Clients first. Choices. Accessibility.

This past weekend our studio was buzzing, as it often is daily.

We hosted 6 terrific ladies from all over the map.

It wasn’t one specific theme either, wasn’t one single type of discount session. One session was with our life-sized Keyhole Cabaret prop and a great gal from New York who has worked with us 3 times now and brings friends and her yummy cake balls!  Another session was a first timer who turned in a terrific classic seamless set. Two of our visitors shot with our gorgeous flower wall and two others did some Natural Light Boudoir.

With this post I am going to focus on one particular lady. BANN1409e

She first worked with us earlier this year and within short order returned with her kids for an adorable Mommy and Me session. She’s worked with other studios, mainly doing pinup style shoots but on this visit to us she ventured into a natural light boudoir style. She also brought a good friend along as a cheerleader-helper.

The title of this entry, Clients first. Choices. Accessibility came to mind while thinking about this lady’s session.

The first thing about it that struck me, was yet again affirmation as to why I provide my clients all their photos with every session. Immediately upon completion I hand them an SD card with all their files. Proudly too, I don’t just throw them at them on their way out the door. Nope… when I finish a session I take their images on that card and put it in these little envelopes I have which I rubber-stamp my studio logo on. In with the card is a note with guidance on how to let me know what images they would like edited. There’s usually a discussion about how to best review them and what I can and will do edition-wise.  I’ve seen clients actually photograph these envelopes and post them with excitement!Screen Shot 2016-08-11 at 10.47.06 AMEvery studio has different policies. Many treat the images you paid them to create as their’s alone with rather restrictive use agreements. When I hand you your photos I also hand you full – joint copyrights. Something that others charge for at sums of money several times the cost of the sessions themselves.  My clients come first.

Choices. After we finished our day in the studio I went through the sessions and made selections of my own. For the boudoir client who is shown below I ended up tagging a few dozen images. Those I felt where she looked her best. What I thought were the best images. Now here is the thing I stand by, the thing I’ve seen time and time again which has me convinced clients should see all THEIR images. The subject herself got back to me with her choices for what she wanted edited. Her favorites. Of the 2 dozen or so I earmarked only one matched her choices. We see ourselves differently than others do. I am not psychic. And I want my clients to have the opportunity to decide what images are their favorites. You won’t know if the images from your session are your favorites if you don’t see them all. Sure you may have favorites of what you’ve been shown, but imagine all the wonderful images people might not get to see because someone else decided that for them.BANN0467ecrop

Conversely, if you want me to review your session and make selections for you, I’ll gladly do that as well. CHOICES. You have them with Devilbliss Studios.

Another matter is that some studios will retouch images with software and practices that are completely at their discretion. I edit to client requests. It’s my art sure, but I also consider customer satisfaction to be an art as well and I put you first. By having all your images and then making selections you also get to ask me to take care of things important to you. Maybe you were on vacation before your session and got some tan lines you didn’t count on… maybe in some shots it’s not noticeable but in another distracting for you. If I chose your edits for you, edited them and said “here you go” you wouldn’t have the opportunity to ask for certain things to be addressed. CHOICES.BANN0986ecrop

Accessibility. It’s true, Devilbliss Studios has had days where we’ve worked with a dozen clients.  We’ve had others where we work with 1. Some times we hire assistants where it’s a location or event and we know for a great and smooth experience we need help with things. We do not shy away from working with 2-3-12 people in a day as long as we know we can manage it. The reason for it is two-fold. One being that some sessions are on location or can only really be done if there’s a number of people taking part in them. We want to be as “inclusive” as possible. If it’s a great location or theme we don’t want to have it be that only a select few can take part. By having more people take part we can also keep the pricing per session much more accessible to many more people. Photo shoots like these can be very empowering for people and we don’t want them to be only within reach of a very small portion of the population. We have an excellent track record of scheduling sessions so that no one gets anything less than our full attention. Many many clients who have taken part in days where there’s  more than 2 or 3 people in the studio have come back time and again.

The lovely lady here being one of them. She was also our 4th session this day. She’s told us a few times how she can’t believe these photos are her.BANN1422ecrop BANN1262e BANN1161e BANN0849e BANN0698e BANN0594e

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