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02/06/2014 03:39:32 PM · #1
A little while ago, I did a shoot for a client. The idea was to take pictures of a wedding event space, while the wedding was happening, so the company could use the images for their promotional marketing (it is an event planning company). The contact I had at the company was a friend of mine from an old job, and I got the gig through this person.

Since the beginning of my relationship with the company, I bent a bit to a few demands which I would not normally entertain. For example, I usually charge by an hourly rate, and maybe will provide a rough estimate of the number of hours a project might take. For this instance, they specified having a low budget, so I set up a fixed charge to them. When sending my contract to them, they made me change a term in the contract which essentially handed them over the full copyrights to the images; it was specifically pointed out that I would not own the images and would not be allowed to upload them to my own portfolio, or website, or anything like that. I agreed to this, since I wanted to start things off being in good terms with the company, with the hopes of them thinking of me first when it came to future projects/shoots.

The wedding shoot itself went fine. I stayed longer and came earlier than their suggested timeline, and took about 140 raw images. My shooting window was about 2 hours, and I had to dodge around people setting things up as I moved from room to room.

Now, come editing time, I send over samples as I complete them, maybe about every 8 final images I produce I send them over a package with the samples. This leads to me obliging another thing I wouldn't normally have done; I let them instruct me on how to edit the images. In my contract there is a section saying I will have full control over the editing, and the production, and which pictures I choose to edit, and that I'm not obliged to send all the images, only the ones I see fit, etc. etc... But they have requests, like make this part brighter, we want this scene more blue, so I meet their requests. No big deal.

After about 15 final images produced, I send them over another package of samples. They really like them. They ask me "Is this all the images? Or are there more?". I respond saying there is still more to come, there will probably be around 22 final images which I will be sending over. No answer for them.

I produce about 21 final images, I send them over as samples. They say they love them, they look fantastic. They pay me, and then I proceed to send over the full resolution images over dropbox.

A week or so later I hear back from them, and that's when things go downhill:

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FIRST EMAIL FROM THEM:

Hey Lanndon,

Thanks for these, just downloaded them. You said there were a lot of shots from the wedding. Are we able to get the unedited photos as well? You can always mail a USB or a DVD.
Let me know.

MY RESPONSE:

Hi,

I'm sorry, but as policy I don't provide my unedited images.
The images, before special processing by me, are in a special format that you need software to read and decrypt. They're in a way the "film negative" versions of the digital images, and turning them into positives is part of the service I provide!

Hope this is okay!

-Lanndon

THEIR RESPONSE:

HI Lanndon,

Every professional photographer that we work with provides us with all, if not most, photos, some will even just provide us with the memory card and then a DVD of the edited photos for marketing purposes. If this is your policy, then I guess it is what it is, but it is very disappointing to receive only 22 photos from the shoot. We work with a handful of professional photographers for our internal stuff and this is the first that I have heard of a policy like this. Your contract only states "The COMPANY is not liable to deliver every image taken at the event,. The determination of images delivered to the CLIENT is left to eh discretion of the COMPANY". I understand that all images may not be usable from a shoot, but as a client, I would expect that we would get most of the shots from the event, including the unedited versions. It feels as though you are holding the rest of our photos for ransom. For future, if we are only going to receive the edited shots and nothing else, then it would have been nice to be given the option to review all the photos prior to editing to pick which ones we want edited.

MY RESPONSE:

Hi,

I'm sorry you are dissatisfied, and I will work with you to ensure a satisfactory solution is reached.

First, let me explain a little bit of the rationale that goes behind this policy:

I think you may have misunderstood my previous email, so I will explain a little bit more. The way I capture images ensures they are encoded in a special "digital negative" format, which I have special software that allows me to decode the images. This allows me to bring to you the highest level of technical image quality; the images are not captured in "jpeg" format, so I need to process each image in order to bring you those jpegs. That is one reason why I do not send out all my originals to client.

Another, and for me a more important reason, involves the quality of my finished product. The proposition behind my business and brand is focused on consistently bringing the utmost technical and artistic quality to the client I work with. I do everything I can to ensure that only the best quality images reach my client, and that only images made by me which I feel meet my very high artistic and professional standards circulate out into the world. This is why I painstakingly process and edit images, and spend immense dedication at the event, studio, or setting to make sure I capture the best images possible, by taking many test shots, lighting and white balance calibrations, and camera adjustments. I become very uncomfortable at the thought of releasing these many test shots, or releasing images that I do not feel reach my high standards of excellence; they were never intended to be used as a final product.

However, great client service is also a cornerstone of my business proposition. In the end, satisfaction is paramount. If you like, for this specific instance, I could process small versions of the originals so you can view them, send them to you, and you can see if there's anything else from the shoot that you would like me to take a crack at editing. I cannot guarantee the quality of these images, however.

