Ok I need to say something and if I hurt anyone's feeling than I am sorry and your going to have to deal with it.
I have been stressed to the max these past few months and instead of letting everyone else win and giving up the one thing I love doing, I am going to say something. I run my business the way I WANT TO RUN MY BUSINESS!! I will NOT change my business because someone else runs theirs differently. I edit EVERY SINGLE image I offer to my clients because I want my work to look as best as it should and you all deserve the best. I tell every single one of my clients and my website also states that I have a turn-around date of 2-4 weeks and sometimes longer depending on how many sessions I am having to work on at a time and even longer for weddings. You have to understand that your session is not the only one I am working on at a time. I have several session that I work on at the same time because sometimes staring at a screen for hours on end in one day at the same images will just drive you crazy... Try it and you will see!! I spend at least 4-8 a day working on images and even then I am still seeing images and colors when I look away from the screen. I charge the amount I do for sessions because currently as most of you know, gas is not cheap! I have to pay for my own gas to get to and from a session and sometimes I even have to travel out of town for sessions. I then spend 60-90 minutes at a session taking images on a DSLR camera that is not very cheap, with several lenses that were just as expensive as the camera that I pay for out of my own pocket. Then I go home, sit in front of the computer for hours at a time and edit anywhere from 20-600 images (depending on the session) and I either spend an hour or so while uploading them into an online gallery for your viewing or I upload them onto disks that I have to personally pay for out of my own pocket yet again. Then I either have to spend my own personal time and money again to meet clients to get them their disks or I have to travel to the post office and mail them out, make sure that they all have tracking and insurance incase those images are lost (which has happened in the past).
Now do all of you realize what us photographers go through, please be considerate the next time you email us every hour asking if your images are done yet. We are taking away from our own family time to make sure you get your images within the timely manner. Thanks for reading and I hope you give your photographer a little more credit once in awhile.