When to Reschedule Your Photo Session

Today we’re going to talk about when you should reschedule your photo session.

I have to be honest here…I’m not one of those hard core, heavy duty photographers who will shoot in tornados and gale force winds and epic snow storms. That’s just not my style and I know that about myself. My clients know it too which is why they are my people. So just in general, I’m looking for conditions to be fairly moderate in order to shoot your session. With that important distinction out of the way, there might be some confusion about when it’s best to reschedule your photo session so today I’m going to clear that up.

Reschedule Your Photo Session – Sickness

This kind of goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway. If you’re sick, we’re rescheduling. I photograph newborns for a living and I’m not taking the risk that I could transfer an illness to those immaturely immune-systemed little people so let’s just reschedule that puppy and move on.

As a general rule, I typically don’t schedule on weekends unless absolutely necessary (this is selfish on my part so that I can spend the time with my family) so *if we need to* I probably have at least one weekend date coming up available to reschedule your photo session. More preferably, weekdays are my go-to for scheduling (think less crowds) and there are five of those per week so chances are good that not too many weeks will go by before we can get you back on my calendar.

Reschedule Your Photo Session – Prominent (New to You) Physical Blemish

You’d be amazed at how many people show up with some new skin situation going on that they didn’t think to alert me to beforehand. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not that easy to “just Photoshop it away” so we photographers wish you would not show up with that in mind. If a portrait session yields 70-80 images in your final gallery, that means I would have to minutely hand-edit every single one of those images to get them to your liking and here are two things you should know:

1. I don’t want to. 🤪
2. That’s not included in the basic edits I promise so each edit would incur a per-image charge of $5-10 and, trust me, you do not want that on 80 images.

I’m talking about things like an antibiotic rash, a sunburn, a stye, wonky tan lines, pink eye, etc. These things are not physically part of you from birth and they will go away with time so let’s reschedule your photo session for when this thing, whatever it is, is no longer happening.

Reschedule Your Photo Session – Bad Weather

See paragraph one but I will also reiterate here that no amount of bad weather is small enough to make me want to venture out in it to photograph your session. I’m not saying that to be mean, I have actual reasons:

1. My camera costs upward of $3000 and, depending on the combo of lenses I choose to bring to your session, that total gets bumped up a couple thousand dollars so we’re talking a pretty penny for replacement. I’m not risking weather damage to my tools (said sweetly, with a smile).
2. You don’t feel like ruining your hair and makeup and traipsing around in wet clothes. It’s not fun. Remember going to Kings Dominion as a child, getting soaked on the log plume, and having to truck around in wet jeans for the rest of the day? No bueno. Let’s not do that to ourselves, hmmm?
3. You won’t like the results. Ok. Maybe this isn’t totally true. (Please see Easton’s GORGEOUS foggy milestone session. I admit, it was glorious. But it was fog, not rain or snow. I’ll shoot in fog every day of the week, *including* weekends. You heard it here, folks.) Outside of glorious fog, you most likely won’t like the results. Dreary background, muddy feet, everything heavy and damp. Did I mention the frizzy hair? Just no. I love glowy light in my photos and that is not happening in bad weather. Let’s reschedule your photo session.

(Mentally picture all of this being said while I’m giving you a big hug because I Love You!)

Liz Viernes Photography is based near Potomac, Maryland, and specializes in maternity, fresh 48, posed and lifestyle newborns and first year milestone portraits.

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