u/AphantasiasMind

Should I do this graduation shoot?

Hi, so I am a pretty low level, mostly event, photographer looking to really expand business in this industry. Recently someone reached out to me asking if I can do a graduation shoot for them during the summer. The thing is I have never done a grad shoot before and it is rare I will even do proper portrait shoots, but I think this could be a good opportunity to expand my genre of portfolio and branch out a bit. I am confident in my skills as a photographer to work with people and create nice general compositions and edits. I am just a bit concerned that I won't have a good idea of what is needed for a shoot like this. I know that most grad portraits use a low aperture lens but I only have my Tamron 18-300mm F3.5. And another factor is that the shoot would take place literally the day after I get back into the country from a long trip on the other side of the world (in which I will be taking my camera gear) and the shoot is a city over from where I would be staying which might make things a little difficult. If I were to accept the gig I know I can just study up a bit on what is generally involved in posing a graduation shoot but I'm worried that I might fail to consider some factors before I accept. In one hand it could be a really great opportunity to expand business (which is my main goal), and in the other I might not be able to guarantee quality for the client. Normally I would just charge pretty low for something I'm a little unfamiliar with but with the travel and extra hassle involved during an already busy time in my life I don't think I would be able to offer much of a discount. If any professional portrait / graduation photographers are able to provide any insight on this then that would much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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u/AphantasiasMind — 8 days ago

Should I explain to the client why the photos look bad?

Hi.
So I am a low-tier event photography that does a lot of work for university society events. I am editing through a shoot that was from a performance showcase type event. The thing is that the venue that they held the showcase in (a random church) had really bad lighting which forced me to bump my ISO wayyyyy up and hope I can fix in post. Well now that it has come to editing and I have applied heavy denoise and fixed exposure, everyone's faces looks so incredibly wrong. It is fine for the most part but if anyone zooms in even the slightest bit they will be able to tell something is off.

My question is, when I deliver the photos should I immediately acknowledge how weird they look and explain why or am I better just waiting to see if they ask about it? I don't want them to secretly think I am simply a bad photographer/editor without me knowing.

Any input is much appreciated

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u/AphantasiasMind — 18 days ago