When I first started my business it was only me. My vision, my ideas and my baby. Being a creative it was all about me and making art that was unique to my style for my clients. In our busiest year we shot about 60 weddings (about 50 for me and 10 for my associate photographer). At that time I was doing all of the post production work, marketing, accounting, album design…… and learned 2 very important things that year. One was that in order to grow a small business and have it be a sustainable business you really have to let go of some control. What if you got sick and needed to take a month off? Your business you worked so hard at would come to a halt and could be ruined. To run a sustainable business you really have to let go of some things.

The 2nd reason for me was simple, free time. After having kids I realized that life isn’t all about work, and we all need some extra time off. Having a way to outsource parts of your workflow can be a huge timesavings. And it should really be worked into your costs so you aren’t going to be making less just working a little less. At first it can be scary thinking about giving up control with your business where image is everything and you strive for the perfect image to deliver to your clients, but there are some great way out there to outsource some work and still have great quality results. And with that being said I have to talk about a company I recently found that does some excellent work, PWD labs.

Free yourself with PWD labs

I recently used PWD to do the post production on a recent wedding. From my initial conversations with them I really liked their philosophy of trying to get to know you and your style and creating images that really fit the style you have spent years creating. I was a little bit skeptical though, people tend to talk a big game up front and then once you are in the door they heard you through like cattle. It’s just the way I have become accustomed to with business, I think its really hard to find a business that is really focused on its customers. But they assured me that although there is only one of me, they will try as hard as they can to create images just like I would. From the start I could tell that they really did want to get to know me, I started with a survey detailing my style. They wanted to see my portfolio and setup a time for me to talk to my post production expert before the job even began. She collected more information about me and my style from the survey I filled out and really wanted to learn more about my work.

As the job began I received a few updates from their customer support staff giving me updates on the status as well as hearing from my post production expert with additional questions and updates along the way. I always knew where my job was and when it would be finished. They are located in Georgia and I don’t know if it was the southern charm or just good old excellent service but I really felt like they took care of me at every step of the process and had a genuine concern for my images. It felt like my babies were in good hands.

The best part really though was the end, I got fantastic images that fit within the brand and style I have been working on for years. All while saving a ton of time. Like I said at the start I think the only way to have a sustainable wedding or event photography business is to get help with the things you can so you can spend more time doing what you love doing (and get paid to do) take more photos. Most photographers now spend more time than ever in front of the computer color correcting images when you should leave that to a professional and free up your time. If you can use a little extra time to either grow your business or spend time with you family I suggest you check out PWD labs at https://www.pwdlabs.com/. They also offer a 25% discount to first time users.

A little more about their services

They offer a pretty wide range of post production services. You can have them do everything from selecting the images for you and doing highly stylized images of the selections to just a basic color correction. They can even do custom portfolio images for you and album design.

And if you would like to check out some of the images they did for me, view this highlight slideshow below:

Hyatt wedding san jose, fine art wedding photography from mark stagi on Vimeo.

Company bio: PWD Labs is a post-production shop that has built a reputation for quality work and exceptional customer service. In addition, PWD operates its own print lab, and offers albums and album design services to professional photographers. Visit them online at: https://www.pwdlabs.com/.