Frequently Asked Questions: Why Choose Jason Scott Photography?

Wondering why you should select Jason Scott Photography as your photographer for your family portraits on Siesta Key, Longboat Key, or Anna Maria Island?

Here are a few reasons:

1. Experience

During our busy season (March through July), we are out on the beach almost every night, capturing memories for families on vacation.

We know how to pose large and small groups, make kids (and adults) smile and look at the camera, and set a steady pace for your beach portrait session so that you receive as many photos as possible while still having a great time!

Our customers tell us all the time how much fun they had at their session. We're sure you will too!

2. Fast Turnaround Time, No Expiration Date

We post your photos online within 2-3 days of your session! (Yes, really!) You can view them on a computer, tablet, or smart phone while still on vacation, then again when you are at home. You can easily share them with your friends and family on social media or via email.

But... We don't put an expiration date on your gallery. You can wait as long as you want to order prints or digital downloads. And you can do all of this from the comfort of your own home. We'll give your order the attention it deserves, no matter how long you wait.

3. Fast and Effective Communication

We're available via email, text message, phone, or social media whenever you need us.

Additionally, we try to give you as much information as possible directly on our website. We're not hiding our prices or any other details. We want you to know the answers to all of your questions as soon as you have them so you can make good decisions about booking your session, what to wear, where and when to meet, and how to order photos after your session.

Our customers tell us all the time how much they appreciate our quick responses to emails!

4. Up Front Pricing

We're not hiding our prices. We don't want you to waste your time trying to figure out how much things cost. Everything is listed directly on our website.

Even though we know there are lots of other photographers in the area offering beach portrait sessions for $49 or $99, we feel our family beach portrait session pricing is a great deal because of the quality of our photos and the fact that you'll save on prints and wall art afterwards.

We don't mark up our print prices as much as most other photographers and we offer digital files for reasonable prices as well. We're up front about our print and digital download prices from the moment you first reach out to us about a portrait session - no surprises!

ALSO, if we have to cancel for weather or any other emergency reason and cannot reschedule during your vacation, WE WILL REFUND YOUR MONEY IN FULL. 

5. Photo Quality

Without going into all of the technical details... we use the right camera, lenses, lighting, and a full time assistant to make sure our photos are great, every time!

Jason's photos look great, straight out of the camera. (That's a big reason why we are able to offer such a fast turnaround time.) With very little tweaking of the lighting and white balance, the photos we post in your online gallery are close to perfect.

When you order prints, we use a professional retouching service to make all the fine details of your photos look just right. No more stray hairs, shiny skin, etc. Your prints and wall art will look amazing!

View our samples here to see what we mean.

Ready to book? Fill out our contact form to get started! More questions? Check out our Beach Portrait FAQ.

PS - Don't forget, you can also follow this blog on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, or through your favorite feed reader

Frequently Asked Questions - What Happens AFTER Our Family Beach Portrait Session?

At the end of every family beach portrait session, we are always asked, "What next?" or "How do we get our photos?" Jason tells me I need to make a brochure to hand to everyone at the end of the night, but until I get around to doing that, hopefully this blog post will help!

    

1. We process your photos. 

We use Adobe Lightroom for our first run through your photos. We'll delete the "duds" - photos with eyes closed, funny faces, etc. We'll also adjust the lighting on everything as needed and crop and straighten everything. (Jason is notorious for crooked horizons!) 

Usually we do all of this as soon as we get home on the evening of your session. This typically takes us about one hour.

     

2. We upload your photos to our host site, SmugMug. 

This typically takes a couple of hours. I usually start the upload and go to bed! The photos are "magically" online by morning! Ta-da!

We try to get your photos online within 48 hours of your session, but we usually get them to you within 24 hours. During our busiest season (March-July), sometimes it might take us an extra day or two... sorry...

IMPORTANT: While your photos are uploading (and for a day or two after we send you the link), they are in an "unlisted" gallery that cannot be found by you, Google, or anybody else for that matter (unless you give out the link). 

A couple of days after they are uploaded, however, we make the gallery public unless you tell us not to.  We store all of our customer galleries under the "Your Photos" menu on our website, so that potential customers (like you once were!) can see our work and not just a bunch of selected samples. But we do understand that some people want their privacy, so we're happy to keep your gallery unlisted if you ask us to, or add a password instead. Please let us know right away if you'd like us to do this... it is hard to put the cat back in the bag once we let it out!

