Event Photo Editor for Fast-Turnaround Culling & Editing (Ongoing Work)

Signature Style Media is a video production and photo agency based in Dallas–Fort Worth. We cover events for nonprofits, cities, corporate clients, and brands. Our clients need their photos fast, while the event is still fresh in everyone's mind, so turnaround matters as much as quality here. We're looking to add reliable event photo editors to our roster. This posting is for one immediate project, but we run events regularly and want to build ongoing relationships with editors who deliver. Please note: we're seeing a lot of wedding portfolios, and wedding editing is a different discipline from what we need. If your body of work is primarily weddings, engagements, or portrait sessions, this likely isn't a fit. We're looking for editors who've handled conference, gala, and corporate event galleries: crowded rooms, stage lighting, candid business-casual audiences, and speaker coverage. The project We shot a full-day nonprofit caregiver conference in Dallas. Roughly 2,370 raw images from a single event: arrivals, vendor tables, breakout sessions, stage presentations, a keynote, brunch, and a high-energy community moment. We need the full set culled and edited into a delivered gallery of approximately 250 images. What the job actually involves: There are two parts, and honestly the first one matters more. 1. Culling and selection This is the harder half of the job and it's where we'll judge your work most. Pick one or two of the best frames per moment. We do not want five near-identical shots of the same thing. We want the story of the day, not an exhaustive archive. Someone should be able to scroll the gallery and understand what the event felt like. Look for expressive, demonstrative moments: hands in motion, people mid-laugh, genuine engagement, real connection between people. Cut the obvious rejects: blinks, mouths hanging open mid-word, awkward in-between frames, anything unflattering to the subject. Cover the full arc of the day. Don't over-index on one segment. 2. Editing Event-grade editing, not portrait retouching. We're not looking for skin work or heavy cleanup. Exposure, white balance, color, contrast, and cropping where it improves the frame. Consistency across the full set is the standard. The gallery should read as one cohesive look, not 150 individually edited photos. Mixed lighting is present (stage lights, window light, house fluorescents) so matching across conditions is part of the work. We'll provide reference images showing the look we want. Workflow We upload raws to a Google Drive folder and send you the link You download, cull, edit, and return finished files to a delivery folder. Deliverables: edited JPEG's. We'll ask for a first batch of 20–25 edited frames early so we can confirm the look before you run the full set. This protects both of us from a wrong turn. Turnaround 24 hours preferred. This is firm, not aspirational. If you can't commit to that window on this project, this isn't the right fit and that's completely fine. Rate $150 flat for the full event (all 2,370 raws culled and edited), plus a $25 bonus for delivery within 16 hours. We pay flat per event rather than per image on purpose. We don't want you incentivized to deliver more photos than the story needs. What we're looking for long term We shoot events regularly and want editors we can go back to. If this project goes well, we'd like to keep working together on an ongoing basis. Reliability, consistency, and hitting deadlines matter more to us than the lowest rate. To apply Please include: Answer this question: 1. You have six similar frames of the same moment. Walk me through how you decide which one to keep. This is the most important part of your application to us. 2. A link to event photography you've edited. Full galleries preferred over individual highlight images, since we want to see consistency across a set. 3. Confirmation that you can meet the 24 hour turnaround on this project. 4. Your experience with Lightroom. Please skip generic proposals. We read every application and we're specifically looking for editors who think about selection, not just processing.