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Turnaround times
For corporate headshots, the fastest I can crank a session out and finish delivery is about an hour or two, from the moment the client is ready to go to the moment I can deliver the images and bill said client. I've told this is obscenely fast. One person I talked to reported that they have never seen a photographer take less than a week to get a session back to them for that style of work. I find that insanely long. I don't know why it would take that long. Some RFPs I have seen; I see in the brief the requested turnaround for corporate work is 24-72 hours. If this is the case, my competition is fairly slim from that example alone. Curious what everyone's fastest/most reasonable turnaround time is for a shoot. For the sake of simplicity, headshots. But I'm curious in general for all types of shoots, just stipulate what it is, and how fast you can do it - or the average time it takes you to finish said style of shoot. Jul 22 15 09:45 am Link I just do this for fun rather than a job, so I don't have a work backlog but I'm also relatively relaxed about it. That said, I've never taken more than a week to get images back to people. Generally. I go home and sort through the next day, and either power through or send them to a retoucher I use who gets them back to me in 2-3 days. I think if I leave it longer, my attention will turn to other things and then it'll never get done. That and I'm always pretty excited to get the results so prefer to do it sooner. Jul 22 15 10:20 am Link Everyone's process is different. On a similar thread one photographer wrote that after a shoot he wouldn't even look at the shots for 1-2 weeks. He wanted to come back to them with a fresh perspective, almost like looking at someone else's work. I want to review and edit the best of show the day of, while it's still new and interesting. But I often find that a little time changes how I appreciate the images, and often times a later edit is 'better' than the edit I did in the heat of the moment, and in a later review I find different favorites. There are no rules. I certainly don't want to edit someone's wedding pics with a clock ticking over my head. If you do the same old, same old without creativity, there is no reason you can't crank out images like an assembly line. Time to edit? A close up beauty shot with involved skin retouching, hours. A scene shot with exposure adjustment, 20 seconds. An artistic lighting adjustment with multiple subjects, some good music, a cup of coffee and 1-99 minutes. A glam group that shoots shadowy, not close ups, after full MUA has a goal of 2 minutes editing per image, ready for large print. If you spend the time and $ on a MUA, there's no skin retouching. If you only want 1 headshot, that doesn't save you time. If you want 10-20 images to sell, that saves a bunch of time. Jul 22 15 11:36 am Link It depends on the assignment. For newspapers and magazines - it can be breakneck, 1-2 hours sometimes, if it's breaking news it was needed 10 minutes ago. For a wedding or portrait session it could be a week to two weeks. It's just where it all fits in the scheme of things. Jul 22 15 12:01 pm Link For me 24 hours is my turn around time. Jul 22 15 12:08 pm Link Solas wrote: For all jobs, there are always things you need to know. For commercial and advertising clients, one of these is: Jul 22 15 01:15 pm Link Photographed a wedding in the morning (10am) and handed the bride twenty 8 X 10 photos using the traditional wet process in her photo album at the reception by about (5pm). Jul 22 15 02:16 pm Link Solas wrote: I am sure there are occasions when deadlines are very short, but in my experience this is not the case for headshots and 24-72 hours is plenty fast enough. Jul 22 15 02:17 pm Link For some of my portrait work? I tell them "up to 6 weeks". You want quality? That takes time. You want something like a JC Penny portrait? Walk around the mall and be back in an hour. But, those are not my clients. People, well, my clients at least, have no problem waiting for their "finished" portraits. Because I shoot a lot of classic portrait and finish the prints in an a classic traditional way, they have no problem waiting and also paying a higher price of it. Jul 24 15 11:16 am Link I can do a same day turnaround on headshots, but I really prefer to be able to slow down and take my time. If someone needs a lot of retouching or something it's a nightmare. However, depending on how much I've shot it takes an hour/hour and a half to shoot, another 30 minutes for me to get home from my studio, about 45 minutes-hour to load the photos on, another 45 minutes at a minimum for me to go through and check each shot for focus- and about 15 minutes/shot to edit them. So... However, I prefer to have a 4-6 day turnaround if I can - in some cases where a lot of outfits/pics were taken, I can do a month/month and a half to get everything over. This is only in the case of an individual though, for a corporate client I won't take more than a week. Architecturally, I take about 2 weeks and start editing right away. Then, I go away and come back later only to realize I hate every single shot so I go back and reedit to my liking. Those are usually the versions that stick. Jul 24 15 04:10 pm Link If shot in MY studio, I have gotten them out in less than 30 minutes after I put the camera down. Jul 24 15 04:33 pm Link Chuckarelei wrote: In MY studio, I got the setup, exposure, processing, everything down to exact science. On location or somewhere else, that is a whole different story. Jul 24 15 04:34 pm Link if you're, and I'm ready, know you'll be in my studio by... I got my passport photo taken and handed to me in 32 seconds. Headshot. Very nice. $12.00. Jul 24 15 04:34 pm Link I don't care, it takes what it takes and I think if you do it in a few hours it is a very poor marketing scheme. The ONLY time that time really matters is journalism where you have a press deadline or a broadcast deadline. But in normal situations if you turn the print around in an hour, two hours, three hours then the client looks at you and wants to know how come you charge so much for a couple hours work ? Or, craftsmanship takes time, this guy must be a hack. Haven't you ever seen the wording on a menu saying everything is cooked to order so please be patient ? They're telling you it's not fast food and if you want it good, you wait for it. I go to the dentist and he works for hours and bills me hundred, I understand. He works for ten minutes and bills me hundreds, I'm wondering what the hell ? Hundreds for ten minutes worth of work ? When you deliver wedding or portrait photos in a couple hours they may wonder if you just went down to the corner drug store and had them done. If that's the feeling you want to import, then go for it. If you told Rembrandt you wanted your portrait ready by tomorrow, he'd still be laughing. Jul 24 15 04:45 pm Link Chuckarelei wrote: I've never seen anyone on mm quote and respond to themselves before. You win the thread Jul 24 15 10:18 pm Link Vector One Photography wrote: Counter argument: Jul 24 15 10:21 pm Link |
