Kansas City Maternity, Newborn, and Baby Photographer | Kansas City Birth Photographer | Overland Park

I just want to say there is no wrong way to take a family photograph (whatever stage your family is at, be it just a couple, expecting a baby, kids running around, old and gray, doesn’t matter) , seriously, not one single wrong way to do it. The truth is that what’s most important is that you just take it, however you can, to say that you were here, all together, and happy and loved. Things are always changing and in a constant state of moving forward, never backwards, you haven’t a moment to lose. You never know when it’s someone’s last photograph and that is the cold hard truth. I know absolutely first hand and it happened with my own father.

But while there is no wrong way to take a family photograph, there are different ways to achieve end results for what you desire and need. In the last decade and especially the last five years, the market has seen an astonishingly large influx of independent portrait photographers which has had both positive and negative effects. The positive being that there is an abundant amount of incredible talent out there to give you breath taking images and there are so many more choices for everyone. The negative however is that many, many, MANY individuals advertising their services are not legal businesses and this directly impacts you as the client. Those same individuals may call themselves professional photographers because they are charging you for their services. Many are honest hard working individuals, a lot of them very talented, but if you’re not legal, simply put they are not true professionals. The term “professional” when associated with photographer has become very diluted these days and I’ve never seen an industry that needs to constantly explain themselves as much as our fellow professional photographers and this makes me sad.

Now, just because you operate a business, no matter the size, doesn’t automatically make you a professional either, it makes you a business owner. So what defines a professional? A professional is an expert at their craft AND legally able to offer their work to you in exchange for monetary gain. Why is this so important to you, the consumer, when you want to make your hard earned dollars stretch the most? Your money is important to you because it always comes with the sacrifice of the one earning it being away from their family, losing precious time together. It comes with the stress of providing an enjoyable lifestyle for your family, it comes with years of learning and achievements in order to make more of it to give your family even more enjoyment and for many, many of us, just to pay the bills. Speaking of hard earned money and sacrifices just to pay bills, the idea of hiring a professional photographer can seem an un-necessary luxury, something unaffordable, that photographers nowadays just make up crazy numbers and rake in the money, taking advantage of your hard earned money that comes with sacrifice. But trust me, this couldn’t be any further from the truth!

Like you, my hard earned money comes with sacrifice. I have worked two jobs to put my husband through undergrad and grad school the last five years with another 1.5 years to go. I work a day job to guarantee a steady income and health benefits, but it is just enough to pay bills, honestly some months, some months we are pinching pennies if we’ve had some unexpected expenses. We’ve been married 6 years and have never taken an independent vacation together. We drive old used cars and wear our clothes until they need to be replaced. My business is my second job and since launching it, I’ll be honest with you, I’ve pretty much worked for pennies on the dollar in trying to build up an honest thriving business by myself. When you hire me, you are paying my business, not me. I’m not taking to the bank that $200 you’re paying for your session fee. What you just bought in product? You paid my business, not me. It’s my artistic vision and my hard work that has gotten my business to where it is even now, but it costs money to make money. And after my business pays its bills, it treats me to dinner with my husband when we haven’t seen each other all week while he’s studying and I’m working both jobs. So why do I do it if I am not making all this money? Because I believe in what I offer, because we’ve only lived in Kansas for a few years and still getting to know people, and because I believe in the dream I have for my business. I believe in the vision and business plan I have in place for when my husband graduates school and I can work ONE job, my dream job, my business. When you hire a legal professional photographer, you are hiring the years of blood, sweat, and tears that have been spent becoming an expert on their craft, the sacrifices made spending so much time away from our families, our loved ones, even just regular activities. You’re hiring the protection that a legal business provides; utmost professional behavior that comes with being an expert in our field, written legally binding contracts, protection of property and liability, integrity of following proper tax laws, and so on. The talent and expert skill you are hiring and desire can only be achieved through sacrifice, the very same sacrifices you make in order to have the money to make the choice to invest in a professional display of memories to adorn your walls as your children play, laugh, and love underneath them. When you understand the sacrifice the client brings to the table and the sacrifice the professional photographer brings to the table, everyone understands why it’s an investment. It won’t be cheap, it shouldn’t be cheap, because then the balance of value and sacrifice is off set. It is CUSTOM QUALITY, tailored just to you.

Essentially, what SHOULD happen is this:

The client ENTRUSTS their sacrifice of time away from their family in the form of payment to the professional photographer’s business. The professional photographer brings their talent, skill and education, made possible only through their own sacrifices, to the client. Magic happens, incredible memories are imprinted into time itself in the highest quality and timeless fashion only a professional photographer’s skills can give. During which this time that magic is captured, the photographer is still sacrificing time away from family and loved ones to be able to provide for them. The business pays the photographer last after the business tries to recoup its own sacrifices. Your hard earned income is forever invested in the smiles and art that hangs in your home, or archived in digital devices, whatever the purchase was, and recycled into another breadwinner, who just like you, wants the best for their family. And if something unexpected were to have gone wrong in the transaction, the business protects everyone.

So choosing who to hire to take those precious moments of yours and transform them into something that transcends time is no little decision. Oh so much more goes into the price than a number. But remember one thing you should never have to sacrifice in is quality because in 50-60 years when your great grand kids are looking at and holding these photographs in their hands, well, true professional photography is timeless and they’ll be looking at the same memory then as you are right now as if it was taken yesterday. They won’t be looking just at what someone looks like or what they were wearing, they’ll be looking at your heart. What makes you sing. What makes you smile. What makes you live. A custom tailored experience to you, of you, for your descendents. Safe, secure, and protected, just like you keep your children, their images in this digital age should be kept the same.

There’s no wrong way to take a photograph. But there is a right way to do business. And when you combine the right way to do business with the right professional photographer that you connect with, that’s when magic happens.