If I had a kitten for every time I’ve been asked, “Well, that’s really expensive, I just need one photo” I would be one happy kitty mama.

Let’s first talk about why people may think that one photo means less expensive.

For some reason, down the line someone started saying this phrase and it certainly tricks the newer and less experienced photographers because obviously it’s less work for just one photo instead of 100 photos, right?

Nope, wrong.

You see, to take one photo vs. 100 photos is silly talk for a few reasons.

Firstly, it’s impossible to take just one photo and it’s perfect, your lighting is spot on, your aperture is golden, the pose is perfect, there is no blur, etc.

So one photo turns into 10 photos to make sure everything is just right.

• We still need to prep and pack our gear (cameras, lenses, memory cards, batteries etc.) just because it’s one photo doesn’t means it’s less work to pack everything up.

• We still have to take the drive down to the studio in order to take said photo, the drive doesn’t get shorter. 

• The hair and makeup process is still the exact same for only on photo vs. 100 photos, because hair and makeup doesn’t lessen for just one photo.

• We still have to set up the scene, get the blankets laid out, make the bed, test our lighting, none of that changed whether it be one photo or 100 photos.

• We still go through wardrobe and find the best outfit for your photo, takes the same amount of time there too.

• Not including the whole shoot portion, since we know how much work goes into that, we have the Image Reveal, even for just one photo, vs. 100 photos. 

Sure my editing time would be drastically different, but I’m a master at editing and have perfected my time management skills to make sure that editing a whole session doesn’t take me three days like it used to.

Then delivering of your one photo in the form of whichever products you choose (it seems silly but the first thing that popped into my head is a beautiful album with 30 of the same photo in different layouts, HAHA!)

So you can see how “just one photo” seems completely useless now. It’s the same amount of work to achieve one photo or 100 photos.