What you need to know..............

See if this sounds familiar..............

So, you've decided, you want some professional photographs of your family, maybe just of the kids, individual shots, grandparents, pre birth or pregnancy photos, portfolio images, etc, etc, but the sheer cost of hiring a professional photographer puts you off. Even if you muster up the courage to phone a photographer you are then faced with a number of issues straightaway. Can I see their work before I book? How much does it cost? What's this free sitting fee all about, what's the catch, and so on........

Once you have had your photos taken, you return to see your photos and begin the selection process. You may, if you are lucky, get a few small prints free but then you have the agonising task of selecting a few more because the individual costs of the printed photos are colossal. Worst of all, you are not given all of your photographs, instead the photographer keeps them.

Here's what we do at one2one
Let's get one thing straight, 'there is no such thing as a free lunch'. I cannot offer a free photo session because I will not work for nothing. Instead I work as most professionals do, on an hourly basis, my rate being £75 per hour. Now....I can usually complete a photo shoot in most cases within an hour, capturing over 125+ images, but there is of course no limit to the amount of images that we can capture. I will then upload the images to my PC and ask you to choose which images you like, after all, you will know better than I will.

I then begin the process of editing your photos, which usually takes a further hour. During this time we check every image for accurate light and colour tones. We aim to provide a selection of black and white, colour, duo-tone and so on, but you call the shots with what YOU want. You are then asked to come back and see me so I can show you what I have done. If you want images changed to different variations, I do this while you wait. The cost for all of this? 2 hours of my time, £150.

So what do you get for your cash?
You receive all of YOUR digital photos on a one2one disc. Not only do you get all the edited images, you also get those you did not like. I do not feel it is my position to simply delete your unwanted photos, so you get them whether you like it or not.

We always aim to be open and honest with our clients, no matter what we are photographing. We adopted this approach to portrait work in the UK and it encouraged our clients to come back to us on a regular basis.

So what about printing?
You will of course want to get some, if not all of your images printed. We use the latest Canon EOS digital equipment and the average image size is 4-6MB. What does that mean? Basically, the images are that detailed that you could print to poster size without the image pixalating, i.e. losing its quality.

Your place or ours or on location?
In a nutshell, it really does not matter to us, it will be entirely dependent upon what you want. All of our professional equipment is mobile. You can either come to us or we will come to you. If we come to you all I need is a working space to set up my equipment of about 3.5m square. It has more advantages at your place because you can change clothes easier, you are more relaxed (usually) and I have the ability to take photos virtually anywhere in your home and garden providing more variety for you.

I am also asked to attend other locations for photographic work, and again this is no trouble. If you really wanted some photographs at the Park, perhaps when you are more relaxed, then let's do it there.

The cost of my travelling is agreed beforehand, and is calculated on a 20p per mile basis, again, to ensure there are no hidden costs. All I ask is that the cost of travel is paid before the intended photo session.