Why I Ask You to Come In for a Planning Appointment

Before I photograph a new family, I ask them to come into the studio for a planning appointment.

And I know that can sound suspiciously like:

“Please come in so I can give you a sales pitch and somehow you’ll leave with a photography session you didn’t realise you’d agreed to.”

It isn’t.

Coming to a planning appointment does not mean you are booking a session.

There is no obligation to go ahead afterwards.

In fact, part of the reason I have planning appointments at all is to work out whether I’m actually the right photographer for you.

Think of it less like a sales consultation and more like a little job interview.

Except I’m the one being interviewed.

You’re about to potentially trust me to photograph your family, spend time with your kids, make you feel comfortable in front of a camera and help you spend a fairly significant amount of money on photographs for your home.

I think we should probably meet first.

The Studio

Most of the Appointment Is Just Us Talking

When you arrive, I usually start by asking about your family.

Who are we photographing?

How old are the kids?

What are they like?

What do they love?

What does your family actually look like day to day?

Then I’ll usually ask whether you have any kind of plan or vision for your family portraits.

This question occasionally causes a slight deer-in-the-headlights situation.

Most people have absolutely no idea.

That is completely fine.

I ask because every now and then someone walks in knowing exactly what they want — a particular location, a certain photograph, something for a specific wall, or an idea they’ve been thinking about for years.

If you have that vision, I want to know about it.

If your entire vision is:

“I would just like some nice photos where everybody looks vaguely happy to be related to each other,”

we can absolutely start there, in fact that’s where 95% of my clients start.

I Want You to See How I Actually Photograph Families

I’ll normally show you a short slideshow of my work.

It’s only a couple of minutes, and it isn’t a formal sit-down-and-remain-silent presentation.

We’ll usually talk through it.

A dog appears and I’ll ask if you have pets.

There’s a toddler doing something ridiculous and we’ll end up talking about your toddler.

Something reminds you of an idea you had.

You’ll see a location you love the look of and we’ll be able to discuss the vibes you like.

It’s a conversation.

But it also gives you a really clear idea of what my photography actually looks like.

My work is relaxed and natural.

There aren’t a lot of photographs where everyone is perfectly arranged, staring directly at the camera and smiling on command.

Especially when children are involved, because frankly they have not received that memo.

I guide people. I put you in good light. I arrange things where I need to. I know what I’m trying to create.

But I also want movement, interaction and actual personality.

If you look through my work and realise you want something completely different, that is useful information to discover before we organise a session.

Then I Explain Exactly What Happens

One of the biggest things the planning appointment does is remove the mystery.

I’ll walk you through how the photography session works.

How long we usually allow.

Why I often photograph the kids individually first.

How I work through different family combinations.

What happens if somebody needs a break.

What happens afterwards.

Then I explain the viewing appointment too.

You’ll know before your session that you’ll come back into the studio afterwards, see your photographs for the first time, work through them in small groups and choose the ones you love.

I’ll explain how we can design wall collections, including showing you what different arrangements will actually look like to scale on the walls in your own home.

That’s usually one of the moments where people go:

“Oh. That’s really cool.”

Because suddenly you don’t have to stand in your lounge room holding your hands approximately forty centimetres apart trying to imagine whether something is going to look enormous or weirdly tiny.

We can actually see it.

And Yes, We Talk About Money

This is probably the biggest reason I require planning appointments.

I do not want you discovering what my photography costs after I have already photographed your family.

That sounds awful.

Imagine having the session, loving the experience, coming back to see beautiful photographs of your family, falling in love with them…

and then finding out they cost significantly more than you expected.

Nobody wins there.

You feel disappointed or uncomfortable.

I feel terrible because you’ve fallen in love with something you weren’t financially prepared for.

The whole experience suddenly has this horrible cloud over it that could have been avoided with one straightforward conversation at the beginning.

So we talk about pricing.

Properly.

I’ll show you the physical products in the studio rather than simply reading a price list at you.

We might start with wall art. I’ll show you examples, explain the options, talk about how collections can work and show you where the pricing sits.

If you don’t want photographs on your walls, we’ll talk about albums, matted prints and the other options.

We’ll talk about digital files too.

I’ll explain that there’s no minimum order.

And I’ll explain the payment plans available if spreading things out makes more sense for your family.

(Honestly I want all my clients to be on payment plans - because I need help managing expenses too)

By the time you leave, I want you to understand what things cost and how the whole process works.

No weird surprises later.

The Products Are Separate From the Photography Session

This is another thing I want completely clear before anyone books.

The session fee covers the photography session itself.

The photographs and printed artwork are chosen separately afterwards.

That distinction matters.

I don’t want someone coming into their viewing appointment thinking they have already paid for everything and then discovering there’s another part of the process they weren’t expecting.

Again:

No surprises.

You don’t have to decide exactly what you’re buying at the planning appointment.

Most people don’t.

But you should leave knowing the possibilities and having a realistic idea of what you might spend.

