The Photoshoot Process

Estimated Reading Time: 5 mins

Alimagery makes a massive effort to create a photography experience that makes you feel like (and look like) the best version of you! We work differently to other photographers, so whether this is your first ever photoshoot experience or you’re a regular behind the camera, it’s definitely worth knowing what goes into every route, mini or custom shoot we do! 🧠

1. Virtual Brainstorming Call

Our process always kicks off with one of the most exciting parts of our job — meeting you wonderful people! We think it’s soo important that you vibe with your ‘tog, so we always invite prospective clients to a no-obligation video call for a bit of face-to-face 😁😊.

This first meeting is a great opportunity for us to chat about your needs. We’ve had all types of clients in the past: clients who know exactly what type of photos they want to create and also clients who only know that they want a photoshoot. Regardless of your requirements, we’re able to work with you to create the photoshoot of your dreams (after all, every successful shoot is a partnership between the photographer and his clients).

Every shoot begins with a concept, so we’ll start by asking questions like:

• What prompted you to book a photoshoot?
• Have you looked through our portfolio and prebuilt shoots? Are there any that you liked?
• What purpose do you want the photos to serve?
• What’s your story?

And then we’ll let the conversation flow naturally from there. Ideally, you’ll leave the shoot having got to know your photographer, received expert advice and being absolutely pumped to book your shoot.

2. Complete your booking

Once we’re comfortable with the concept and you want to proceed with your photoshoot, let’s get you booked in. Simply visit our scheduling page, select the shooting package you’re after and find a time that suits you.

Many people don’t know that if you’re booking one of our prebuilt Routes or Minis, you don’t have to pay for the whole shoot at once! Just select PayPal at checkout and use ‘Pay in 3’ to split it into three monthly payments with 0% interest — read more about that here.

Once your booking is complete, we can start getting your client portal ready, so let’s get cracking on preparation!

3. Picking an editing flavour

While you’re completing your booking, we’ll chat to you about your editing preferences. All of our collections have their own editing look, but we want to hear your opinions too.

4. Prep for your shoot

The most important part of any photoshoot is the preparation, so we make sure we spend plenty of time getting you ready. Honestly, even if you’re used to being in front of the camera, it can be quite overwhelming to have a big lens pointing at you and you might end up feeling shy/nervous. We’ll walk you through all of our resources that help you own your shoot.

By booking on our scheduling site, we’ll deliver emails containing some of our in-house guides on topics ranging from picking your photoshoot wardrobe to a checklist of things you’ll need to bring with you to your shoot.

Your client portal will contain:

• a tailored questionnaire to dig deep into your character and history and give us some inspiration to really capture your uniqueness!
• links to some of our useful blog posts for light reading (no pressure)
• a collection of our favourite videos on YouTube that might help you prep
• a collaborative Pinterest moodboard — feel free to find some pics you love, so we know your vibe
• unlimited video consultations — just schedule them at a time that suits you
• and more :)

We really don’t expect every single client to read every single guide, or watch every single video. But we like to provide you everything you need so that anything that you do to prepare will contribute positively to your experience.

5. Shooting Day

When your photoshoot day finally arrives, you’ll be fully prepared for it. Honestly, just relax, this is it! You’re the main event and you’re going to rock it.

Try to arrive to the shoot a little early (yep, we have a guide on that) so you get the chance to compose yourself and maximise your shooting time.

Once you’re in our company, we’ll look after you so this part of the process should be the easiest part of the entire experience and we just hope you enjoy it 🤩

6. Viewing & Selection

Once we get home from your shoot, we immediately import the entire SD card of pics onto our editing rig, back it up and begin the culling process. We use FilterPixel which is a really cool AI software that can reject any photos where you’re blinking, out of focus (or several other flaws). Currently, we remove about 20-30% of the total pictures at this stage (trust us, you’ll be glad we did!)

Then we get the rest of the photos into Lightroom (our editing software of choice) where we do some light tonal edits so all the photos are consistent, which helps you make smart selection decisions!

Within 48 hours of your shoot, you’ll gain access to your client gallery which will make selection of your favourites a breeze! Once you’ve made your selections, drop us a message and we can begin the editing process 👨‍💻

7. Editing process

Our editing process is different for every photo, really, but we always start with the fundamentals. Attention to detail is key and angles are a crucial ingredient for perfection. Every photo is unique. Whether it’s your story, the setting, or the weather, we spend a while adjusting this so that the background is popping but not threatening your dominance.

Find out more about our editing process on our blog post They’re Calling Me a Photographer, I Think I’m a Magician

8. Retouching

If possible and necessary, we’ll clear up any distracting objects from the background so the focus is all on you and we may add in elements such as flares to enhance the photo if we feel that it offers an improvement.

Please let your photographer know beforehand if there are any spots or wrinkles that you’re uncomfortable with as we can use frequency separation techniques to clear the skin of any blemishes. We only perform retouching upon request 😃

9. Delivery

You’ll receive your final pictures on our online gallery where you can view the entire gallery and download the images optimised for either print or social media. We hope you love them as much as we do!

10. Complete

Hey, you might have completed your shoot but let’s stay in touch? Some of our previous clients still send us a daily meme just for banter and we LOVE it. 🥰 Feel free to drop us a text if you ever need any advice and, you know, 😏 we offer some of the finest quality print products so hit us up when you want to pick those up.