A wedding photographer plays a very prominent role on the wedding day of a couple. To capture the most precious day of a couple in their lifetime, a professional wedding photographer is highly needed. Your wedding day will be memorable forever if you manage to select the perfect wedding photographer for clicking your wedding photos. If you do not choose the right photographer, your entire effort to make the day memorable will be wasted. Before hiring a wedding photographer, you should know about the photographer and his packages. In our previous article, we have discussed the signs of a good photographer. In this article, we will try to shortlist the questions you should be asking a wedding photographer before hiring.
Before hiring a Professional Wedding Photographer, you need to make sure that he is working professionally and based on that make a questioner for the photographer by including the points you want to ask. Here, I will discuss few questions that you should ask before hiring
The following are the questions you should ask your wedding photographer –
Is the photographer experienced enough? If yes, then since how long has he been working?
The very first question that you should ask a wedding photographer is, if the photographer is experienced or not. Ask him/her, if he/she has done any wedding photography before or not. If he/she has experience, ask him for how long he has been working as a wedding photographer. You should hire a wedding photographer who has at least 1-2 years of experience in wedding photography. So, knowing about the experience of the wedding photographer is very important in the first place.
2. Can the photographer show some of his portfolios as samples?
A professional wedding photographer should have some portfolios or the wedding photos he/she had clicked in the past as samples. Ask the photographer if he/she has some samples to show or not. The sample photographs will help you to find out that is the photographer is ideal for clicking your wedding photographs or not. Ask him to show different types of a sample of different wedding programs. You can even ask him if you can take few of them with you or not, you can take the photos at home and observe the photos by taking your time and then decide if you would hire the photographer or not.
3. How many hours does he/she work?
Working hour is very important in wedding photography. You should definitely ask the photographer how many hours he/she would work in a day. A wedding photographer should work at least 4-5 hours per session. If you require the photographer to work the whole time of your wedding, ask him/her if he/she would do that or not. Or you may require for only 2 or 3 years. Let him/her know about your requirement and ask him/her. There should be a match between both of your requirements. Then you can proceed to hire the photographer.
4. If he offers packages or not?
Nowadays, the professional photographers make packages of their work. If the client wants to hire the photographer, he/she needs to check out the packages first. So, when you want to hire the wedding photographer, ask the photographer if the photographer has packages or not. By seeing the packages, it will become easier to make the decision if you should hire him/her or not. The package may include all the things he/she would provide during and post photography. So, make sure that the photographer you are hiring has some package under his/her photography.
5. How much will he charge for each session?
Another most important question you should ask a photographer before hiring is how much does he/she cost per session. It can also be per hour based. So, ask the wedding photographer about the price. Ask him/her how does he/she set his photography price. Whether he costs per hour basis or session basis. If he has packages, ask him which package costs how much. You can also ask if he/she can reduce the price or the price is fixed. You will be clear about the cost and your requirements by asking the questions to the photographer.
6. How many photos does he/she click?
In a wedding function, a lot of pictures are clicked usually. Sometimes, it goes way beyond the limit. So, setting a number of the photographs should be set by the photographer. So, when you are hiring a professional wedding photographer, ask him/her that how many photographs he/she would click and deliver. It is very important to set a number of the photographs that will be clicked. Sometimes, it depends on the package. Some photographers include this thing in the package and some don’t. Some photographers click photos more than the amount of the photos that he/she is supposed to click and some stick to the package. So, make sure how many photos will be clicked on your wedding day by the wedding photographer.
7. What is the photography style of the photographer?
Different photographers have different styles of their photography. Some photographers like to click portrait wedding photography, some like photojournalism type photography, some like to click detailed photography or some like to click the mixture of all kind of wedding photography. So, when you are hiring the photographer, ask him/her about the style of work and ask him/her show the some of his style of works as samples. Hire the photographer who works in different styles. That will give you a variation on your wedding photographs.
8. Does he/she have any assistant or he/she will click photos alone?
There are a million wedding photographers in the world. Most of the wedding programs, it is difficult to do photography single handle. So, many photographers take 1 or 2 or more assistant with him/her who also works as photographers under him. The assistant photographers click others while the main photographer focuses on the main attraction of the evening which is a couple. So, ask the photographer if he/she has an assistant and will he/she bring the assistant on the wedding day or not.
9. Whether he keeps the copyrights or not?
One important question you should be asking to the photographer before hiring is. If he/she keeps the copyrights of the photos or not. If the photographer does not keep the copyrights of the photographs, the photographs can be used by others without permission. To keep the photos safely and not making it duplicate, keeping the copyright is very important. If someone wants to use the photos, they need to ask for permission first.
10. What is the payment method/How does the photographer take the payment?
After all other investigations, you should ask the payment method of the photographer in the last. Ask him/her that how does he/she take the payment. Does the photographer take cash or check or the payment is taken via bank? Does the photographer take some in advance? Ask these questions to the photographer before hiring for your wedding shoot.
11. What is his backup plan if he is unable to arrive on the wedding day?
In many cases, we have seen that the photographer couldn’t arrive on the wedding day due to sickness, personal issues or other reasons. It will be a disaster if the same thing happens on your wedding too. So, make sure you ask your photographer to double-check his schedule for that day. You can also ask him if he has any backup plan in case an accident happens and he doesn’t comes. Usually, photographers have contacts of other photographers. So, you can ask for a backup photographer’s number from him to avoid any accident on your wedding day!
12. How does he deliver the photos?
You should discuss the delivery way of your photographer before the wedding day. Ask him if he delivers the raw photos or delivers it after photo retouching. Some photographers directly deliver the photos in album without sending the edits first. These things are often mentioned in the package of the photographer. But, if it’s not mentioned anywhere then you should definitely ask it!
Conclusion
When you are done asking all the questions from your questionnaire, match the answers as per your requirement. If it matches at least 80% of your requirement, you should hire a photographer for your wedding shoot. Asking the question will make you find the best wedding photographer.
