Photography has a cycle few trades share: a wedding is booked twelve months ahead, prepared over six, happens in one day, and is delivered three weeks later. Between the first message and the final payment there is almost always more than a year — and a lot gets forgotten in a year.
One activity per kind of work
They have different lead times, different rates and different clients:
- Weddings and events — booked very early, big budget, a single day.
- Portrait and family — short, repeatable, seasonal.
- Commercial — corporate, product, property; business invoicing.
Then filter Statistics by activity. Plenty of photographers discover that one strand takes three quarters of the time for a third of the money. That is the number that makes you drop a service or raise a price.
The quote, then silence
A couple contacts five photographers, shortlists three, and takes six weeks to decide. Meanwhile your quote sits there.
After you send it:
- an appointment for the first conversation, status Scheduled;
- a reminder at day 4, recipient User — a short message, not a sales chase;
- if the couple says they will decide "after the holidays", a reminder on that exact date.
It is unremarkable, and it is exactly what your competitors are not doing.
See reminders.
The year between booking and shooting
This is where ProContact really earns its place. Between signature and the day itself there are milestones that do not arrive on their own:
| Milestone | Reminder to set |
|---|---|
| Deposit due | Once, recipient User |
| Engagement shoot / location recce | Once, recipient Both |
| Running order to confirm, one month out | Once, recipient Both |
| Balance to request | Once, recipient User |
| Delivery promised | Once, recipient User |
Set all of them on the day the contract is signed. You will stop thinking about them, and they will still happen.
The running order, written and shared
This is the heart of the relationship, and it is what prevents the disaster on the day.
Create a note on the shoot's appointment and tick shared with client: timings, locations, who must be in the group photographs, light constraints, what you will not be doing.
Then let the client write. From their portal they add their own notes: the group list, the grandmother who must not be missed, the exact address of the venue. You no longer have to reconstruct eight months of emails the night before.
See notes.
Image consent, taken seriously
You photograph identifiable people and you keep their contact details: you are processing personal data, and if you publish the images you need their agreement.
ProContact lets you email a contact a consent request and keeps the evidence: date of the request, date of signature, version of the text accepted, IP address.
Be clear about what that covers: it is the collection mechanism and the audit trail. The content of your consent — what you publish, where, for how long — is yours to write, and for the licensing of your copyright it is your contract that governs, not this tool.
See GDPR and consent.
What ProContact does not do
No delivery gallery, no image hosting, no contracts or invoices. You will keep your delivery tool alongside.
What you gain here is the part nobody manages: the twelve months of follow-up between the first message and the final transfer.
In short
| Situation | What you do in ProContact |
|---|---|
| Quote sent | Scheduled appointment + day-4 reminder |
| Contract signed | Every milestone set at once, through to delivery |
| Preparation | Shared note with the running order, added to by the client |
| People photographed | Consent request with an evidence trail |
| Shoot completed | Status Completed + delivery reminder |
Ready to start? See the 10-minute setup.
This guide builds on ProContact for tradespeople, which covers the four problems every trade shares.