That way, if what I offer doesn’t fit your budget or isn’t what you’re looking for, you know before we’ve done the shoot.

Sometimes I’m Not the Right Photographer

And that is genuinely okay.

Maybe you want hundreds of digital files and nothing else.

Maybe you want very posed newborn photography with elaborate setups and styling.

Maybe you look through my work and realise it’s simply not what you had in mind.

Maybe the pricing doesn’t work for your family.

Or maybe we just don’t particularly click.

That last one matters too.

Family photos can already feel nerve-racking.

You’re letting someone into your family dynamic. You’re trusting them around your kids. You’re standing in front of their camera when you may already feel uncomfortable having your photo taken.

Doing all of that with someone you met for the first time thirty seconds earlier seems unnecessarily hard to me.

I’m also awkward on the phone, if we’re being completely honest.

I would much rather actually sit down with you and have a conversation face to face.

You get to work out whether you like me.

And I get to work out whether I think we’ll work well together.

I Have Said No to Clients Too

The planning appointment isn’t only about you deciding whether I’m right for you.

Sometimes I realise I’m not the right photographer for someone either.

I have had people come in wanting to book and I’ve ultimately said:

“I don’t think I’m the photographer for you.”

That isn’t me being offended that somebody wants something different.

It’s actually the opposite.

I would rather be honest at the beginning than take someone’s money, photograph their family and then have them unhappy because we were never actually a good match.

There has also been a time when I knew, deep down, that we weren’t a good fit and I didn’t say it.

I should have.

The client wasn’t happy with the end result, and looking back, I could see the mismatch at the beginning.

I regret not trusting that.

So these days, I would rather have the slightly awkward conversation early.

You deserve a photographer who suits what you want.

And I want to work with families who understand and genuinely want the way I work.

I Also Want to Know About the Things That Worry You

Have you had a bad photography experience before?

Tell me.

Seriously.

I want to know what happened.

Was the photographer too pushy?

Did you hate how posed everything felt?

Did your kids have a terrible time?

Were you uncomfortable with how you looked?

Did you feel blindsided by pricing?

Did you leave with files you never did anything with?

If something made the experience awful last time, that information is incredibly useful to me.

I can’t promise that every single thing will always go perfectly.

But if I know what made you uncomfortable before, I can at least understand what I need to be particularly aware of this time.

The same goes for your kids.

If somebody is shy, tell me.

If somebody needs more time to warm up, tell me.

If there are sensory or communication differences I should know about, tell me.

If your child will instantly become my best friend if I ask about dinosaurs, I would very much like that information too.

All of these little pieces help me before I ever pick up the camera.

And Then You Can Decide What You Want to Do

At the end of the appointment, I’ll ask if you have any questions.

Sometimes people have a heap.

If I’ve done my job correctly, you won’t have many.

Then we have two options.

If you know you want to go ahead, we can look at diaries and choose a date.

Or you can take everything home.

Talk to your partner.

Think about the pricing.

Look at your walls.

Mull it over.

There is no requirement to make a decision while you’re sitting in the studio.

I’ll usually follow up later if I haven’t heard from you, but coming to the planning appointment itself does not commit you to having a photography session.

Yes, It Is a Little Bit of a Hoop

I could pretend the planning appointment exists purely because I just really love having a chat.

I do enjoy the chat.

But that’s not the whole truth.

It is also a little bit of a hoop.

I want families who are seriously considering having their portraits taken to come in, understand the process and make an informed decision.

Family photography with me is more involved than turning up for twenty minutes and receiving a folder of digital files afterwards.

There is planning.

There is the photography session.

There is a viewing appointment.

There are decisions about artwork and what you actually want to do with your photographs.

I would rather spend half an hour making sure you understand that now than have either of us discover halfway through that this wasn’t what you thought you were signing up for.

Returning Families Usually Don’t Need to Do It Again

Once you’ve been through the process with me, things become much easier.

Returning families don’t usually need another planning appointment unless they want one.

If it has only been a year or two, you already know how I work, you’ve seen the products, you understand the pricing structure and we already know each other.

If it has been a long time — say five years or more — I’ll usually suggest coming back in because enough may have changed that it’s worth going through things again.

But you are always welcome to have another planning appointment if you want one.

The Point Is to Remove the Unknowns

Yes, the planning appointment adds another step before your family photos.

I know everybody is busy.

I know finding another half an hour in the week is not always thrilling.

But that small amount of time does a lot of work.

You know who is going to photograph your family.

I know something about the people I’m about to photograph.

You understand the style.

You understand the process.

You understand what things cost.

You know what happens after the session.

And we both know whether this feels like a good fit.

Then when photography day arrives, we’re not strangers meeting for the first time while I immediately point a camera at you.

We’ve already met.

We’ve already talked.

You know what’s coming.

And instead of spending the session wondering whether you’ve made the right decision, we can just get on with making photographs of your family.

So you'll probably want to book a planning appointment here now.