When looking to book creative services, there are several options available. Here I'll give an overview of each and explain why - whichever way you decide to commission a photographer - you must always be 100% sure of exactly who will be creating your images.
WAYS TO COMMISSION A CREATIVE PROFESSIONAL
To hire a photographer these days, there are generally 3 options available:
Contact a photography business or independent freelancer directly
Find and connect with a particular creative via a 3rd party mediatory service
(such as a dedicated agency or an online freelancing platform)
Purchase a set photography package through an uber-like service provider
Essentially, options 1 and 2 both allow you to choose and correspond directly with the specific photographer you will work with to communicate your brief and plan the details of your shoot. The differences will be
The Booking Procedure:
Taking advantage of a reputable mediatory service will give you piece of mind when making your payment, which could be preferable if are booking a creative professional for the first time.
The Price:
You'll need to bear in mind that the finder's fees charged to the solicited freelancer will almost certainly be added (whether directly or indirectly) to the total price you will pay. This commission will vary substantially depending on the provider’s degree of specialisation, but even for a general mediatory service, expect to pay an addition of at least 10%.
Ease of communication:
Often, you’ll be limited to discussion via a platform, which will have its own limitations:
• References materials such as attachments and links could be automatically blocked
• Reactivity could be impacted (after all, it’s yet another step to log in etc)
Option 3, with its uber-like setup, will generally not allow you to choose a specific photographer, as the emphasis is very much on the offer itself (X amount of photos submitted in X amount of time).
For basic utility services, such as transportation, this is no problem as you're requesting something far more cut and dried and, therefore, the functionality of the service is what is important, with the quality of its delivery being very much secondary. For creative services, this is very much the opposite. Just as if you were hiring a graphic designer to create your company's branding you wouldn’t simply want any old logo, if you're hiring a photographer you don't just want any old photographs.
WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW WHO IS RESPONSABLE FOR YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS
As with hiring any service, there are, of course, a number of practical considerations that will always vary from provider to provider. It's a question of whether any savings you might be able to make - whether in terms of cost or submission time - are really worth the potential compromises; below are some of the key reasons why, no matter how you decide to solicit photography services, you should always choose the photographer and not the offer:
Style and Image Quality
You'll have seen specific examples of images created by that particular creative professional so you will know exactly what to expect.
Even a small amount of time spent reviewing various photographers’ portfolios will demonstrate that any professional genre (corporate, portrait, wedding etc) can vary dramatically depending on:
how the photographs are taken (angles, choice of lenses)
how the photographs are retouched
the photographer’s use of lighting (flash etc)
the equipment used
Consistency
As the same photographer will be taking and retouching all of the images you receive, all of your photographs will have a consistent, uniform look.
As with any creative professional, every photographer is different; each will have a specific way of both taking and retouching their photographs. Furthermore, photographers will take photographs in a particular way with a mind to retouching them in a particular way, hence it’s essential that the same person that has taken the photograph is the same person that retouches it.
An uber-like creative service provider, often keen to advertise the speediness of their service, will typically have a team of retouchers to batch-process images. This means that the images you'll receive may have been post-processed not by one, but by several individuals, each of which possibly applying their own retouch method. That is a recipe for inconsistency.
For those booking multiple shoots, also worth bearing in mind is the fact that purchasing a photography package could mean that not one, but several photographers could be involved, in which case inconsistency will be guaranteed.
Service & Flexibility
You'll receive a personalised quote, tailored to your needs. Independent photographers can (and should!) want to base their quote on your specific requirements, as opposed to working backwards from predetermined conditions.
It's also very important to bear in mind that, if a photographer has been contracted by a service provider, they will only have received a percentage of the price that you've actually paid for the service. Understandably therefore, they will be far less likely to be motivated to go that extra mile for you, particularly in terms of any extra shooting time that is so often required.
Communication
The person with whom you've arranged the task is the exact person who will carry it out, in its entirety. For me, as an experienced professional, communication is the single most important reason for being able to correspond directly with the photographer.
As a client, I could not imagine the frustration of
having to repeat the details of agreed conditions because the photographer that arrives on the day has not been given the entirety of my brief
not being able to communicate directly with the person responsible for the image's creation in the case of any additional requests I might have following the shoot
