~ Simple things to do for your Photographer Friend ~

In my business I get to talk to a lot of people, on multiple occasions. This means I get to know these people and most of them become friends outside of their session time. I see the silly pictures of their kiddos on facebook and I stop in the store to ask if hubby finally let them buy those cute shoes they've been eyeing! ;)

I'm starting 2018 with lofty goals for myself and my business. I love what I do and I just want to share my gift with more people! SO, here are a few simple things you can do to be a good friend to your photographer!

1. Hire us. (Silly right?) But don't just ask us to show up to a party with our camera to "snap a few pics" for you. We want to party too, and honestly, we'll pry be taking pictures anyways! 

2. Give us credit! Social media is its own monster and everyone who is anyone is on it now-a-days! Give us a tag! Just that tag reaches our name out to more of your awesome friends! We LOVE your friends, because we love you as a client!

3. Don't filter us. We spend hours making your images look perfectly amazing! An IG filter isn't going to help that! If you love a certain look, find a photographer that has that look OR ask your favorite photographer, they can pry get that look for you!

4. Share images directly from our page, rather than saving them and posting them yourselves. Not only does that hurt the quality, which social media does well enough all on it’s own, but it takes away the direct link to our page, which can make us lose out on inquiries.

5. Interact on our page. When you Like or Comment on a photo on our page, it shows that you’re interested and in turn, Facebook will show our work to you more often. It will also show it to your friends, which can lead to inquiries, which we really enjoy!

6. Pay us. Unless we offer to work for free, please don’t expect it. Most of us give pretty good deals to our friends/family as it is, but we have bills to pay too. Legitimate photographers have quite a few monthly bills/fees that we pay, on top of continuing our education to better your images, keeping our equipment current and in running order to better your images, and things like liability insurance to protect you, in case something happens while we are working for you.

7. Love us. We're busy. A lot of us work around everybody else's schedule. We sacrifice sleep (and sometimes family time) to do our work. We don't take days off, or get paid vacation. We don't get maternity leave or lunch breaks. We thrive on coffee and hugs.

BONUS: Use our images as your profile image (it makes us do happy dances)!