In the context of this particular shoot, do understand that the 22 finished images I sent were taken in a very short "window of opportunity" in between periods where the event space was being set up. A great deal of effort went into their creation. I am confident that my work in every way meets my demanding standards, and exceeds the level quality that might be found throughout the rest of the industry.

Again, I am sorry you are feeling dissatisfied, and I hope my aforementioned recommended solution helps resolve things. Keep in mind that my policy surrounding this issue is indeed a very common policy in the industry, and I am surprised you have not encountered it before.

Let me know if this helps clear things up, and don't hesitate if you have any more questions!

-Lanndon

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After that, they never emailed me back. The person in question does not seem to be happy at all, has removed me from facebook, things of that nature. I don't think they'll want to be using me again.

Question is, could I have handled this situation better? How would you guys have handled it? From the beginning, I felt like I was obliging many of their demands that maybe I shouldn't have been. Did they feel like they could take advantage of me in the end? Or perhaps I should have given in to this final demand as well, and it was wrong of me not to?

Message edited by author 2014-02-06 15:40:44.
02/06/2014 03:49:07 PM · #2
Well, if it were ME I'd have sent them all the images and washed my hands of them, crossed them off my approved-clients list. YOU kept the images and they've crossed you off THEIR list. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Good Riddance. I especially hate the argument "All our other photographers..." It's so juvenile: "But mom, all the OTHER guys are doing it!"
02/06/2014 03:49:59 PM · #3
not to be flip, but you shouldn't have done this job in the first place. it went off the rails with " I bent a bit to a few demands which I would not normally entertain" and proceeded to crash from there.

i've give a better response later, but the bottom line is this: success is a matter of managing relationships and managing expectations. if you're not working in partnership and not on the same page, you will be lucky to wind up with everyone feeling happy.

sorry this happened.
02/06/2014 03:52:22 PM · #4
Originally posted by Skip:

not to be flip, but you shouldn't have done this job in the first place. it went off the rails with " I bent a bit to a few demands which I would not normally entertain" and proceeded to crash from there.

i've give a better response later, but the bottom line is this: success is a matter of managing relationships and managing expectations. if you're not working in partnership and not on the same page, you will be lucky to wind up with everyone feeling happy.

sorry this happened.


to be fair, I don't do pro shoots very often at all. my thinking was, maybe my ways of doing things aren't the best way. maybe if i try it their way i'll find out what is normally customary in the business.

however, as for sending the unedited originals, that was something i was truly uncomfortable with, and from what i understand, a lot of other photographers are very hesitant about that. so i wouldn't give in for that.
02/06/2014 03:55:24 PM · #5
I would have asked them to sign a non-disclosure agreement stating that they would never attribute the unedited images to me, and then simply handed over the raw files.

In fact, I think that is STILL a valid option.
02/06/2014 04:06:40 PM · #6
If "Every professional photographer that we work with provides us with all, if not most, photos" then they are dealing with a very odd group of professionals. Almost every professional, or for that matter serious duffer, need to keep control of their output, and that means both editing and selection of the final product. 12 images that the client are happy with is a good exchange for 2 hours of billed time in my experience.

Sadly I think what you are dealing with is the rising expectation that professional photographers are expected to enter into a relationship where the client holds all the advantages and the contractor is seen as having none. That is certainly the was the residential real estate market has gone, and most professionals have given up on that market in my area. Cameras are good enough that most anyone can take decent images, and certain clients now see photography as a fungible commodity where they do not need to credit the photographer with the rights granted a professional.

Frankly when they said that they were going to hold all the rights to the images you were going to create for them, that was the only sign you needed that they were one of "those clients".
02/06/2014 04:20:44 PM · #7
I second Cory.... Plus, the clients ALWAYS pick the lousy images... but they are the client and of course always right... What I do, is convert to jpg, slap a big ol' copyright across the front and send all that are respectable. Unless you told them you had shot 140, they wouldn't know how many you had taken, so not telling them allows you to say that's all I took. I don't know what their expectation of quantity was, but 21 seems light to me. (and again) I don't know the amount you got paid. That may have been more than they should've got for the money....

Doing what Cory said might get you off the "bad photographer" list, but I would cross them off n not do work for them again!!

02/06/2014 04:27:05 PM · #8
Originally posted by littlemav:

I second Cory.... Plus, the clients ALWAYS pick the lousy images... but they are the client and of course always right... What I do, is convert to jpg, slap a big ol' copyright across the front and send all that are respectable. Unless you told them you had shot 140, they wouldn't know how many you had taken, so not telling them allows you to say that's all I took. I don't know what their expectation of quantity was, but 21 seems light to me. (and again) I don't know the amount you got paid. That may have been more than they should've got for the money....

Doing what Cory said might get you off the "bad photographer" list, but I would cross them off n not do work for them again!!


