I am a semi pro photographer still with a lot to learn. I had a photoshoot recently where it all seemed to go wrong and I don’t know how to address it with the client.
This is a client I have worked for a lot in the past and they’re always happy with my work and rehire me for all their event photography.
They reached out saying they needed a lifestyle / headshot type shoot in their restaurant. This was split into two parts, one with a child and a food product and 5 different types of shots to get the 4 different type of shots with multiple food products. They gave me 1 hr to do the whole shoot.
I arrived an hour early to set up but client turned up 20 mins late. Then the restaurant didn’t have the correct food products for the shoot. There was no representative from head office just the two staff members to be in the shoot (not models)
We spent half an hour alone trying to sort the food products out and then I finally began shooting. 1st staff member was a reluctant model and it too a while to get her to relax by which time food product had melted and needed to be remade.
By the end, I was on site for two and a half hours, even though I was only being paid for 1 hour.
I’m not even happy to provide the client with the shots because they’re not good enough. (Client with eyes closed, blurred or product out of focus)
Currently, I’m thinking of sending the client what few shots I do have and explaining the issues but I don’t want to make it should like excuses for my lack of experience.
Do I write the whole shoot off and use it as a learning experience? I have definitely learned not to let the client dictate the time of a shoot.
“If this restaurant is paying a low cost photographer it is doubtful they’d pay someone twice the price to do the same thing.”
That’s exactly what undercutting is, isn’t it? But I get what you are saying, and you’re right. Someone who can’t afford to spend €500 on a designer purse will never buy the original one anyway. They will buy the retail dupe. But at the other hand, someone who is a fulltime professional and fully depends on it to make an income, will have costs, expenses, taxes, that a photographer who does a paid job here and there doesn’t have. They háve to ask higher prices, for the same work. Because not all of them are in the luxury bracket of the market.
I guess it all depends on the situation, it’s not that black & white. My undercutting comment was just an afterthought, that’s why I put it in brackets.
The point of my comment was to express my genuine surprise at someone who seemingly lacks a basic beginner skill going professional. As I have already explained in another comment, I am only talking about that basic skill. Taking sharp photos of still objects. No matter de circumstance.
I am not talking about managing & leading shoots, setting up lighting, making contracts, directing models, dealing with client expectations. I am not talking about taking photos of moving objects, people, action, sports, animals, kids… I am not talking about the less technical, more intuitive skills of photography like composition, colour, background…
Which OP dóes seem to have talent for, or she wouldn’t have paid work nor repeat customers.
Those are indeed learning curves, even for professionals.
If you say her shoot went wrong because of stress. Yes, of course it did. Of course you stress if you’re taking on a job that you’re not ready for. That’s my whole point.
I stand by my bakery analogy. If you don’t have the basic skill, knowing how to set up & time your oven so that the bread comes out right, don’t go opening a bakery. Of course, mistakes happen, but I don’t know any professional baker who regularly has to throw out half or more than half of his work because it came out inedible, do you?