    

3. We send you your photo links.

When they're ready, we'll send you TWO links. This is the spot in this process where people most often get confused. Some mail programs see two emails coming from the same person at the same time and dump them into your Junk/Spam folder. Some dump one of the two in the Junk folder. So, if you don't see TWO emails from us, please check your Junk folder!

One of the emails will have a subject line that says "For You..."

The other will say "Share with friends..."

    

4. You pick out your favorite photos.

Use the personalized link in the email intended for you to view your photos and tag your favorites. 

Use the sharing email to forward on to friends and family, or feel free to copy/paste the link into Facebook or your favorite social networking site. Others will be able to register to get their own personal link so they can keep track of their favorite photos.

If you click on your sharing link or on someone else's personal link, you won't be able to see your favorites anymore. If someone else clicks on your personal link, they will be able to see, add to, and subtract from your favorites. So, we don't recommend sharing your personal link.

IMPORTANT: We also post our favorites on our blog and, sometimes, our facebook page or sample gallery. (Again, if you don't want us to do this, please let us know in advance!) 

Details: We'll use your last name in the blog post but we can modify that to an initial or first names or whatever by request. We don't tell where you live, names of kids, or any other identifying information. Blog posts show up on our Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ pages and you are free to share them if you want your Facebook friends, etc to see the best of the best of your beach portraits!

Sample photos (our all time favorites that we want to share with the whole wide world in our sample gallery) will not contain ANY identifying information. They will post to our sample gallery, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest. You can tag yourself if you follow us on Facebook or Google+ and your friends can see your beach portraits. Its like getting a free digital download of your best beach portraits! We retouch all photos that appear in blog posts and sample galleries, so they'll look perfect!

    

5. You place an order.

There is absolutely no rush to complete this step! Unlike many other photographers, we do not place an expiration date on your online gallery. It will remain online indefinitely. You can come back and order photos in a year or ten years! Or, you can order them right away!

Here are a couple of helpful links to help you through the ordering process:

Print Prices and Ordering

What Size Photos Should I Order?

Adding Mats and Frames to Photos

How do I Purchase Digital Downloads of my Photos?

How Can I Create Holiday Cards?

How Can I Create Cards Through TinyPrints?

All prints and digital downloads are purchased directly through our website. Just fill up your shopping cart, enter your credit card number and address, and you're done!

     

6. We process your order.

Once you place your order, we receive a "Proof Delay" email. This allows us several days to retouch your photos and make sure they look perfect before they ship!

More about Proof Delay and Retouching

    

7. Your order ships, you receive it, you hang it on your wall!

8. You give us some feedback! (Please!)

Places to leave us feedback:

On our website (scroll to the bottom)

On Facebook

Tweet about us (just click the link)

Problems with your order? Please send us an email instead, so we are sure to see it and address the problem right away! (allyson at jasonscottphoto dot com)

More questions? Let us know in the comments below!

PS - Don't forget, you can also follow this blog on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or through your favorite feed reader

Frequently Asked Questions - Photo Retouching - What is Proof Delay?

One question we are often asked by potential beach portrait customers is, "Will you retouch our photos?" The short answer is, "Yes, but not until you place an order." Read on for a more detailed explanation!

We can control a lot of things when we get ready to take photos - lighting and posing for example. Unfortunately, we can't always control what is going on behind our subjects. Sarasota and the surrounding areas are home to many beautiful photo locations. These locations are also favorite "hot spots" for tourists and locals alike to enjoy the sun, sand, and tropical greenery of the area. Therefore, there are often people, boats, or other distractions in the background of an otherwise nice photo.

Another thing we cannot control is the weather. In cases of bad weather, we do our best to reschedule the shoot (and if we can't, we refund your money in full). However, sometimes there are weather conditions that might not warrant rescheduling or canceling, but can cause hair or clothing to be out of place in photos.

We can solve most of these problems through retouching. When we do a photoshoot, we often take hundreds of photos. It would be very tedious and time consuming for us to edit every single photo to remove the family enjoying the beach in the background of your family portrait! But, obviously, you don't want them in the background of the enlargement hanging your living room.

