How we calculate the rating

A website of your own costs money: a domain runs 10–30 $ a year, hosting 50–200 $ a year, and the build itself takes 40–80 hours done yourself or 500–3000 $ paid to a developer — and after that it has to be maintained. Photographers who take the craft seriously invest in this; those who shoot as a hobby usually don't. So an own website does a decent job of filtering out the people who have no long-term intent behind the work.

1. 5 / 5
   Own domain (photographername.com or studioname.co), not a templated design, a security certificate in place, mobile layout, updated in the last 6 months, indexed in Google on relevant searches like "Pattaya wedding photographer."
2. 4 / 5
   Own domain exists and the site works, but it's dated (last updated 6–18 months ago) or clearly built on a template you can spot on other photographers' sites. Functional, but with no investment behind it.
3. 3 / 5
   No own domain, but a strong, coherent presence spread across several platforms at once — say, a tidy Linktree, Instagram, a Facebook business page, and a curated set on Pixieset or 500px. Works as a stand-in for a site.
4. 2 / 5
   Minimal presence on a single platform (only Instagram or only Facebook), occasional posts, no portfolio structure — a chronological feed with no breakdown by genre.
5. 1 / 5
   A search for "name + Pattaya photographer" turns up no central point. Only scattered mentions in other people's feeds, with no home of their own.

Social platforms are a public portfolio surface, where a future client sees the work before the first message is ever exchanged. We measure two things here: breadth — how many open platforms carry the photographer's work — and scale, meaning the number of followers and likes. All of it is public counters, and any reader can check them.

1. 5 / 5
   ≥2 open platforms carrying work, with at least one of them at ≥10 000 followers or likes. An organized portfolio (a curated grid or a structured site), a profile with the photographer's name and a way to make contact.
2. 4 / 5
   ≥2000 followers on one platform with an organized portfolio and at least one additional channel; OR ≥2 platforms with a public, organized portfolio, none of them reaching 10 000.
3. 3 / 5
   ≥1 platform with public work and an organized portfolio (a clear profile description, a breakdown by genre), under 2000 followers or the counts hidden.
4. 2 / 5
   One platform exists but it's thin: <50 publicly visible works, an unculled feed, OR the only declared platform is unreachable or abandoned.
5. 1 / 5
   No open channels at all, OR every channel is closed, private, or deleted.

A name is a reputation you can't shed and start over under a new banner. A photographer ready to put a real name on the work shows they're here for the long haul, whereas anonymous brands tend to vanish the moment a reputation takes a hit. In the end a client hires a person, not a logo — all the more so when it's a wedding or some other occasion that can't be redone.

1. 5 / 5
   The full real name is visible across all sources and matches between the site, social channels, and business registration (where that's available); the photographer's portrait is publicly visible; there's social confirmation — press mentions, links from industry peers, professional networks.
2. 4 / 5
   The real name is documented and confirmed across several sources. The identity is clear even without prominent press features.
3. 3 / 5
   The brand comes first, but at least one specific photographer can be identified behind it — on a team page, in an Instagram bio, or through social tags.
4. 2 / 5
   Brand only; no individual photographer is identified. A generic "such-and-such studio" with no people's names.
5. 1 / 5
   Anonymity with contradictions (different names on different platforms), OR an outright refusal to disclose identity, OR signs of a fake (stock photos for "the team," biographical details that don't add up).

A professional kit is expensive: a body like the Canon R5 is 3300–3600 $, a 24-70 f/2.8 lens another 2000–2500 $, an 85 f/1.4 portrait lens 1800–2200 $, a flash 300–600 $. And professional work calls for several of those lenses and flashes, so a full working kit easily comes to 10 000 – 30 000 $. Gear is rarely discussed among masters of the visual arts — not because it doesn't matter, but quite the opposite: leading professionals have always reached for the best tool available in their time. Canaletto built his vedute through a camera obscura; Degas and Eakins worked with photography in the nineteenth century. A serious author invests in the instrument, and a public description of their gear is an observable trace of that. The ones who say nothing about it most often shoot on a phone or a consumer kit.

1. 5 / 5
   A full professional kit described — at minimum one professional body, three or four professional lenses, and one or two flashes (the bar is taken from the kit requirements in the Canon CPS Gold program). Models are named specifically, and behind-the-scenes frames confirm the gear is genuinely in use.
2. 4 / 5
   At least one specific camera model and at least one specific lens or light source named, but the kit falls short of a full professional one. Behind-the-scenes frames show the gear in use.
3. 3 / 5
   A general mention of "professional gear," with no models. Or behind-the-scenes frames show a camera is present, but the specific models aren't named.
4. 2 / 5
   Gear isn't described, the shots give no basis to judge it, and there are no behind-the-scenes frames.
5. 1 / 5
   Clearly shot on a phone, OR a consumer kit in the behind-the-scenes frames — a plain kit lens, a built-in flash, no separate lighting.

Experience in photography accumulates and compounds: over time you come to read the light before the shoot rather than after a few failed test frames, you build the habit of working with tired clients and awkward situations, you learn to pull yourself together after a technical slip. A long track record acts as positive selection: weak photographers eventually stop getting hired. So experienced authors usually state their tenure — for them it's part of a professional reputation.

1. 5 / 5
   7+ years of documented work. Confirmed by the oldest Instagram posts, business registration, or archived snapshots of the site on archive.org.
2. 4 / 5
   4–6 years of documented work. A steady presence, verifiable older posts.
3. 3 / 5
   2–3 years of documented work. A growing practice, with enough volume to judge consistency.
4. 2 / 5
   Under 2 years, OR a tenure that's claimed but not backed by open traces.
5. 1 / 5
   Under a year, OR a tenure that can't be verified, OR contradictions in the claimed tenure across different sources.

