One of the best business practices is consistency.  It isn’t enough to shoot one awesome wedding a year if you are shooting 19 crummy or half a*$ weddings per year.  People want to know what they can expect and want to know that they will get what they expect.

I stalk lots of photographers online, not in a creepy way, but in a what-are-they-up-to way.  One of the areas where I have noticed a great deal of inconsistency is exposure.  Back in the olden/golden days of film I took photos, dropped off the rolls at the “good” lab and they all came back looking pretty good.  The lab was responsible for my post process and one of the things the lab took care of was making sure my prints looked like each other.  The color and exposures were as close to each other as possible.  If the prints looked off from each other or as a whole I could ask the live person at the lab why and they would give me advice on exposing the film for next time or if it was a problem on their end they would reprint it.

Now most, especially newer photographers are handling or have handle post process themselves.  What I see going out on blogs and social network are groups of images that don’t match and would look terrible on the wall together.  I’m not even talking about those who use 5 different actions on one set of proofs, I am talking about images that need tweaks (or even a great deal of work) on the white balance and exposure.  It doesn’t matter if you proof un-retouched photos, then fix them later.  If you are putting images out for public consumption make them look good on their own and in the larger group.  Clients and potential clients will like them better and other photographers won’t judge you.  As much.

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