Our solution: "Proof Delay"

When you order prints from our website, there is a "proof delay" that occurs behind the scenes. During this time, we view your order online and see which prints you have selected. We then retouch only those photos that you have ordered, make sure they look "just right," and re-upload them to the online album so they can replace the non-retouched photos that were there before. You can view the retouched photos online as soon as we complete the order, so you'll be able to see the changes. We allow ourselves 7 business days for this delay, but if we finish early (as we almost always do) we'll send your order on its way ASAP. If you want to see the changes before we finalize the order, we are happy to make that happen - just let us know!

Some of the standard things we do to every photo you order include: reducing shine, imperfections, or redness from faces/skin, removing distracting items from the background or foreground, and removing stray or windblown hairs. If there are other specific items you want us to try to fix or remove, it is best to email us right away with your requests! We process orders quickly and we don't want to miss something that is important to you! Also, we use a professional retouching service (Retouchup.com) for tricky items that we can't do ourselves, so we need to know exactly what you want done when we submit the photos to them.

Important note: the bigger the print, the more detailed retouching we'll do for you... i.e. a 4x6 won't get as much attention as something really big, because you won't be able to see the detail in a small print anyway...

Here are a few examples of the retouching work that is included for free with our photography pacakges. (Roll your mouse over the images to see the "before" photos.)

  

For more answers to your questions about our print ordering process, please visit this page on our site!

PS - Don't forget, you can also follow this blog on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or through your favorite feed reader

Siesta Key Family Portraits - Dr. Schaub - Center for Sight

We met Dr. Schaub and his family at Siesta Key the other night to take some beach portraits. Center for Sight uses family portraits of their doctors with their families in the lobby of each of their buildings for marketing purposes.

When we got to our favorite spot at Beach Access 7, we discovered that all of the sea oats had washed away during Tropical Storm Debby! Yikes! We made the best of it and got some great shots of this beautiful family on the beach.

A big THANK YOU to Retouchup.com for fixing the beach on some of these photos for us - it was a MESS from the storm!

Here are a few of our favorites:

Siesta Key is a great setting for Family Photos. Check out our beach portrait package and our beach portrait FAQ to find out more!

PS - Don't forget, you can also follow this blog on Facebook, Twitter, or through your favorite feed reader

Frequently Asked Questions: Will you retouch our photos?

Please see this updated post for current information about retouching!

One question we are often asked by potential customers is, "Will you retouch our photos before we order prints?" The short answer is, "Yes!" Read on for a more detailed explanation!

We can control a lot of things when we get ready to take photos - lighting and posing for example. Unfortunately, we can't always control what is going on behind our subjects. Sarasota and the surrounding areas are home to many beautiful photo locations. These locations are also favorite "hot spots" for tourists and locals alike to enjoy the sun, sand, and tropical greenery of the area. Therefore, there are often people, boats, bicycles, cars, or other distractions in the background of an otherwise nice photo.

When we do a photoshoot, we often take hundreds of photos. It would be very tedious and time consuming for us to edit every single photo to remove the family enjoying the beach in the background of your family portrait! But, obviously, you don't want them in the background of the enlargement hanging your living room. Never fear, we have a solution already worked out for this problem!

When you order prints from our website, there is a "proof delay" that occurs behind the scenes. During this time, we view your order online and see which prints you have selected. We then retouch the photos, crop them just right, and re-upload them to the online album so they can replace the non-retouched photos that were there before. You can view the retouched photos online as soon as we complete the order, so you'll be able to see what you are getting. We have allowed ourselves 7 business days for this delay, but if we finish early (as we almost always do) we'll send your order on its way right  away.

Here are a few examples of the retouching work we do that is included for free with every photography package:

With small children, it's often hard to get low enough and close enough to the ground. But we were able to make this beach portrait totally adorable with a little cropping and retouching to remove the people from the background:

 

For this family portrait on Siesta Key, there were a lot of little things to remove from the background, a hazard of taking photos at a public beach.

 

Again, we removed background distractions from this photo, but also decided on a totally different crop because we wanted to focus on what this little girl was doing with her hands in the photo:

 

In this "Sports and Lifestyle" photo for Center for Sight, the background left something to be desired. They also requested that we make the logo on his hockey jersey bigger, which we did. We can also make any photo black and white or sepia by request.

 

For more answers to your questions about our print ordering process, please visit this page on our site!

PS - Don't forget, you can also follow this blog on Facebook, Twitter, or through your favorite feed reader

Related links

• Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers: a professional image editor's guide to the creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC
• Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and Retouching Faces and Bodies