How Prepare Yourself Before Photoshoot

How Prepare Yourself Before Photoshoot

Prior to becoming a professional photographer, I never participated neither in a personal or family photo session, although I had always dreamed about it.

Often, when we think about hiring a professional photographer, some typical concerns and believes come to mind:

  1. Cost. A professional photo shoot must be expensive, and we do not always have a budget for it.
  2. Appearance. We often see flaws in ourselves and we are not sure how the photographer will deal with them. Also, we worry that we would not like our photos and the money would be wasted.
  3. Social anxiety. Many people feel nervous in most situations that involve interacting with or performing in front of other people. It means that you cannot relax and be yourself in front of the professional photographer.
  4. Signs of aging. After a while, fears of seeing age-related changes in appearance scary us, especially, after we have been taking selfie photos on our phone cameras for a while. As we know phone cameras and software improve our appearance in photos significantly.

Don’t stress. I am going to walk you through how to get ready for a professional photo-shoot. If you are unsure of how to prepare for your personal or family photo shoot the following tips will help you to get the most out of your photography experience.

  1. You will not regret about spent money if you will compete prep work with the photographer before the day of the shoot.
    • First of all, determine the purpose of the photo shoot. See my previous post for helping tips.
    • Ask as many questions as possible about the cost, location, style, and experience of the photographer.
    • If time permits, try to meet with the photographer and clearly describe your expectations. So, you can understand if the photographer has a good personality, good manners and is on the same wavelength as you.
  2. It is to note that nowadays all photos are being processed by the special software. These software can help to improve your appearance in photos. Check with your photographer if they have right skills for that. Also, good posture/ posing and lighting will help to get perfect photos of you.
  3. Based on my experience with clients, I can say that stressfulness/nervousness will go away after 30 minutes of the session and then people begin to be themselves and enjoy the photo shoot. If the photo session is scheduled for more than 2 hours, a mandatory break shall be given to clients every 1 hour.
  4. Note, that the phone camera and software create unrealistic photos of you or surroundings. Other photos may look different if they captured by different devices or professional photo cameras. A professional photography equipment has much more abilities to capture all details. For example, it can pick up every single wrinkle on your face. These details, captured on the professional camera, provide photographer much more room for the post-processing. They can apply special software to get outstanding results from the photo session that you will treasure for a lifetime.

In conclusion, I would like to say if you want new experiences, look for your photographer, then your expectations and dreams will come true. Every expectation is unrealistic until it is made a spectacular reality through inspiration.