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Same-day photo delivery: proofs on the spot, edits when they are ready

October 17, 2026 · 3 min read

Maya and Tom standing side by side on a brick street, looking at the camera, in warm light — Maya and Tom got twelve proofs before they crossed the road. The two edits came by email on Thursday.

Delivery time is the thing clients remember. Not the lens, not the lighting, the gap between the shoot and the pictures. The gap used to be a week because editing was the bottleneck. It does not have to be the bottleneck for the first delivery, because the first delivery does not need editing. Split it in two.

Delivery one: proofs, before they leave

Straight out of camera, unedited, every usable shot. Delivered on the spot, so the person walks off with pictures on their phone and something to send to their partner before they have reached the car. This is the delivery that makes people talk about you.

Objections, and why they are smaller than they look:

"They'll see the bad ones." So cull in camera, or cull on the phone before you show the code. Two taps per shot. Nobody has ever been upset to get twelve good proofs instead of fifteen.
"Unedited is not my work." Tell them it is the raw take and the edits follow. People understand proofs. They have seen a contact sheet, or at least a film.
"They won't pay for the edits if they have the proofs." The opposite, in practice. The proofs are the thing that gets them excited enough to want the edits. Hold back nothing and the edits sell themselves.

Delivery two: the edits, when they are done

Your normal workflow, at your normal pace, with one difference: you already have their email, given by them, attached to the shots it belongs to. No "which Sarah was this". The edited files go to that address by whatever you use today, a gallery link, a transfer, an attachment.

What delivery one needs

The shots on your phone as you take them. A card reader in the field is possible and slow. A tethered camera is the real answer: a short USB-C cable from a Canon to an iPhone, and each shot lands on the phone as the shutter fires. How to set that up.
A JPEG or HEIF next to the RAW, so the phone has something to show. The RAW waits for delivery two.
A way to hand them over that does not need their details first. A QR code to a web page: they scan it, see the pictures, save them, and leave an email if they want the edits. How that works for them.

The StreetKit groups screen on the photographer's phone, one group per person — Your phone, one group per person, shots arriving live.

The guest page with the photos and a Get the edits card asking for an email — Their phone: the proofs, and the box where they leave an email for the edits.

Where this fits

Street portraits. The whole point. The person is gone in a minute; delivery one is the only delivery that reaches most of them.
Mini sessions and markets. Fifteen minutes per family, one group each, a code at the end. Everyone leaves with pictures, the edits follow, and the queue behind them has seen it happen.
Events. One group per table or per couple. The code goes on a card or on your phone. The guest book fills itself with emails.
Where it does not fit: a wedding's main set, a commercial shoot with an art director. Those have a contract and a delivery clause. Use the two-delivery idea for the sneak peek, not the job.

Previews now, full size after

On a street or at an event the phone is on cellular. Previews of each shot upload in a second or two; the full-size originals wait for Wi-Fi unless you allow cellular. The person sees previews at once and the page swaps in the full files later without them doing anything. For most people the preview is already better than anything their own phone would have taken.

Pricing the two deliveries

Keep it simple. The proofs are included, always; they are marketing. The edits are the product. If you charge for a session, the edits are what the session buys. If you shoot for free on the street, the edits are the thing you offer when someone emails and you both decide what happens next.

Questions people ask

Will clients expect same-day edits once they get same-day proofs?

Say the edit timeline out loud when you show the code: "These are the proofs, the edits come by email in a week." People hear the week and still leave delighted, because they have pictures now.

What about RAW files, can the client get those?

They can be kept and shared, but an iPhone cannot display a Canon CR3, so a RAW-only delivery shows nothing on their phone. Deliver the JPEG proofs on the spot and keep RAW for your own edit.

Does this work with my existing gallery service?

Yes, for delivery two. The proofs on the spot are the new part; the edits go out the way they always did.