Considering Style When Choosing a Photographer

(Day 13/30 of the 30 day blog challenge. Read more about it here!)

There’s a lot of elements you need to consider when choosing the right photographer for you.  I’ve discussed value and cost recently, but another crucial factor is style.  Style covers a lot of ground; how the photographer does business, how he or she interacts with clients during the session, how the photographer poses (or refuses to pose) his or her clients, and how he or she stylizes the resulting photos in Photoshop.

That’s a lot of ground to cover, so I thought I’d look at the Photoshop aspect by taking on a fun project– to show you how crucial it is to choose a photographer that has a style that will best convey your vision for your wedding day or for your portrait session.

To do this, I contacted Jillian, part of the husband and wife duo behind wedding photographer Jillian McGrath Photography, located in Pennsylvania, and asked if she’d be interested in participating in a sort of experiment.  I proposed that we would pick one of the other photographer’s portrait sessions and edit a few of the photos in our own style.  Then, we’d share the photographer’s original edit in order to show how much of an impact style makes.

I picked Jillian specifically because her style is vastly different from my own (although I love it all the same!)  Jillian loves the look of film and processes her images to look as if she had shot the entire session with a 35 mm camera.  This gives her work a moodier feel that I’m sure speaks to clients who love all things vintage.  I, however, prefer to edit my photos to look clean, crisp, and bright.  My work is more modern.

As a client, you will probably gravitate toward a certain style of photography.  Figure out what style speaks to you before considering cost and value so that you can be sure that your photos feel like a true representation of you and/or your wedding day.

Thanks, Jillian, for participating in this experiment with me! :)  I’ll post the session of mine that she edited on this blog post and on my fan page once it is up.

ALL PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE ARE BY Jillian McGrath.  Photos that are edited by me are clearly marked as such.