How many times have you said (or heard someone say), “I don’t need to hire a photographer, I’ll just take the photos myself.” In some cases, this is very fair, and probably a good idea. However, there is a reason photography is a profession. There is a good chance that you don’t have access to the equipment needed to take or edit amazing photos. Even with all of the advancements in cell phone cameras, there is still a noticeable difference. Let me show you.

The first big difference is the ability to edit. Here are a few before and afters from my work that illustrate this.

Here is an example of professional photoshoots and at-home “fails.” These comparisons were found on Pinterest and are not my own. While these photos are definitely exaggerated (i.e. the crying), you can see that the lighting and the editing is extremely different between the professional shoot and the home-made shoot.

Not my photos.

This is a photo taken with the iPhone portrait mode. You can see that the depth perception of the phone is not entirely accurate. If you look at the photo of the lemons, you will see that areas of the background are still “in focus” and sharp, rather than being blurred. In fact, there is barely any depth of field in this photo. Conversely, the photo of the tulips has too much depth of field, and therefore some of the tulips themselves are blurred. This is because the phone software adds in the depth of field blur after the photo is taken, it is not a true depth of field as would be detected by a DSLR.

Not my photos.