GOOD vs BAD Photographers
hey what's up guys welcome back to my
channel so in this video I want to break down the differences between a
professional photographer versus an amateur photographer especially for
those who are interested in fashion portraits so if your model and you're
looking to book a photographer but you don't want to spend so much money
wasting your time and all that with someone who's not as good how do you
know the difference how do you know who's a really good photographer and
who's gonna deliver versus someone who's not gonna deliver and just waste your
time take your money and then you end up with images that you're not so happy
with so let's break it down guys so in this video I want to tell you guys how
to spot someone who's professional and who you should work with versus someone
who you shouldn't work with alright guys so one of the key differences to a
professional photographer versus an amateur photographer is that a
professional photographer what most of the time always have a website now a
website is really their main platform this is where they host a lot of their
work and if you're really a professional a professional should have a website
with their contact details with their portfolio and all of that versus an
amateur most amateurs photographers would claim oh we'll just look at my
work on Instagram oh I don't need a website I have Instagram just check that
out but if you're really a professional photographer booking real clients real
clients are not gonna look at your Instagram accounts I mean they might but
they also need to see a website is something polished they want to see what
publications you've been in they want to see if you have media behind you if
you're represented etc so most of this information will be found on the website
so that's one way to distinguish it is that a professional photographer most of
the time always has a website an amateur photographer has excuses and other
websites another way to spot a professional photographer versus an
amateur is that a professional photographer would never ever list their
rates so you're not gonna find their rates on their Instagram accounts you're
not gonna find their rates on their web they're gonna actually to contact them
because they need a creative brief they need to know what exactly you're trying
to shoot and they'll get back to you with the quotes now an amateur
photographer would post their rates on Instagram I've seen amateur
photographers supposed to rate saying hey I'm doing a two-for-one special
right now I'm doing like a special Thanksgiving promotion for my
photography I'm shooting two headshots for 150 stuff like that that's something
that should raise a question mark when you're looking at photographers to use
for your shoots another way to distinguish a professional photographer
versus an amateur is their use of light in so professional photographers would
always use flash equipments and even if they're shooting outdoors they still use
flash equipment sometimes or if they don't use flash though use a balance
board or stuff like that so amateur photographers they just tend to shoot
with nothing but just the camera and a lot of times they claim well I like to
shoot at natural lights I just want to shoot a natural light natural light
works best for me or they go to a studio set up and they don't have any flash
equipment or they don't know how to use the flash equipment and that's because
there's a lot of training that goes into lighting techniques and learning how to
use the flash properly and how to like get the right tone and shadows and all
of that so there's a lot of like training intense training that
photographers has to go through to learn how to really optimize those things so
amateur photographers are gonna stay away from flash as much as possible
professional photographers will welcome flash photography as much as possible
another thing is that a professional photographer would have a set of prime
lenses and what I mean by prime lenses prime lenses are like your 24
millimeters you're 50 you're 85 etc and most of the time you wouldn't see a lot
of professional photographers using zoom lenses I mean they might depending on
the situation but they prefer to use prime lenses because the quality that
you get out of prime lenses are just so much better amateur photographers only
have one lens for the most parts and that's the lens that came with
camera the manufacturer lens they use this for everything whereas professional
photographers when you go on a shoot with them you see them walking around
with several lenses maybe they have like a bag that where they hold saw your
lenses and they're changing their lenses constantly during the shoots because
they're trying to get different angles different perspectives different depth
of fields etc now when it comes to retouching professional photographers
either retouch the pictures themselves or they send it to a professional
retoucher or retouch warehouse to retouch the pictures for them with some
instructions and create brief and all that amateur photographers do all the
retouching themselves always the key difference is that professional
photographers would use professional software like Photoshop Lightroom
retouch Academy whatnots amateur photographers like to use apps
that you find on your mobile devices okay another dead giveaway is that
professional photographers always shoot Camera Raw now Camera Raw this is really
the image in the highest quality without any compression without any
interpretation from the from the camera because when you shoot JPEGs what
happens is that the camera shoots raw or your camera interprets the colors and
the shadow and the light and all that and really compresses all of that
information and gives you a JPEG but when you shoot RAW you're getting
everything as is and then it gives you the flexibility and creative freedom to
adjust the exposure adjust the color temperature and all of that so so always
actually a photographer is like hey or you shoot it raw or you shouldn't JPEG
if they're shooting JPEG then that's a dead giveaway that's a red flag you
should not work with this person another dead giveaway is that professional
photographers always always will shoot in manual mode while amateur
photographers would shoot in Auto so a professional photographer would
always love to work with a team they prefer to have a stylist on the shoot
they like to have a makeup and a hair stylist as well and also a photographer
assistants well an amateur photographer and amateur photographer will prefer to
work alone they don't really suggest you having
other people on the set because one maybe they don't know what they're doing
or they're not so confident and they don't want other people to see their
process if you guys like this video I always appreciate thumbs up if you have
questions feel free to hit me in the comment box down below, I always appreciate
it you guys I'll see you guys my next one
