Length of Senior Photo Session

<p>Just wondering what you consider optimal time frame for senior session.<br>

Mine are usually hour and a half to two hours, outdoors mostly, and the expressions start to get stale.<br>

Thoughts?</p>

 

<p>one hour</p>

<p>I aim most of my senior sessions to be in the one hour frame.</p>

<p>It depends how much money they are spending. More important time doesn't make the photo you do. 20 minutes per outfit is plenty of time. They are not going to buy each of the 400 pictures that you took durring those two hours and you will make it hard for them to choose. Less is more and time is money.<br>

http://www.michaelmowery.com</p>

<p>I just did my first senior shoot this week. We did finish most of the shooting in just over an hour -- maybe 75 minutes. We were up against a deadline, and I would have liked to have had more time given our location. We were shooting in an airplane hangar, so I had had to move my lights around and/or wait for them to recharge between each shot, which reduced the frequency of shots. Shooting outdoors certainly would have yielded more frames in less time.</p>

<p>I hear what Michael's saying about not wanting to inundate the client with too many photos, but I do find that as time goes on, the client becomes more comfortable with me, and the best shots always come toward the end of the session.</p>

<p>It is important to communicate with the client before the shoot and during the shoot get them comfortable and get them excited so the best pictures don't end up at the end. I have had many shoots where the best images were in the first few frames and its ok to say we got it and move on to the next pose or location.</p>

<p>I've found that an hour is more than enough time. I'm currently building some other packages though, and I'll be offering extra time on the higher ones. But yes, an hour has given me plenty of time and plenty of images.</p>