Why Invest in Custom Photography?

I have large wall on my staircase that is peppered with family photos. There you’ll find photos that remind me of where I came from and what is dearest to me. On this wall, you’ll find one of my favorite photographs.  Looking at this picture, you would see my great-grandmother, great-great grandmother, and great-great-great grandmother. Besides the fact that it’s rich with heritage, there’s another reason I adore this specific photo. These woman are not sitting stiffly and smiling. They are laughing together and being ridiculously goofy. Even though I never had the privilege to meet any of these women, the photograph makes me feel like I have a little window into their lives. I’m sure these ladies never thought that this photo would find a prominent place in the home of their posterity over 80 years after it was taken.  Can I put a price on this wonderful photo? Absolutely not.  In a fire, I can promise you’ll I’ll be swiping that photograph off the wall without giving a thought to my iPhone or flat-screen TV. And yet, so often our thinking is backwards. People find themselves happy to drop big money on the latest gadget, and yet walk into a discount store to have their child’s life documented in a stale setting.

I don’t claim to be great writer; so let me turn the rest of this discussion over to a more eloquent lady named Marianne Drenthe who wrote the following article entitled “Why Choose Custom Photography”:

Custom photography is more of a luxury than your entry level cookie cutter chain experience. Custom photography truly is not for everyone, it requires a level of commitment, investment in time and money, forethought and planning on the part of the subject/client and requires a larger time commitment for the photographer as well.

Clients who enjoy taking a more active role in the creation of their families’ memories have the desire to have portrait art that is truly personalized. These more discerning clients have been known to budget and allot time for a custom photography session. Many clients opt for it to be a once a year special experience, some opt to have custom photography sessions done to record their child’s stages in life. Having said this, it is clear that custom photography is not in everyone’s budget, it is something that most families save for to splurge on from time to time to memorialize their children as they really are (not posed and primped in the cookie cutter studio setting).

There is a great deal of time involved in creating high end custom photography sessions for a client. The luxury of great service, better choices and a supberb end product. The result of all this are heirloom quality images. The time invested at the session is only a small portion of time involved in this process.

Custom photography has been likened to purchasing a fine vehicle. To get to point B from A let’s face it, even a bus ride would suffice. If you want to luxuriate in a finely appointed vehicle, customizing your own experience by listening to smooth jazz while sitting in a climate controlled setting adjusted purely for your comfort in a body hugging leather interior, perhaps that Lexus you so desire is your cup of tea. Custom photography is much the same cup of tea. It is the Lexus of the photography world. It is where the intangibles make the experience truly wonderful and the images themselves make the investment of money and time truly worthwhile.

Custom photography can be broken down into even more levels. There are on location, studio, mixed studio/on location, specialty location and destination type photographers. The beauty of custom photography is in the choices and in the luxury of thoses options. The customized service level you are sure to experience will be amazing. The knowledge that your final images are the result of someone caring about those moments so much that they take extra time ensuring that the artwork you receive is good enough to stand by with their name on it. That level of quality and commitment is all but lost in the age of “mass produced,” “mass marketed,” corporate “everyone is a number”. Custom photography is based on being unique to you. How great an experience would be, to be able to sit back and allow a photographer to do this highly custom work for images that you will most likely cherish for a lifetime?

Keep in mind more than anything that the Lexus will never appreciate in value the way your portraits will. The portrait art you become invested in from your custom photographer will no doubt increase in value and become more priceless as the years pass.