Also keep in mind that in one of their responses, they said "For future, if we are only going to receive the edited shots and nothing else, then it would have been nice to be given the option to review all the photos prior to editing to pick which ones we want edited."

In my response to this, I offered to do exactly that, to send them originals from which they can pick which ones they would like to be edited.

But you're right, maybe I should have gone above and beyond and just sent them all the original raws. Something still feels a bit funny about that to me though...

They paid me $300 for about 5 hours of work, but i ended up editing for about 13 hours on top of the 3 hour shoot. not a big deal though, i wanted to make sure i did the best job possible.

Message edited by author 2014-02-06 16:29:57.
02/06/2014 04:32:01 PM · #9
When starting out as a "gun for hire" the hardest thing is to decide what your non-negotiables are. We want to book the deal, and are often willing to overlook Draconian terms, or give up more than we feel comfortable doing in order to land a new client. I have learned (with significant help from Skip) that 90% of the issues can be avoided by being clear up front - "managing expectations". I just completed a job that I accepted, even though the fee was below what I normally charge. I spelled out beforehand what they would (and would not) get in return for the reduced fee, making sure that I was comfortable with what I promised, and it has all worked out.

FWIW, copyright is the one thing I won't sell unless they are willing to pay for it. And I would never agree to not being able to use the image in my port unless they are willing to pay exclusive use fees.
02/06/2014 04:34:14 PM · #10
I second what, both, Skip and Brennan said.

I will add to what Skip said:
Originally posted by Skip:

if you're not working in partnership and not on the same page, you will be lucky to wind up with everyone feeling happy.


Absolutely! I almost never encounter a client that I don't end up developing a relationship with that is more of a partnership than it is a service provider and client relationship. If my photo shoots don't end getting everybody excited about what we are doing and working together I would rather not work with them again. I certainly would not fret about never working with your client again. They seem to have become accustomed to working with photographers who are far less professional than you and I would lay a heavy bet that the quality of their work pales in comparison.

I don't know that you could have handled it any better other than to clearly spell out what their expectations should have been. I'm not saying that you didn't try, though.

But that's the past. Move on toward clients who you can work with, not for.

Message edited by author 2014-02-06 16:34:44.
02/06/2014 04:43:45 PM · #11
Originally posted by LanndonKane:

But you're right, maybe I should have gone above and beyond and just sent them all the original raws. Something still feels a bit funny about that to me though...


....and it should. I have only given up my raw files once and it was to a corporate client that I trusted (Neil Pryde Limited). That was about four years ago and I won't do it again. You made a good case why we shouldn't and I stand by it.

I absolutely don't want my "test shots" as you called them, nor anything other than my best work out there for anybody to see and judge me by. I think that anybody who is a serious professional should ensure that their seen work is representative of what they do.

Heck, I won't even do it for my nephew and his bride. I've told them to pick what they want from all of the shots and I will edit them. They offered to let me off with just giving them a DVD with all of the pictures. She actually preferred that for some reason. I had to explain to her that I will not do that, not even for family (and even especially for family) and that I would prefer to do weeks of editing before I allowed all of the unedited and "should have been culled" images to be seen.
02/07/2014 08:54:40 AM · #12
You, sir, need to find a better class of clients.
02/07/2014 10:34:17 AM · #13
by this point we've gotten past the could-have-handled-this-better and you're moving on to bigger and better things.

one thing you can do is to offer as part of the initial delivery a gallery for previewing and selecting. whether you do this on disk or online doesn't matter. basically go through and pick all the deliverable images, make a basic pass for exposure/wb/sharpening, then size to 800px/72dpi/quality 60% and watermark with either your logo, the word "proof" or both. provide those to the client for them to make their selections.

and, regardless of whether you do this on a regular basis or not, please charge sustainable rates. you do no one - the client, yourself, or the community of professional photographers - any favors by charging so little. $300 for 5 hours work is low to begin with, but justifiable if you are simply handing over cards with no further obligation. $300 is not sustainable for a half-day rate, let alone a full-day rate, which is where you would be shooting raw and processing for delivery. when you charge too low, one of the unwelcome side-effects is that you train clients into thinking that your rates reflect market rates - and that is not good. i know you said you don't do this on a regular basis, but, even so, i would ask you to consider others.

good luck going forward.
02/07/2014 11:10:53 AM · #14
I wouldn't ever give all of the RAW files. Not all the images I take are good -- and I don't want sub-standard pictures going out with my name. The customer might like some of the bad photos, but if I'm not happy with it, they're not going to see it.

I just was at a photography group meeting where someone did a presentation on product photography.

The interesting thing was, he said don't give them more than 2 images per product. Any more than that causes difficulties. I thought that was unrealistically small, but it is interesting that when I'm in a group trying to decide on a photograph, when it's an issue of the first or the second, it's pretty straight forward. When it's between 7 images, no one seems to be able to come to a consensus.
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