do! Sending an email letting them know how much you love your photos makes every photographer’s day, believe me.
Write a Review
Ok, ok, you don’t HAVE to, but boy would we love if you did! We would really love it if you asked us which platform we would most love to see a review on. In addition to boosting our SEO, reviews help to validate and grow our business. Receiving feedback from my clients is my favorite, and I don’t mean in the “I love the photos” comments kind of way, I mean in the nitty gritty way. Hearing about their overall experience from how they found me, to the emails that we exchanged, to the photo session, and communication after their gallery was delivered, and how they felt through the whole process makes my heart burst with gratitude. I want to give each of my clients the best experience possible and when you leave a detailed review it helps me know what I did well and how I can improve in the future. So friends, please review your photographers, they will be so thankful to you if you do!
BONUS POINTS: If you leave your photographer a review anywhere online, let them know!
We would love to be able to respond to your review with a thank you! Plus, there’s nothing more frustrating than finding out several months after the fact that someone had a great enough experience to tell the world about!
Okay friend, that’s all I have for you today. I hope that you have found this information useful! And just to review, download, back up, back up your back up and print your photos to insure you keep those precious memories safe and sacred for a lifetime!