Advice to clients

greenfly

"It's just a photo, It's just video"....

I am really trying to explain to people how this works.. How do you explain to your clients what you do?

another thing..
a client wants all the raw video footage.... would that be fair?

I try to keep it as clients are paying for my "TIME" not the photo or work.. what do you think?

Cygnus Studios

That's an age old question.

My first thought is that if you are getting this question, you need to raise your prices and get away from the tire kicking clients.

Assuming that your images are better than the snapshots that they can get from buying a camera themselves, you'll need to show them that you create images, not just take snapshots.

If someone were to ask me this question, my first response would be something like this.

Obviously you thought that the moment (product or event or whatever) was so important that it needed to be recorded/photographed. Now you have several options, you can hire someone who went out and bought what they thought was a nice camera, or someone who occasionally posts pretty pictures on facebook or you can hire someone who knows what they are doing and can deliver images/video that will take your breath away. If you want to go with option 1 or option 2, no hard feelings, I really hope that the images come out okay because everyone deserves good images especially when they are spending their hard earned money for them.

Raw footage:

This one is much easier to answer. Explain to the client that they are hiring someone to capture the best moments (photo or video) and they are paying for that experience and expertise. Those photos or video also represents the person being hired not just the subject in the photo/video.

Explain to them that your business relies on the very best work being shown and if they still want to do the editing, ask them for some examples (portfolio) of their editing skills, that will always put an end to that kind of talk.

johng

See, as a photographer and a client, I have a different take than the person above. I want the image files. I want to have my own prints made. I don't view it as paying for your time only - I'm paying for both service and product. To address Steve's comment about only showing the best - that's fine. But, I still want the files. It's a different climate than it was 20 years ago. Clients have much more in the way of options for printing and displaying. Technology has moved on. They don't want to be tied to the provider for prints and presentation. This really shouldn't be an issue if your business model isn't reliant upon ordering prints. The lone exception I would say is an album. That's a lot of additional time and effort.

Cygnus Studios

johng wrote: »

See, as a photographer and a client, I have a different take than the person above. I want the image files. I want to have my own prints made. I don't view it as paying for your time only - I'm paying for both service and product. To address Steve's comment about only showing the best - that's fine. But, I still want the files. It's a different climate than it was 20 years ago. Clients have much more in the way of options for printing and displaying. Technology has moved on. They don't want to be tied to the provider for prints and presentation. This really shouldn't be an issue if your business model isn't reliant upon ordering prints. The lone exception I would say is an album. That's a lot of additional time and effort.

So you would be fine with a client posting their (possibly crappy) edited versions of your images publicly for the world to see and judge your business on?

Now maybe your customers do not hire you based on your photos, so it doesn't matter what your images look like.

For those of us that are hired based on our images, I would not recommend letting just anyone who wanted do the editing.

johng

Steve,

It's not 1980 anymore. The landscape has changed. By all means, if you feel that your potential customers are going to re-edit files and post crappy edited photos on social media, continue with your model. In my experience, clients simply want to post photos and be able to order their own photo products. I won't comment on video as I am neither a producer nor consumer of videos. But from a photograph perspective, the client doing a poor job of editing and it reflecting badly on the photogrpaher is an urban legend for the most part. When I still ran my business, my model relied upon all income from up-front price for time and digital files. Prints could be purchased at cost if client wanted better quality prints than they could get at their local lab.

So, there have always been 2 arguments against providing the files:
1) the client will muck it up and it will reflect poorly - again, I never found this to be true in my personal experience and didn't know of another photographer where it was true. So, more of an urban legend than anything else
2) Revenue. I've addressed this - if your business model is dependent on print sales, I think it's an outdated model. Print sales should be, at most, a secondary source of income.

When my wife and I were married a few years back (2nd marriage for both of us) I hired a photographer that provided the images. I was able to get prints made with the crops I wanted, get some canvas done and make a wedding album all to the liking of my wife and I.

I submit that if your creative presentation is good enough, the client isn't going to be changing it and you've got little to be worried about. They just want to be able to reproduce quickly and distribute via social media.

Again, you can absolutely disagree. I'm just providing my experience and my opinion. And I believe holding on to the negatives is an outdated strategy.

Cygnus Studios

I'm not sure where you got the "print" thing from so I am lost on that particular argument.

Urban legend of editing, I love that one. If you've not seen it, congratulations, it is a serious pain in the butt for many to deal with.

How many threads are there just on this forum about clients cropping and photographers wanting the ability to stop it?

I've spent the last 25 years working in commercial work, where the clients edit the images 100% of the time. That is just what it is, but that is a different animal than what most photographers put up with in their business.

What little free time I have, I spend helping newer photographers and have seen these urban legends first hand and helped to fix it.

I'm not going to fault your opinion, if you like to give your customers the right to edit to their hearts delight and it works for you, great. Not everyone is that lucky. In my opinion, photographers need to put their best images out there and protect those images the best that they can.

I'm not going to say my way is the only way or the right way or anything else, it is just my personal opinion based on two and a half decades of experience.

I would not give a general person off the street the right to edit my work. What others choose to do is their choice.

jonh68

I don't explain it anymore. If a client wants to buy everything that is great but they are not getting everything from the shoot, just what makes my initial culling. They get what I am comfortable showing if it escapes into the wild.

I have too many clients that hire me based on my style and service. I have had potential clients wanting what you describe and downright cuss me out because my prices were too high, and this after hiring my for the job. I try to weed out these clients with pricing and questions during consultation.

I want clients that have an emotional response to my work, not ones that are basing their decision on price or what they get out of the session. I had someone decide to not go with me because they wanted digital files to show off on their phone and my price for all the full size digital files was too much. I do have cheap social media option that are low rez but they wanted full res files which tells me they just wanted cheap stuff. I was more than happy when they turned me down.

Defending your prices or explaining why you do what you do doesn't matter to the client. I have found it is much better to attract clients that match better with my style than try to fit someone's different expectation. Yes, clients want digital files now but there is no way they are getting the raw files or everything from the shoot. They are getting my edited files and the ones that I select as keepers.

So, my advice is to stick the way you have things setup, and let other photographers race to the bottom. Get the clients that hire you for what you provide. You will work less and make more.

Cygnus Studios

Here is an interesting read that is relative to this topic.

Angelo

the next time I have my car serviced I'll expect my mechanic to box up his tool kit and leave it in my trunk.

johng

Angelo wrote: »

the next time I have my car serviced I'll expect my mechanic to box up his tool kit and leave it in my trunk.

Not the same thing. That would be like the customer asking for your camera/lens. Not the digital images. By all means, you certainly have the right to say you will never supply your digital files to clients. I simply suggest that other people don't agree with that model. My wedding photographer runs a successful business where he supplies the digital files. He gets paid a set amount and isn't reliant upon print sales. He hasn't run into any issues where a client did their own editing and it cost him sales. Sure, it might have happened. Same with my business when I ran a sports photography and event photography business. I used to think like Angelo and others - then I changed my model to a service provider. I was paid to create images and provide digital images. Sure, I didn't include images thrown in trash but for the final set, I included all the corresponding digital files. Really streamlined my process. I'm not saying the OP has to follow that methodology. Only that it's a viable alternative.

orljustin

Cygnus Studios wrote: »

How many threads are there just on this forum about clients cropping and photographers wanting the ability to stop it?

Oh noes! Cropping of an image? The horror!