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I do part time photography jobs (i.e. it is not my main source of income, but the occasional weekend thing).
I have just started doing the odd family event, eg christenings, family shoots etc.
A couple of weekends ago I did a child's birthday party. I went outside my original timings (I did an extra hour for them just for PR purposes) and spent quite a bit of time touching up the images, post processing etc afterwards.
I delivered the images on a couple of CDs to the client today but she emailed me before and is not happy.
Her complaint is that some of the images are missing - she listed quite a few and wondered if "there were any more?".
My work flow is to initially cull any duplicates or ones which I think are not very good rather than giving them every single shot I take. So I think she was sharp enough to remember most shots I took on the day and can therefore not find ones that I deleted during the post production stage!
I can probably retrieve the RAW files from my CF cards, but where would you draw the line on this, and secondly how should I respond to her? Is she being reasonable or unreasonable?
For example, I am missing one of her and her hushand shot a certain way (I gave her images of the two of them but must have culled a few back due to their similarities).
The flipside to giving her every single image I shot on the day (around 500 or so - I gave her jsut over 300) is this will highlight the not so good shots.
Location: Hate VT & hopefully moving back South someday which can't come soon enough
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In my opinion I think she's being unreasonable. You went out of your way and spent an extra hour with them and she also got a CD with a lot of images. A lot of photographers don't give their clients CDs unless if they pay extra for them, which I'm sure she doesn't realize.
I'm not exactly sure what to tell her besides the fact that during the retouching process you took out the duplicate shots, ones that may have been slightly out of focus, or ones where people blinked or were looking away because there isn't a need to keep those around.
Location: Splitting time between Dayton, NJ and Needmore, PA
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What did the contract or service proposal specify? My usual practice is to make it very clear what the price will be and what that gets the client in writing.
If the agreement was verbal, it's going to be dicey because you may have one idea of what your services are while she will have a completely different set of expectations. If you didn't provide a clear understanding of the fact that you would be choosing the photos that she would get, then she is within her rights to expect a full compilation of all photos taken. Did she know she was getting the extra hour free-of-charge?
I agree with RUNYYfan, you must have a contract, I don't care if it's your part-time gig only. The contract will spell out anything and everything about what you provide, and any limitations. If you don't have a contract, you need to get one ASAP! This will protect you and your client.
Did she have a list of poses that she wanted to get? Or was it just go-with-a-flow thing?
As far as unhappy client, if you feel she potentially can give you a "bad rep" perhaps offer to re-shoot and restage poses she wanted.
When doing portraiture/family stuff, only offer them so many images, not the whole entire CD of them.
I too cut duplicates/bad exposure etc, but i limit to what they get. I will upload what came out and let them choose what they want. No particular shot is ever guaranteed, unless it was precisely stated and instructed with a list of poses they want. Which never actually happens because it is not my style, but that's a different story.
Thanks for all the useful advice - much appreciated! It was entirely a verbal arrangement, mainly as she was a friend of an ex-workmate. The only agreement prior to the shoot was how long I would work for, and what sort of shots she was after (reportage mainly).
I guess it is a learning experience - going forward I'll stipulate exactly what I provide and for how long, and in a written context.
I was able to get some additional images for her (ones that I had "culled) - I burnt an extra CD and dropped them off to her today. She was pretty nice about it so hopefully a happy ending .
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You went out of your way and spent an extra hour with them and she also got a CD with a lot of images. A lot of photographers don't give their clients CDs unless if they pay extra for them, which I'm sure she doesn't realize.
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