The Davidanelsonphotography difference.
Why Choose Us?
Image quality, Our work is currently published in five national magazines:Grease Inc (including March 2015 cover photo), Dames, Planes& Automobiles, Purely Pinup, Heels for Combat Boots (also July in their 2015 calendar), and Gauge Magazine. We are also one of the premier model photographers in San Antonio and our photos fill the profiles of the top models at Forte Modeling.
What makes our images standout from the rest? In a word:Lighting. On location we use off camera lighting. Photographs are about light and the quality of light. Using off camera lighting enables us to use light to create the image you want. The result is images that just pop, puts light in the eyes and makes the subject standout from the background. Check EmilyA’s senior gallery-many of those shots were possible only because we used off camera lighting.
Why don’t all photographer’s use off camera light? Frankly, they don’t know how, it’s a difficult skill to learn correctly (easy to do incorrectly and get that flashy look) and requires a considerable investment in time and equipment and often requires an assistant, so they advertise themselves as “natural light” photographers, trying to turn a negative into a positive. BTW, if your photographer has the flash mounted on top of the camera, run away, don’t walk away, unless you’re a fan of the DMV look.
It’s all about you
We are your slaves for the day, we will go where you want to go, do what you want to do. We will do anything to make this day a special day. Not only should your images be the best available the process of capturing them should be fun, exciting and an experience you look back at with great fondness.
You live in a Social Media world, why choose an old style studio? Our senior services are built around how you live in the Social Media World: Facebook, Instagram, Vine, SnapChat, Pheed, Tumbler etc. We provide you with a DVD of all your images resized and formatted for use on social media sites. Just upload and share what you want with who you want. We also provide a DVD of all your images full size and full resolution so if your parents, relatives or friends want photos we’ve got that covered too…And if you buy photos from us there no photo package requirements! Why should you be forced to buy photos you don’t want and need to get those you want? Why should you have to pay for a DVD of your photos? And, if parents and relatives want prints, we’ve got that covered too…And no photo package requirements.
We’re Affordable. You might think that with our national exposure and the extra mile we go, we would be very expensive, but we are not. We are probably the most affordable senior studio in San Antonio and there are no hidden charges, no hidden fees, what we tell you is what you get.
The Downside: With our work with models and publications and our couples and wedding photography we limit ourselves to ONE senior a day. And some days won’t be available.
However, we do shoot senior photos 7 days a week and at all times of the day.
The Essential Difference Between Us And The Other Studios
Virtually all other professional studios make their money selling expensive photos. Typically they will charge you a small sitting fee, take your photos, give you some proofs to review and then require you to purchase photos in packages. This gets very expensive quickly and you will find that if you want to buy a certain size photo that it only comes in a package with other photos, so you have to forgo getting some images you want or pay for images you don’t want.
We do not require you to buy photos. While you are under no obligation to purchase photos from us, we are contracted with a professional lab and if you want to order photos from us we can provide the highest quality for near Wal-Mart prices. And, if you choose to purchase photos from us there are no required packages, simply choose the images you want in the sizes and quantities you want. It’s that simple.
Packages and Prices
Our approach is very simple. Our package prices are all inclusive, there are no additional fees or hidden costs.
Premium Locations: The Settlement, The Lone Star Brewery (The San Antonio Art Museum) and the Sun Set Railroad Station are sites that charge us and we pass those fees on to the cost of your package. See our Premium Locations page for more details.
All Packages Include
- The opportunity to select 20-25 images to be finished. provided to you with a full release.
- Professionally finishing of all images (removal of blemishes, skin smoothening, color enhancement, removal of distracting background items, etc) Identical what we do for submission to magazine.
- A DVD of all the images, professionally finished and resized for use on social media sites.
- The finished fully size, hi-resolution images provided on a DVD for making prints/.
- A free web gallery on our site.
- We can create collages of you favorite photos in a size you want. Many can be shrunk and used to make graduation announcements. Collages are free provided at least 2 prints of the collage or ordered. If no print is ordered there is a $75 fee for our design time.
- Senior photo sent to your high school.
Studio or Location Only Package $375
Includes a three-hour session with unlimited wardrobe changes, backgrounds and poses. A location package includes two to three separate locations. We shoot at many locations (we can provide you a list and if you tell us what you’re interested in we can suggest locations to match), but if you have a special location in mind, just name it.
Studio and Location Package $525
This includes the Studio Package and the Location Package, (and you can do the sessions on different days). The cost is $525. That’s it, no extra fees and no hidden costs and we offer a 100% guarantee.
Country, Urban, Studio and Water Package ($850) We are offering a $50 discount to any senior(s) who arranges for a session before the end of April (the session can be any time before the end of October)
This is a full day, or more session. We will start shooting in the country and will work our way into the city where you will have a range of options from a fashion like shoot on the a main street of San Antonio, one of the many city parks, (Tea Garden). one of the Missions, along the River Walk, the Old Lone Star Brewery, Sunset RR station, Guadalupe State Park to various grungy and gritty locations. We will take a break, give you a chance to get a bite to eat and then freshen up at our studio, change hair styles and make up and then we will take some of the more formal and interesting shots in studio and we will end the day with a session in or near the water as the sun starts to fade. The Tea Garden, the Missions, the Lone Star Brewery and the Sun Set Station (if you want to shoot inside) are premium location which are an extra fee. See our Premium Locations page for details.
Can’t Uncle Fred Take My Senior Photos?
Well, he certainly could. Uncle Fred, is probably a good photographer and takes great vacation and family photos. But Fred is not a professional. As professionals we have invested thousands of dollars in equipment and spent hundreds of hours honing our skills in all aspects of photography.
We asked a couple of last year’s seniors to send us a “good” photo taken by a relative and below each we placed one of ours. We think our images speak for themselves.
Why we think it is a bad idea to have Uncle Fred take your senior photos.
1. Often when people see a great photo their initial response is, “Wow, you must have a great camera.” Actually the camera is the least important factor in a great photograph.
2. What separates non-professionals from professionals comes down to two factors, posing and lighting. The first is posing. Posing a subject is the most difficult skill to learn in creating a great portrait. Every element of the body needs to be posed. This is why magazines hire professional models. Since we shoot professional models most of the year, we can make you look like a professional model. The second element separating photographers is lighting. No matter how beautiful the subject, no matter how well posed, it is the light that makes the image spectacular.
3. What do you mean by lighting? Well, if someone puts you in the shade (hopefully not the sun) and took your picture that would be ambient light (see the two examples above), it would look ok, but you would not be separated from the background, the image would be flat looking and you likely would have raccoon eyes (shadows under the eyes). He could use the popup flash on his camera which would be bad, or the worst he could put an external flash and attach it to the top of the camera, giving you that DMV look.
4. We are one of only a handful of studios who balance ambient and flash. Done correctly the subject pops without that “flashy” look. Since light should never come from the same axis as the camera, we use radio controlled flash triggers to take the flash off the camera, place it at the correct angle to create dramatic images, soften the light with a softbox and using a 3 to 1 ratio and balance the flash with the ambient light.