Custom Photography Service

Introduction

Here at Aardstorm we can provide you with pictures that you require that are not available from the stock photography market, through the services of our resident professional photographer. Examples of such pictures could be photographs of your products, your premises, or even you or your staff. Maybe you want them for use on your website or in you product catalogues, brochures, or other promotional materials, or even as prints to hang on your office wall.

Our photographer can come to your premises or any other location that you specify to take your pictures, using a high-resolution digital camera and associated equipment. We can also help you to arrange a suitable location for the shoot.

This service is primarily intended to complement our other website design, document and picture services, to allow you to illustrate your site or document with unique or otherwise unobtainable photographs. You are also welcome, however, to use our service stand-alone, to provide pictures for use by yourself or a third party.

The rest of this page describes our photography service in more detail, including details of the information we will need from you to arrange the necessary photo shoot, and a description of how we will supply the resulting pictures to you. See our fees summary page for details of our standard charges for this service.

The Photo Shoot

If you make use of this service, our professional photographer will visit you to take the pictures that your require, using a high resolution digital camera and associated equipment.

The highly specific nature of the subject(s) that you are likely to want us to shoot, will almost certainly require our photographer to visit a specific location. We do not have our own studio facilities, but if your project requires them, we will hire them at a mutually convenient location – please enquire for details. We can, however, accommodate photographing smaller items at our own premises, so you could ship the item(s) to be photographed to us. In this case you should give us prior notice of the delivery, and either provide us with the necessary return postage, or we will add the return costs to your next invoice.

The location of your shoot will most likely be your own premises, but could be any location you specify, for example to obtain an attractive or complementary background, or even to specifically take pictures of that location. If this is not your own property, then permission may be required from the owners for its use as the location for a commercial photo shoot, which may result in additional fees. You could handle this negotiation yourself (we will need to see evidence that you have obtained adequate permission prior to the shoot), or we can handle it for you. In this case we will charge an additional location administration fee, as well as passing on any fees from the location owner.

Once a suitable location has been found, then a date and time for the shoot that is mutually convenient for all parties will be arranged. This may need to be outside normal business hours, for example to minimise inconvenience to, or interference from, your customers or other passers-by. If the subject of your picture(s) has to be photgraphed outside, then the arranged time will be conditional on the weather, and may have to be rearranged at short notice.

On the day of the shoot, our photographer will arrive at the location at the arranged time with the equipment necessary to take your pictures. The objects or people that are to be the subjects of the pictures should also be present at the appropriate time. The pictures will then be taken to your requirements using a high resolution digitial camera. Usually many more pictures than you ultimately require will be taken, to provide you with a choice of pictures from which to select each final image.

Picture Selection and Delivery

Once your pictures have been taken, we will do some basic post-processing work and select the best ones for you to make the final selection. We can supply you with these pre-approval images, optimised for on-screen viewing, on CD or DVD ROM within a few days of the shoot, or we can present them to you in person shortly after the end of the shoot while we are still on location. This could be later on the last day of the shoot, or on the following day. We will not charge extra for this presentation, except to cover any additional overnight stay.

Once you have selected the specific pictures that you require from those presented to you, and they are destined for use as part of our other services, then we will proceed to incorporate them into your website, document, or manipulated picture. If you require your pictures for other purposes, either internally within your own organisation or for supply to a third party, then full-resolution versions, in the format you specify, will be supplied to you on CD or DVD ROM

We can also supply high quality prints of your pictures, up to A3 in size, from our own inkjet printer. We can also supply such prints mounted and framed, ready to hang on your wall, or printed in larger sizes or on a variety of special materials, such as canvas, through a commercial printing service. Please enquire for details.

Photography Process

The process used by Aardstorm to take pictures to your requirements will normally consist of the following steps:

1. Request Quotation

You request us to supply a quotation for taking the pictures you require. At this point you need to supply us with sufficient information about your requirements for us to accurately estimate the work involved in producing your pictures. This will include such information as:

  • The type and number of pictures required.
  • What is to be photographed.
  • Where the photographs are to be taken, and who is to negotiate for the use of any third party locations.
  • Approximatly when the shoot is to take place.
  • What the pictures are to be used for.

If you are also commissioning any of our other services, perhaps to make use of the pictures we find, then you should also state your requirements for these too.

2. Supply Quotation

On receipt of your request, we will use the information you supply about your requirements to estimate the amount of work and other costs involved for us to take the pictures that you require. If anything about your requirements is unclear, we will request clarification from you. We will then produce a firm quotation and send it to you. This will include a firm price and schedule for the work to be done (subject to no significant changes to your requirements), together with a summary of your requirements so that you can check that we have understood your request.

3. Place Order

If you accept our quotation, and decide to commission us to take your pictures, you then place a firm order, and pay a deposit of 50% (less if stage payments have been agreed) of the total photography and any other document and picture service fees, plus 100% of any third party fees. At this point you need to also supply us with the full specification for the pictures that you require, if you have not already done so.

4. Photo Shoot

Once we have received your deposit and final requirements, we will then negotiate with yourselves and any necessary third parties to arrange the necessary photo shoot(s). We will then take the pictures to your requirements, at the agreed place and time.

5. Picture Selection

Once we have taken the pictures you have requested, we will supply you with preview copies for you to view and select from the alternatives, as described above. We will also send you our invoice for the remaining fees or stage payment due.

6. Picture Supply

You should then notify us of your selection along with your final or stage payment. We will then produce the final full-resolution pictures and/or prints for each of the pictures you select, and supply them to you, unless we are to also use or modify the pictures through our other services.

Copyright and Licensing

We normally retain the copyright in all our work, and our standard licence only covers pictures that are either to be published (free of charge) on the internet, used or distributed internally within your organisation, or incorporated by ourselves into other documents that are to be distributed free of charge to your customers or clients; you will be able to make as many copies of our work as you like for these purposes, or we can supply additional copies for additional fees.

If you intend to sell the pictures we produce for you, either directly or as part a larger document, or distribute them to others other than as described above, then you will also require some form of production licence from us. Please contact us with details of your requirements to negotiate the additional fees for this.

Communication

All communication between us and you, throughout any photography project, from request for quotation onwards, will normally be via e-mail or regular post. However, at your request, then we are happy to visit you for a face to face meeting, perhaps to dicuss your requirements in detail, or to present the results of our search, but an additional fee will apply to each meeting that is not part of a photo shoot visit, to cover our travelling costs.