Featured Blogpost by Sam Deslauriers Photography \\ The Challenge of the Beginning + Valuing Professional Photography

This week's featured blogpost comes to you from Sam Deslauriers Photography based in Oahu, Hawaii. Check her out....

Sam Deslauriers is a Lifestyle family and portrait photographer currently living on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.  She has a longtime love of photography that has translated into a new business.  Here are some of her thoughts on why our work is important, from the perspective of a newcomer to the field.

WEBSITE \\  http://samdeslauriersphotography.com

FACEBOOK \\  https://www.facebook.com/samdeslauriersphotography

INSTAGRAM \\ sam_photography

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The Challenge of the Beginning + Valuing Professional Photography 

*all photos within article are credited to Sam Deslauriers Photography*

There are many formidable opponents in the beginning stages of a photography business.  And that’s exactly where I’m at in more ways than one…at the very beginning.  I’m starting to suspect that it could be said accurately for my entire career, if I beat the odds.  

One significant factor dominates this truth: paid photography is a luxury, the cheaper version being something most people have access to.

If there are eight billion people in the world, seven billion of them are photographers.  In a relatively short span of time, the art of taking photos has gone from a fine-tuned specialty to as accessible as buying a DSLR, turning the dial to auto, and pressing the shutter.  One thing hasn’t changed, though…and it’s the one thing no one seems to be focusing on.

Even with factory made, consumer-friendly cameras and ability to produce good images in most conditions, photography still remains a form of artistic expression.  People who capture images have been tinkering with mastering their equipment since they had to make it themselves.  You would be hard pressed to find two masters of any art using their equipment in the exact same way.  That’s sort of the point!  

Because we can see, and because so much of it is accessible, photographers look like the magician who has spoiled the trick and still wants you to pay for it.  This ‘magician’s effect’ doesn’t need to ruin anything, though.  In fact, it can serve to highlight exactly why creating visual memories is so essential.

 I can also buy paint and canvas, a musical instrument, and music to dance to.  Instructions for using most of these things are found readily online.  When we become educated about what someone does who wants money from us, the willingness to fork it over is replaced with a sort of anger.  If I wanted, I could do exactly what you do.  So why am I paying you for it?

And that is exactly why photography is so important!  How many of us learn the piano, master portrait painting or learn a trade simply from understanding how others do it?  Usually, we don’t.  Photos are such valued possessions that we feel entitled to their creation.  Ask many people what they’d remove from their house in a fire.  It would most often time be their photos; their memories.

And that is the conundrum someone like me is up against.  I want to provide a luxury that feels like a right to a population of people who have access to my equipment. 

This is where my value comes into play.  As many times as I’m asked to do things for free, I have to believe that my vision will persevere.  Some people are fine with homemade photos.  The do-it-yourself mentality is an art in itself and I will never begrudge someone’s talent for producing decent photos on their own.  But I am a different story.  I’m not trying to give you the photos you found online and want to copy.  I’m offering the chance to show you your world the way I see it with you in it.  I’m offering a connection and memory preserved for a lifetime and beyond, printed on quality paper and with an experience and care you won’t find at a big store photo lab.

And why should these things matter to you?  Well…if they don’t, they don’t!  A good photography session doesn’t have short sighted goals.  I am seeing things through to their conclusion.  

I want you to have a tangible reminder of the beauty I see.  On the anniversary of a loved one’s passing, I want you to be able to have a gorgeous photo of the two of you together that speaks volumes.  I want you to have this picture hanging in your home and bound safely in an album.  The pictures you can get from a photographer say that you valued yourself enough to get them done in the first place.  These photos show your relationships and bonds…the photographer disappears into the background.  For as long as the paper lasts, that’s what people will be feeling when they see my images of you.  

We end up perceiving the people in the photos and not the filters, reflective shiny surface of drugstore prints… a vague outline of your identity that speaks just as much of the one who took the photo as who’s in it.  Those types of photos matter to everyone, but getting them taken isn’t the same special occasion…and in the end, I am suppose to be apart from it.  It’s that extra step, that quality and care, that’s the long-lasting ‘investment’ you will often hear photographers talk about.  And, as I flip through my albums and photos of ancestors I’ve never met, I couldn’t agree more with the sentiment. 

Sam Deslauriers Photography