Pattaya's light, weather, and conditions are fairly specific. Tropical noon on white sand behaves nothing like noon in a temperate climate, golden hour here is shorter because of how close the equator is, and the monsoon season shifts the whole schedule. A local photographer knows which beach is empty at which hours, which hotel allows shooting, which spots look better in a given wind. Knowledge like that isn't picked up in a single season.

1. 5 / 5
   Has lived in Thailand 5+ years (Pattaya, the eastern coast, or Bangkok with regular work in Pattaya). Local knowledge is obvious from the choice of shooting spots and timing in the portfolio.
2. 4 / 5
   3–4 years in Thailand. A confident local presence.
3. 3 / 5
   1–2 years in Thailand, OR a steady pattern of regular trips (3+ months a year for several years running).
4. 2 / 5
   A short stay (under a year), OR seasonal visits (1–2 months a year).
5. 1 / 5
   Not based in Thailand. Flies in only for commercial shoots, with no continuous presence.

A single tourist client often books shooting across several different conditions in one day: a hotel interior, an open beach in the daytime, sunset, and then dinner under warm artificial light. A photographer who only shoots confidently outdoors in daylight can't cover that booking in full. So we treat versatility across the four pairs of conditions — interior or outdoor, day or evening — as a baseline technical competence.

1. 5 / 5
   All four combinations (interior day, interior evening, outdoor day, outdoor evening) are present with confidence, each with several successful examples at the level of a competent commercial photographer.
2. 4 / 5
   All four combinations are covered, but one is thinner than the rest — say, strong outdoor day plus outdoor evening plus interior day, and only 2–3 examples of interior in the evening.
3. 3 / 5
   Three of the four combinations are covered well, one is missing or clearly weaker — say, almost no evening interior work, or all the outdoor shooting is daytime only.
4. 2 / 5
   Only two of the four combinations are covered. The photographer is effectively a specialist for those conditions.
5. 1 / 5
   Only one combination. The portfolio is, for instance, only outdoor daytime work in natural light, with no examples of the other three.

This is a separate criterion from versatility, because many photographers never pick up a flash at all. Almost everyone manages with natural light, but controlled lighting — directional flash, reflectors, mixed illumination — comes only to those who trained for it specifically. Without that skill a photographer falls down on sunset shoots (without flash you get either a dark silhouette or a blown-out sky), hotel interiors in the evening, banquets in dim halls, and formal posed portraits.

1. 5 / 5
   Both natural and artificial light are represented with quality work. Flash is applied with an understanding of direction, modifier choice, balance with the ambient light, and color temperature. Multi-source setups are visible in studio or controlled scenes.
2. 4 / 5
   Both natural and artificial light are present and applied competently. The flash is functional rather than artistic — one off-camera flash, a basic softbox, or bounced light.
3. 3 / 5
   Strong natural light but limited flash work. A few artificial-light examples exist (usually formal portraits), but the photographer clearly prefers natural light and reaches for flash only when forced to.
4. 2 / 5
   Natural light only, with rare exceptions. No sign of confident flash work. Evening interiors come out high-ISO, blurred, noisy.
5. 1 / 5
   Natural light only, no flash at all. Evening interior bookings are either turned down or shot as mediocre, high-noise frames.

Even when a client needs just one type of shoot, a multi-genre photographer will usually shoot it better. Any shoot breaks down into phases, and each leans on a skill from its own genre: at a wedding the getting-ready and the rings are still-life work, the ceremony itself is reportage (the moment can't be reshot), wide shots by a temple or a villa draw on an architectural eye. A photographer who has genuinely worked in those genres has logged hundreds of repetitions in each and wins phase by phase where a narrow specialist relies on the familiar flow of the shoot. So breadth of coverage directly predicts the quality of the specific session. This criterion counts how many genres the photographer is actually strong in; the depth within each is assessed by criteria 7, 8, and 10.

1. 5 / 5
   Five or more genres at the level of competent quality: wedding, family, portrait, interior, commercial, or a similar set.
2. 4 / 5
   Four different genres represented.
3. 3 / 5
   Three different genres represented.
4. 2 / 5
   Two different genres represented.
5. 1 / 5
   Only one genre. A narrow specialist (which is no obstacle to being excellent within the niche — that's read by criterion 10, if the specialist has a recognizable style).

Behind a personal style sit deliberate aesthetic choices — a color palette, an instinct for framing, a way of relating to the subject, a manner of processing — and it's exactly those that set an author apart from a merely competent technician. In hiring a photographer with a style, a client buys a vision and knows in advance what they'll get. With a photographer who has no style, they're buying a service that any competent technician could deliver. Style shows in the consistency of those choices across the whole body of work, not in any single frame — the way criticism has always read authorship. This is the postmodern shift: the unit of an author's statement moved long ago from the single piece to the series, and a photographer's style is legible in the edited sequence. Two consequences follow: style is assessed across the full catalog, and selection itself becomes part of style — here the author selects as much as shoots. It stays a judgment, not a metric; but a judgment with an explicit, named position — which is exactly what a public method needs at its most subjective axis.

1. 5 / 5
   The author's hand is recognizable in every series. A trained eye will pull this photographer's work out of a lineup of similar ones. Color, framing, distance to the subject — consistent across years of work.
2. 4 / 5
   Strong consistency in the work of the last 2 years. Older work may differ — evolution is normal and acceptable.
3. 3 / 5
   The signature shows in the best work, while the rest of the series look templated — they could have been shot by anyone.
4. 2 / 5
   Incoherent — the portfolio looks like a mix of work from several photographers. No discernible stylistic choices.
5. 1 / 5
   No style. The frames look like a stock "professional photographer," indistinguishable from the rest. No through-line is visible.