I work for a small agency/web design company as their main photographer. Well, their only, more or less.

I like my job, for the most part. We’re only a small team of 4-5 people, and we don’t have high status clients per se (mostly builders, roofing companies, medium tech retailers, small beauty brands and the like).

The agency is built with above all speed and efficiency. Basically, a lot of bang for the buck. We invoice the clients per hour, and many of them are used to low prices and very rapid delivery. Run n’ Gun style of shooting is to put it lightly. To have a full day for something is a rare luxury.

Now I find myself needing some advice.

My boss has zoned in on the fact that he thinks our production and delivery pipeline is too long. Specifically the editing and delivery part.

We shoot in RAW for photo and V-log for video. He wants the customers to see pictures “right away”, and preferably a short edit sample of video as well. Right away can mean doing it while travelling from the shoot, basically. He also wants everything (all files) uploaded to Google Drive after very shoot regardless of end time, and insists on giving all clients access to all files, regardless of their knowledge of raw or log-formats.

Naturally, we’ve had complaints from clients who look at the unedited raw material and thinks it’s ugly/unfinished. I totally get this as most of them do not know anything about post processing, and can hardly take a decent mobile phone photo. Everything we deliver post edit and finished is usually praised and well received, especially the ‘cinematics’, colors, visuals etc.

Now, my boss has discovered the DJI Pocket 3. He believes it’s the holy grail to our problems. He imagines it will take our projects from - for example, 3-6hrs (which can be a project for us, which would be including travelling to location, set up, shoot, editing, delivery etc) to 1-3hrs. So, my role would be to go out, capture video with the Pocket 3, and chop it up in my phone. No edits, no processing and bam, case closed.

As a professional photographer this… honestly makes me feel bad.

I already combat the hectic, “fast food” way of making productions as high quality as we can, even on low budgets. I break my back to make a company selling renovations or cleaning services look like a high end set commercial, all remote, often solo, with minimal planning and guidelines.

My boss is not a photographer, he has no knowledge of the field outside of being a pretty skilled drone pilot. If he’s with me on a shoot he’ll use a gopro to capture “usable material”, which he imagines can be mixed with a Lumix S5iix straight out of camera. When we sometimes have disputes about the quality and editing times, he’ll say most clients would be happy with the shorts he creates from the gopro and drone in YouCut on his phone. I think he believes this, but I also know a lot of our clients who look at it and say “that’s nice” before waiting for the final product are probably just that, being nice.

So - long story short (sorry, guess I needed to vent a little): how do I talk to my non-photographer boss about all of this?

Am I being artsy, difficult and pretentious?

Is it wrong of me to want to have more time on shoots, more time in editing and use “proper gear” for focus, lighting, stabilisation etc?

Is he wrong for thinking that a Pocket 3 can replace a camera on the level of S5iix or FX3? Am I wrong for thinking it can’t, at least fully?

Maybe most importantly - do you, as experienced photographers and videographers, have any thoughts or arguments I can bring to what I imagine might be a difficult subject to discuss?

My boss is a nice enough person (if very stubborn), I don’t hold any grudges and I’d like to keep my job (at least for now), but I also feel more and more constrained and limited by the mentality and stress. We are absolutely not a Peter McKinnon outfit or high end studio working with RED cameras, 1000$ lenses or huge sets, but… I don’t know. I kind of got into this wanting to make something more than “fast content”.

Thanks for reading 📸❤️