Learn how to take professional-quality family portraits at home
With the rise in digital photography driving down the cost and availability of equipment, the price for professional photos seems to have remained stable. For instance, those adorable school photos we all purchase for our kids can range in price from a mere $15 to $100 and upward, depending on the package and the amount of photos printed. Furthermore, the company owns those photos so parents hoping to forward copies to relatives may find themselves in a murky copyright legal area. Once a hobby for those with means, digital photography has altered the field with affordable, high-resolution cameras. According to an article published by BBC:
“Digital cameras allow for novice and professional users to take a seemingly unlimited amount of shots in search of the perfect picture, while cameras themselves have become smarter and more capable of putting professional-quality results in the hands of new users.”
According to the US Department of Labor report for 2018, the average household spent $3,226 on entertainment costs (which includes photography fees) annually. This helped shape our survey, which we limited to those who have worked with a professional photographer. Our results supported the larger US Dept. of Labor statistic: over 50% had paid upwards of $500 when they hired a professional photographer.
When we asked survey respondents what were their main barriers to taking photos at home, 40% responded with concerns over quality, followed by 30% citing lack of knowledge and another 30% citing cost of equipment. Our survey told us that the average person is not only paying high prices, but that the reasons they were not taking their own photos were reasons that could be largely remediated through instruction. The gaps in information about the real cost of equipment, and about the principles and tools of photography that create quality are what we have chosen to focus on in our design. This involves large components of composition, but also technical use of the camera as a tool (learning to utilize certain settings).
Why photography?
The parents in our target audience are the new users named in the article from the BBC. What is more, digital photography has a substantial margin for error with very few consequences: one can take a near endless amount of photos in pursuit of the one that will work for their purposes. In terms of risk versus reward, families stand to save on average $500 per year if they learn how to take quality photos at home, while only spending a moderate amount of investment on equipment.
Please begin with the Student Orientation:
Works Cited
Bureau of Labor Statistics. News Release: Consumer Expenditures 2018. 10 Sep. 2019, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cesan.pdf.
Castella, Tom de. Five Ways the Digital Camera Changed Us. BBC News, 28 Feb. 2012, https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16483509.
Picchi, Aimee. Avoid Overspending on School Photos. Consumer Reports, 18 Aug. 2018, https://www.consumerreports.org/shopping/avoid-overspending-on-school-photos/.
This is a functional copy of an independent, asynchronous module created by Mark DeLuca and Casey Twining.