Narrowing down Proofs - Ideal # of proofs for sessions?

[wjacobs716]

I've recently started my own photography business, mainly shooting families & kids. I think I may be providing too many proofs to choose from. Any tips on how many proofs to provide, or how to narrow them down?? Or maybe the question should be, How many poses should I take? What's typical? Any help is greatly appreciated!

Wendy Jacobs

[Ekir]

I'd like to know as well!
On a recent photo shoot I took 150 photos, culled it down to 20, gave the family 12.

The subject was a little boy in the rainforrest, so I did a lot of concectitive shooting.

I thought this was pretty good numbers, I heard that most photogs take 3x as many as they give to the client.

[Deborah-G]

I usually take 200-300 photo's. I narrow it down by first deleting any pictures where one of my subjects is not looking at the camera, has their eyes closed etc.

I often like to take the same pose landscape and portrait so that they have the option of putting the picture in different frames.

I then edit the remaining and usually end up with a good 150

When I do families, I do some of just the parents, some of just the kids and some of the family together with a few individual pics.

[autofocus]

Wendy, this subject has been covered many times in the past, and from what I've seen, if 10 people respond you'll probably get 10 different answers. It really boils down to what works best for you, and your clients expectations. This segment of the business represents about 90% of our services. Obviously, the number of shots will vary based on the number of subjects, and what the end customer is looking for. Student head shots for a yearbook, or a family group shot solely for Christmas cards will usually only require a minimal number of shots/proofs. Conversely, a large family of many kids individually shot along with group shots will require many more shots. As far as proofs, I would have to say that we probably average around 25-30 on the low end, and up to 100 on the high end. Included in our proofs, I'll also do a sprinkling of B/W versions along with a few custom toned examples. We have also found that offering more proofs for the customer to chose from (within reason) will often equate to a larger reprint/enlargement order.

[OsmosisStudios]

It depends mostly on how many images youre expected to deliver to the client, if you ask me. If you're delivering one shot, you might only present 5 or 6 proofs. If you're delivering a dozen, then 30-40 or so would be appropriate.

[Tixi]

My best advice is that numbers aside, giving only the very best should be a priority.

For example, your client should not have to pick the best of a series - you should pick the best from the series and let them choose the pose, not the best of a series. Otherwise, you're letting them do the culling that you should be doing. A client with an untrained eye will not be able to differentiate between 5-10 nearly identical shots and should not have to.

It also depends on what the terms of your agreement with the client are how many you deliver. If you have no agreement statement in your contract or paperwork, or verbally set expectation with the client, you should make one. An estimate is fine. E.g. per one hour session you will receive at least 30 finished, edited images ready for printing / purchase.

Setting a hard or soft limit on your proofs will push you to cut out anything that isn't the "best of the best" and make you seem like a better photographer (when you don't give them too much and what you do give them is extremely good).

[private]

Totally agree - you should pick the best and be confident in doing so. I find that I make more money with mini session - they get 12 images - my clients generally buy all from those. So 20 min of shooting and not nearly as much editing and they buy all. When I do a full session, they see 25-30 images - lately the trend has been to just get 10 of them (prolly has something to do with my pricing - LOL) but I make the same amt of money... Lots to revamp b4 the end of the year...

[metric_photography]

Originally Posted by private

Totally agree - you should pick the best and be confident in doing so. I find that I make more money with mini session - they get 12 images - my clients generally buy all from those. So 20 min of shooting and not nearly as much editing and they buy all. When I do a full session, they see 25-30 images - lately the trend has been to just get 10 of them (prolly has something to do with my pricing - LOL) but I make the same amt of money... Lots to revamp b4 the end of the year...

What do they buy? Digital images on disk or the printed images?

[Xposurepro]

Hopefully you are selling print collections with pose limitations in which case you can increase profits by offering a larger selection of high quality images making the selection process as difficult as possible for the client.

In running a studio you do not want to make ordering easy for the client in terms of an easy selection. You want to make it difficult for them and then ease that difficulty through up selling technique in your product line .. basically the more and more they spend the easier and more beneficial it becomes. This can quickly change a clients attitude from OMG I'm sticking to my budget to That's so awesome I'm going to go way over my budget and still walk out happy.

Our selection amounts vary by client type followed by session type & add ons. For a quick newborn session I might only show 30 images while one of our seniors will be shown 100+

Seniors for example .. We have 6 selections starting at $350 for 1 pose and go up. Most clients come in thinking about the $900 collection but it only has 12 poses and they are sitting there looking at 100 (non similar) images .. once they get to $2000 they can get unlimited poses .. your kid only graduates HS once so it's an easy upsell. If for some reason they can't afford to just write a check for the full amount they can put it on a credit card if needed or they can also opt for our 3 month payment plan.