---
title: Photographer playbook
description: What a photographer's clients look for before they get in touch, which
  pages carry it, and the worked site to start from; read `building` first.
sidebar:
  order: 5
---

What a photographer's clients look for before they get in touch, which pages
carry it, and the worked site to start from; read `building` first.

## What their clients are deciding

A client picks a photographer on four questions, roughly in this order:

1. **Do I like the pictures?** Style decides it, and style is shown, not
   described. The work is the first thing on the site and most of it.
2. **Can I afford it?** A price or a "from" price for each kind of shoot.
   A photographer who hides prices loses the clients who would have booked
   and keeps the ones who only ask.
3. **Are they free, and what do I get?** For weddings, the date. For
   everything else, how long the session is, how many edited pictures, and
   when they arrive.
4. **Will I be comfortable with them?** A face, a few sentences in their own
   voice, and how a shoot actually goes.

## Pages

- **Home.** A first screen with the trade and the city, the call to action,
  and the best wide picture. Then a gallery of 6 to 12 pictures, mixed in
  proportion to the work the owner wants booked (a wedding photographer who
  shows mostly portraits gets portrait enquiries). Then services with prices,
  then who they are, with a picture of them.
- **Services**, once there are more than three packages or each needs more
  than two sentences: what is included, hours, number of pictures, delivery
  time, deposit.
- **Work**, when the owner has whole shoots worth telling: one item per
  wedding or session in the `portfolio` table, with a cover, a line of
  summary and a few paragraphs (`vzk/tables`, "Portfolio"). Three good
  ones beat twelve thin ones.
- **Blog**, only if the owner will write in it. Good posts answer what
  clients ask before booking: how a wedding day runs, where to shoot in their
  city, what to wear. A blog with one post from launch day hurts more than it
  helps.

The call to action is one of "check your date" (weddings) or "book a
session" (everything else), wired to an enquiry form (a public `enquiries`
table and a form that names it, see `vzk/tables`) or to the owner's booking
link.

## The worked site

The `sites` topic carries a whole photographer's site: `photographer/index`,
`photographer/services`, `photographer/work`, `photographer/work/[slug]`,
`photographer/blog` and `photographer/blog/[slug]`, in the `mineral` look, in English
and Ukrainian, with a portfolio table and a posts table. Take its
structure, its field layout and its translation pattern, never its
sentences: Mira's promises and prices are hers.

Two things not to copy. Its booking buttons are drawn as `<button>` with
nowhere to go, so wire yours to the call to action above. And its picture
frames show placeholder labels; yours should show the owner's files once
they are on the disk (`vzk/pages`, Files).

## Ask the owner

On top of the brief in `building`:

- Which kinds of shoot they want more of, and which they would rather stop.
- For each: price, length, number of edited pictures, delivery time, deposit.
- How far they travel, and what travel costs.
- How booking works today: an email, a call, a date check, a booking link.
- Their Instagram handle, and the 10 to 15 pictures they would put first.
- Whether couples or clients in the pictures are happy to be on the site.

## Copy

The pictures carry the feeling, so the words carry facts. Name the place and
the kind of shoot in captions ("Elopement, Tempelhofer Feld"), not the mood.
Avoid "capturing moments", "timeless", "memories that last forever", "your
special day" and "storyteller": every photographer's site says them.

The about section is where the owner's voice matters most. Use their bio or
captions and keep their phrasing. A detail only they could say ("I still cry
behind the camera once per ceremony") is worth more than a list of
qualities.

## Pictures and look

- The hero is their single best wide picture. A portrait-only photographer
  uses a tall frame instead.
- The gallery keeps the owner's crop. Mix wide and tall, and don't put two
  pictures from one session side by side.
- No watermarks, and no pictures edited in a style they no longer shoot.
- `mineral` is the default. A photographer with a warm, film look may suit
  `claret`; one with a loud editorial brand may suit `press`.