How Many Photographs You Should Expect

A question that comes up in nearly every enquiry, and the honest answer is that the number matters less than people think.

Why more is not better

A session produces a great many frames. Most of them are near-duplicates, blinks, transitions and the frames on either side of the good one. Delivering all of them would not be generous, it would be handing over the unsorted contents of a card.

The edit is the work. Choosing the frame where the expression is right, where the hands are natural, where nobody is mid-blink — that is what you are actually paying for, and it is what makes a set feel consistent.

What a set should be

• Consistent in tone, so it reads as one session rather than a collection.
• Varied in composition — wide, medium, close — so it works for different uses.
• Covering everything that was planned, plus the moments that were not.
• Delivered at a resolution that prints as well as it posts.
• Without near-duplicates that only add volume.

What editing means here

Colour and exposure consistency across the set, cropping and straightening, and the retouching that suits the subject. On a portrait that generally means skin handled naturally rather than smoothed to plastic — the aim is the person on a good day, not a different person.

Turnaround

Editing takes considerably longer than shooting. A session that takes an hour takes several hours to edit properly, and a wedding takes a great deal more than that. We will tell you the timeline up front rather than leaving you wondering.

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