How? - What? - Where? - Why?
Q: Why are your AlisonWonderland Creative Portraits and packages more expensive than the regular photo sessions?
A: Ah this is a big one.... and i'm so glad you asked!
First of all, no good photography should be cheap, people who run professional photography businesses have very high running costs, they are usually highly skilled having invested years honing their craft, training and using the best equipment and maintaining it etc, not to mention insurances, software, technical equipment, website hosting and all the usual business costs, that's before we start on the actual photography itself; think about how much time is involved from taking a booking, preparing for the shoot, understanding the expectation of our clients, the photo session itself, then the choosing and editing ... it can take hours and hours of work.
That's for regular photography.....
With the images i'm creating here you can count all of the above plus the creative vision, years of art college and thousands of hours spent learning how to manipulate images digitally, use Photoshop and get the results I want... ( I'm still learning, every day is a school day - exciting!) preparation for the session could take some time too, depending on what we have planned, sometimes props have to be created, bought or sourced. Then each image takes anything between 3 and 12 hours to create! .... Also Stock photography has to be either sourced, purchased or created myself to include in the images to enhance the scenes and help to realise our vision, think about how many hours therefore go into one package; that's before you get any USB stick or prints.... also included!
This is not just any regular photoshoot - there is a time and place for those - I value them highly, this is so much more, a special bespoke session to capture something totally unique not to be held as jpg images on your phone or Facebook for ever more... this is so you have a beautiful work of art for your walls, to display with pride, & to treasure for yourself, as heirlooms to be handed on, or as gifts ... This is an AlisonWonderland experience!
Photo Taken in back garden
Created in Wonderland
photo taken at Unicorn mini session
Q: I know i'd like to book a creative portrait session, but can't decide what to have, Can you help?
A: I certainly can, all of my sessions start with a chat, sometimes in person over a drink (and sometimes cake!) and sometimes over the phone or Skype if 'in person' isn't possible, We chat about things you like, or that your child likes, the kind of images you've seen that you like the look of, we talk about what you don't like too, it's just as important!
I find out lots of things to fine tune some ideas, I do the hard work don't worry, it's a fun exploratory conversation, we talk childhood memories, films, songs, books, toys, paintings, all sorts... you'd be amazed at where the inspiration can come from! If on the other hand you have a clear idea of the sort of thing you'd like, we can talk about that and see how it could work for us an image.
You can also look at my Inspiration Gallery page which is a selection of just some of the images I've created,
Created in Wonderland
Created in Wonderland
Created in Wonderland
Photo taken in local woodland
Q: Where do you do the actual photo sessions?
A: That depends on what we're aiming for as an end result, but generally a local park or woods is perfect, if we particularly need to be near a pond or lake, or in town then we'll fix a location to suit the images we'll be creating. I'm happy to travel within approx 30 mins at no extra cost.
I've had lots of interest from lovely people all over the South East that are prepared to travel to my beautiful neck of the woods and then make a day of it while they're here, if you'd like to do this i can even offer advice about good places to go!!
I will gladly chat about traveling further afield but will have to charge a little extra.
Q: I'd like studio style photographs - do you offer those?
A: yes, i have a mobile studio i can pack in my car nd bring to you or a pre organised location, a viallge hall for example - there is no price difference for natural light or studio photo sessions
Q: Do You offer just pet sessions?
A: yes! - absolutely i love them and have done many ove rthe years - lets chat!
the prices & packages are the same as my family sessions so go to that page for info
Sometimes i do pet pop-up mini sessions through the year - watch out for these on my social pages
Please Show me some love
client's holiday snap