The most common question prospective clients ask before booking isn't about pricing or location — it's "what actually happens?" A photography session is a structured 60–90 minute collaboration between photographer and subject, followed by 6–8 hours of editing, and delivered as a private digital gallery within two weeks. This guide walks through everything: how packages are structured, what the day looks like hour by hour, how pricing actually works, and what you can do to prepare. If you've been on the fence about booking, this is the post that answers every question you didn't know to ask.
The Package Structure
Photography packages exist because different use cases have completely different requirements. A LinkedIn headshot session and a family reunion shoot are not the same product — they need different amounts of time, produce different quantities of images, and serve different purposes.
Entry-level portrait (1 hour, ~20 edited final images): Designed for headshots, LinkedIn photos, and individual portraits. One hour is sufficient when the goal is 15–20 strong, consistently-lit images of one person. Going longer doesn't improve the outcome — it produces subject fatigue and redundant frames. Twenty clean, well-edited headshots are more useful than a hundred middling ones.
Mid-tier portrait and event (2 hours, ~40 final images): Built for couples, small groups, and half-day event coverage. Two hours allows for multiple setups, outfit changes, and the natural rhythm shift from directed to candid. For small events — a company happy hour, a product launch — two hours typically covers arrival through peak energy without the tail-off.
Commercial and full event coverage (3+ hours, 60+ images): For team photos, startup events, commercial product work, and anything with a genuine coverage requirement. A 100-person company all-hands needs comprehensive documentation, not a highlight reel. Commercial product sessions are scoped individually because the deliverable count drives the time, not the other way around.
The reason tiers exist is not upselling — it's matching delivery expectations to use case. If you need 5 perfect images for a press kit, booking 3 hours produces waste and costs more than necessary. If you need coverage of a 4-hour event, booking 1 hour means missing the most important moments. The consultation before every session exists specifically to land you in the right package.
What Actually Happens Day-Of
Here is the timeline of a typical 90-minute portrait session:
0–15 minutes: Warmup. Walk the location, test lighting conditions, let the subject get comfortable. No formal posing yet. This time is deliberate — it gives the subject a chance to settle, and it gives me a chance to read the ambient light, check for unwanted reflections, and finalize camera settings before the real work starts. The first frames of a session are rarely the best ones. The warmup period exists to get past that.
15–60 minutes: Directed portrait work. This is the core of the session. I call specific poses, adjust positions, and read the light continuously. The subject does not need to think about what to do — their job is to listen and react. Good direction sounds like: "chin slightly down and toward your left shoulder," "relax your hands," "look about six inches past the camera." Micro-adjustments produce noticeably different results in camera.
60–75 minutes: Candid and lifestyle shots. Lower pressure, more natural frames. I step back, give subjects space to interact with each other or just exist in the environment, and photograph what happens. This window frequently produces the best images of the session — the ones that look least like a photo session.
75–90 minutes: Review and wrap. Quick preview of a few hero shots on the camera LCD. The goal is immediate confidence that the session produced what we came for. It's also a natural close — subjects can see the direction of the edit and know what to expect in the gallery.
Pricing Rationale
The biggest variable in photography pricing is not the gear or the session hour — it is the editing time. Most clients don't see this part of the work, which is why pricing sometimes seems out of proportion to a 90-minute shoot.
Here is what actually happens after the session: a 90-minute portrait shoot produces 400–600 raw frames. Not all of them are good — some are blinks, some are mid-motion, some have a light shift that makes them redundant with the frame before it. Culling to the best 20% takes 1–2 hours. Then editing the selects to delivery grade — exposure correction, color grading, skin tone correction, background cleanup where needed — takes another 2–4 hours. The session fee covers the shoot plus approximately 6–8 hours of post-production. That is the real cost structure, and it's why you can't compare a photography package to an hourly consulting rate.
On the deposit: It reserves time on the calendar and covers scouting and prep time if the client cancels. This is not punitive — it is structural. When a time slot is booked, it cannot be offered to another client. When a client cancels without deposit forfeiture, the photographer absorbs both the prep time already spent and the lost revenue from the blocked slot. The deposit makes the booking real for both parties.
There are no hidden fees. Travel within the local area is included. If a session requires significant travel or overnight, that is quoted separately and agreed before booking.
Preparing for Your Session
The work you do before the session day has a direct effect on the final images.
Location: I will recommend 2–3 options based on shoot type. Clients can suggest their own location — familiarity with a space often produces more relaxed results. We scout together via a brief call or message exchange before the day. The questions I'm answering during a location scout: direction the light comes from at the scheduled time, whether there is interesting foreground/background, how much shade is available for midday sessions, and whether permits are required.
Wardrobe: Avoid busy patterns and logos. Solid colors photograph cleanest because they don't compete visually with the subject's face. For portrait sessions, bring 2–3 outfit options to add variety to the gallery — even subtle changes (jacket on/off, different color top) produce meaningfully different looks in a set of images. Avoid wearing your most comfortable clothes just because they're comfortable; wear what you want to be seen in.
Timing: Golden hour — the 60 minutes after sunrise or the 60 minutes before sunset — is the ideal window for outdoor portraits. The light is warm, directional, and flattering to skin tones. It creates depth and separation in ways that midday sun cannot. My second preference is overcast days: soft, even, diffused light with no harsh shadows and no squinting. Direct midday sun is the hardest to work with; it requires either shade or diffusion tools to manage.
What to bring: Water. Outfit changes if applicable. Any props that are personally significant — books, instruments, tools of your trade, items that represent your work or personality. Props are not required, but when they're meaningful, they add a layer of visual storytelling that generic poses cannot.
After the Shoot
Images are imported into Lightroom for culling — the process of reviewing every frame and selecting the ones worth editing. The culling pass is the most time-consuming and least visible part of the work. It involves reviewing 400–600 frames, flagging keepers, and eliminating duplicates, blinks, and off-exposures. From that pool, the final selection is made based on technical quality and coverage variety.
Editing passes cover: exposure balancing across the set (so every image looks like it was shot in consistent light), color grading for tonal consistency, skin tone correction (white balance and hue adjustments to render natural skin across different lighting conditions), and background cleanup where needed.
Delivery is through a private Pixieset gallery. The client receives a password-protected link by email. From the gallery, they can download full-resolution files, share a link with family or colleagues, or order prints directly through the gallery. The gallery stays live for 90 days from the delivery date. If archival storage beyond 90 days is needed, that can be arranged.
Standard turnaround is 7–14 business days. If a project has a hard deadline — a conference, a product launch, a publication date — communicate that at booking and I will work backward from it.
Booking
Availability and package details are at philipsun.com. Deposits are collected via Stripe at the time of booking. The booking confirmation includes a calendar invite for both parties. Questions before booking — about which package fits your use case, about location options, about whether a specific date works — go directly to me by email. I respond within 24 hours on weekdays.
I've shot BYU campus headshots, startup team events, mountain landscape work, and family portraits across Utah and the Wasatch Front. The goal is consistent across all of it: images that look exactly like the person, in the best light they have ever been in.