The quick answers are up top. Everything underneath is the full version, one clause at a time, so you can read only the part you came for. No surprises kept in the small print, because there is no small print.
If your question is not here, the full terms are below, and the answer is in there somewhere.
A card goes on file when you book, and on most bookings nothing is charged until after your booking ends. The charge fires at the conclusion of the shoot, not when the gallery lands.
Bookings totaling $1,000 or more take a 50% deposit up front to hold the date, agreed with you before you book. The balance is due at the conclusion of the shoot.
Six sections, clause by clause. Every heading below is its own link, so you can send someone straight to the part that matters.
A valid payment method is required to submit a booking. It is stored securely with Square and can be deleted on request once the project completes.
The card is charged at the conclusion of the shoot. Not on delivery of the gallery, not by invoice after the fact. You have met your shooter, the session happened, and the time was spent. That is the billable moment and you are told so at booking.
For most shoots there is no upfront deposit at all. Bookings totaling $1,000 or more take a 50% deposit up front to hold the date, agreed with you before you book. The balance is due at the conclusion of the shoot. Deposits are also standard on weddings and on certain commercial projects, agreed before booking.
Post-production begins once the booking is paid. If a payment is late or a card declines, the project waits. We say this plainly at booking so a delay is never a surprise and never an argument.
Clients who require traditional invoicing are accommodated, handled manually rather than through the standard flow. Corporate engagements get a custom quote and a plan of action built for the job, which is the offer rather than an exception to it.
Payment is not contingent on loving every frame. We deliver to a professional standard and we offer revisions. Creative preference is subjective, and it is not a payment condition.
The windows below are the whole policy. Inside them, tell us as early as you can and we will find the next date that works.
More than 24 hours before the scheduled time, no penalty. Within 24 hours, the booking is charged in full, as though the session took place.
Free more than 24 hours out. Inside the 24 hour window a $99 fee applies, with exceptions for genuine emergencies at our discretion.
Handled at our discretion. Conditions that make a shoot genuinely impossible, meaning heavy rain, snow or high wind, reschedule at no charge. Overcast, light rain and cold do not qualify. Overcast is frequently the better light for photo and video production alike.
Commercial productions that commit crew, a location, or rented equipment ahead of the day carry their own cancellation and rescheduling terms, because the costs are committed before anyone picks up a camera. Those terms are set out in that specific booking and agreed with you before it is confirmed. Where they apply, they replace the 24 hour windows above rather than sitting alongside them.
Permitted, with no refund for unused time. The slot was held exclusively for you and is billed in full.
Setup and breakdown sit inside the booked time, so the number you agreed is the number that applies.
Not on arrival on the block, not at parking. We travel light, and a standard photo or video shoot is ready within seconds of walking in. A mobile studio setup with backdrop and lighting adds roughly five minutes each way, and that time is part of the booking.
Extensions are $89 per additional 15 minutes, billed from the first minute you run over, and subject to your shooter’s availability. Booking the time upfront always costs you less.
Setup and breakdown sit inside the booked time, so an early arrival is not included by default and is not something a booking implies. If you want us in the room before your window opens, that is additional time: book it and it is yours.
Early arrival, when it happens, is a courtesy, not a guarantee, and it doesn’t extend your booked time. If a shoot is time-sensitive, book the setup time you need rather than relying on it. We’ll usually be generous about it. We’re just not obligated to be.
A shot list, a mood board, a short brief, or a call. Pre-shoot alignment is free and encouraged. It makes shoots better, it costs nothing, and it is never presented as a paid add-on.
The line between what is included and what is its own service is drawn here, once, so it never becomes a conversation at delivery.
Every good frame from the shoot, color graded and post-processed, delivered digitally. No per-picture charge. You do not pay to unlock your own photographs, and you do not pick a tier that rations them.
All raw footage is included in the shooting rate. Editing is a separate service and worth taking, since unedited footage rarely gets used. A standard short-form deliverable is a one-minute, social-ready cut, and anything beyond that is quoted.
A separate service, at $65 for portraits. Retouching means altering what is in the frame: skin, background, body work. Real estate and product retouching are quoted separately. Available before or after delivery, so you can see your gallery first.
Scoped per project, and it starts with a free discovery call. That call is not a sales pitch, it exists to define the deliverables precisely: what you are getting, in what form, by when.
Billing is tied to those deliverables, and the payment schedule is agreed up front before any work starts. Nobody signs off on a number without knowing exactly what it buys.
Weddings cost more because they genuinely are more: pre-shoots, all-day coverage, heavier pre and post-production, often multiple shooters. They are priced on duration and guest count. Elopements under 25 guests book at standard rates. Events are billed hourly. Commercial work is hourly by default with usage layered on, and generally a conversation before a final number.
Turnaround is set at booking rather than discovered at delivery.
Photos in three business days. Video in about a week. Product photography on a similar timeline to video, since it is a deeper post-production process. Branding and Visual Strategy project deadlines are determined at the launch of the project.
Galleries are live for seven days from delivery. You are told at booking and reminded before it closes, so it is never sprung on you. After that we may archive or remove the files, and we cannot guarantee they are still available. If you miss the window we can usually restore your gallery for $65.
The Digital Archive service keeps your content backed up on our own server for an annual fee. It is a keepsake and a backup for work you cannot afford to lose, not a hostage situation.
Available on request, noted in your booking. For commercial shoots, raw usage is best discussed before the shoot rather than after it.
Two different things live here: who owns the work, and what you are licensed to do with it. Everyone gets generous use. Ownership is its own conversation.
In the U.S., the photographer owns the copyright to their work in perpetuity unless they explicitly relinquish it in a sale contract. That is the default, and it is ours.
Buying the copyright outright is possible and we will arrange it. It is expensive, and reasonably so: you are buying the asset itself rather than the right to use it, and the studio gives up every future use of that work at the same time.
First-party usage rights in perpetuity, granted as part of the booking. Print it, frame it, post it, keep it forever. There is no clock on it and nothing further to buy.
That grant is a license to use the work. It does not move the copyright, which stays with us.
First-party usage is granted the same way: your own website, your own channels, your own materials. That is included in the rate and it is not time-limited.
Third-party usage is negotiated separately. Billboards, in-store displays, print advertising, broadcast, and licensing to anyone who is not you. In practice that is usually granted for a defined term, months or years, priced against the reach and the audience it buys you. Perpetual third-party rights are available and are the expensive end of the scale, for the same reason as above. Agree it before the work runs rather than after, and it goes in the paperwork from the start.
There is a checkbox in the booking flow asking us not to use your images in our portfolio or on social. We acknowledge every request, we decide case by case, and in practice we say yes almost every single time. We also tend to ask first as a courtesy even when nobody has raised it.
Being straight with you, because it is better than a surprise later: that is a request we are glad to honor, not a right the booking transfers. We keep the underlying permission either way. If your work is sensitive, say so at booking and we will put it in writing.
Offered, and we work to make things right. Raise anything as soon as you can after delivery. Revisions are at our discretion, and as above, payment does not hinge on subjective creative preference.
Ask before you book rather than wonder afterwards. A sentence is enough, and you will get a real answer from a person.