Heather Essian Portrait Arts | blog

photographers {q & a}

hi friends! okay, well i wanted to take the time to answer some questions that i’ve received from other photographers. so here it goes…i by no means have all the answers or necessarily even the right answers. all i can do is answer them in a way that has applied to me, everyone is different, so i would encourage you to find out what works for you!

1. how did you get into photography, and how many years have you been shooting?

i’ve been shooting now for almost 10 years. i started out by taking some photography classes in college (pre- digital photography) and proceeded to assist and work for any photographer who would have me. i worked with wedding, commercial, portrait, and fashion photographers. thank you to those who allowed me to stumble my way through helping you! i would still drag the bags of some of my favorite photographers just to get a glimpse at the way they approach things.

2. what ps actions do you use?

i use 90% of my own actions, and the other 10% is made up of totally rad actions- oh snap! and a kubota- warm bw action. i greatly enjoy building my own actions from nothing ( for ex: i don’t use purchased actions to build my actions) and find it to be crucial in bringing my vision for an image to completion. but i do feel like purchased actions serve our community well, and at times can really take imagery to the next level. the only thing i think we should be careful of is not relying on our actions to make a good image.

i have some other thoughts about actions, so maybe i’ll share them in the next photographers post.

3. what equipment do you use?

i’m all canon baby! i shoot with the 5d and use many different canon L series lenses. i have the most wonderful think tank gear bag that is designed specifically for traveling, and fits perfectly in the overhead bins of airplanes. love love love this bag!

4. how many years have you been in business?

we are in our 4th year! so excited about that, and i can’t believe it’s gone by so quickly.

5. do you sell your high res files to your clients?

hang onto your seat folks, i have some strong feelings about high res files or “digital negatives” . we do sell them to our wedding clients because we think people like to have them for archival purposes. however, we don’t offer them to portrait clients. i’m not saying that we wouldn’t consider it but it would have to be super special circumstances.

here are my thoughts on why we don’t offer the disc:

i came from the film days when many people didn’t give away their negatives, it just wasn’t a common thing to do in the photography business.  i had the opportunity to learn the business side of print fulfillment, and i got to experience first hand actually working with clients and building relationships with them. so much of this experience drives the way i feel about giving a disc to clients. i’m blessed to have clients who trust me, and trust my vision for the session from start to finish. they want my help in choosing enlargements and what we call “story walls” or a series of images. it’s more then them wanting to print the photos for themselves. they want to purchase artwork of their loved ones for their walls, and we just so happen to specialize in this. i’ve also worked in a professional printing lab (shout out to cbc!) where i learned color and density correcting in depth, so i apply this knowledge to my editing of images.  for me, to hand the disc off would feel like i would be ignoring all that i’ve worked so hard to learn. and i enjoy editing and working with my clients just as much as i love to photograph them! so i would be sad to send the disc away with them .  and it kind of makes me squirm at the thought of professional photos being printed at wal-mart. not that there is anything wrong with wal-mart, but it is not a pro lab, and the colors could come back wonky and then heather essian portrait arts might appear to be a wonky photography biz.  we definitely lose potential clients from time to time for not selling the disc, but we realize that we can’t be all things to all people and we had to make business policies for our sanity. in all honesty we are so blessed to have loyal clients who don’t question this, and these clients are very supportive of our decision.

*muah* to our amazing clients!!

my last and final thought; and i promise to step off the soap box after this is: for me photographer=print fulfiller, i can’t do one without the other. i enjoy the entire process way too much. we own a photography business to make a profit and we don’t profit from our session fees alone, we’ve got expensive equipment and studio space to pay for each month which means we would be out of business at this point if we gave away the disc. yipes.

with all of that said, i do think that there is a place and a market for photographers who sell the disc, i just feel that they need to charge appropriately for the disc for their own benefit. we put long hours into our jobs working hard which takes us away from our spouses and children.  therefore,  hopefully we make more then minimum wage for doing so.

*if you’re not sure of what to charge for the disc or prints you can check out easy as pie pricing strategy for photographers. this will be some of the best money you could spend on your business. don’t be afraid to invest in your business.

6. do you have any employees?

i do not, i’m actually my husband’s employee. no, i kid, i kid. but he works with me full time running the business while i focus on the creative stuff! i’m so thankful to have him and don’t know what i would do without him. he really is the pulse of our business.  if done legally, employees for small businesses can be extremely costly (another reason to charge appropriately for your services) because employee tax is quite high. and hopefully you want to run an ethical business.

7. do you have a studio space? and do you think it’s necessary for a photography business?

we do have a studio space right on magnolia street in the near southside of fort worth. i don’t think it is necessary to have a studio space as a photographer. as photographers we are so lucky to have a business that can be run out of our home with minimal overhead. i say we keep it that way as long as we can. the goal in any business should be to try and keep overhead as low as possible (per my husbands advice). i think it really depends on the business. jim and i prayed long hours about our studio space and felt lead to move forward with it.  personally for us, we would not have moved forward without a complete peace because it was quite scary. the studio space has been such a blessing for us, and i still get giggly when i walk in the door! i just want to scoop up all my girly damask fabric and furniture and kiss it!

8. do you have workshops for photographers?

i about fell over when i read this email. what? me have a workshop? this is something i would love to do one day in the future.  however, i’m not quite sure i have the following to do so, but whatever God has in store for us, i’m game!

**if you have a question please send it over- better yet, add your question to the comments section of this post. i want to get to know you all better! i’m happy to help if i can. please don’t be alarmed if it takes a few days for me to get back to you, it will probably mean i’m deep in editing or design work.**

and just for fun, considering i’ve still not shared many europe photos from over a year ago…here is a favorite of mine.

Cinque Terre, Italy

*this was the real light folks! not much ps work done at all on this image. yes, i would like to move to italy. i guess i’ll settle for photographing weddings there instead any italy brides out there…call me.