Buy before booking again?

Barefoot and Natural

I am curious to hear if anyone has a rule to a client buying prints from one sessions before they can book another session.

Here is my situation:

I did a maternity session on Oct 7th ($35 sitting fee collected)
She had not ordered any prints yet, but syas she loves the photos.

Now she wants to book her baby's newborn session for Dec 16th.

Should I book her anyway and hope she is waiting to place a one-time order or what should I do? I know she is not obligated to buy anything, but do I really want to do this again and work hard for nothing?

I am just worried that somehow she had figured out how to print these pictures for herself and that is why she is not ordering.

Any advice would be nice!

Thanks,
Heather

JimM

I would book again. I might raise my sitting fee also. You might want to ask her if she is planning on ordering prints from the first session.

KvPhoto

I have heard sitting fees averaging $50 t0 $75.

JimM

That is my range, $50 at my place $75 at yours (per hour, most shoots are in that first hour range)

anwmn1

I have recently done a few shoots- my first transistion to shooting people instead of all landscapes.

I have one shoot I did a few weeks ago that I was told they loved the pictures and her family left lots of comments on the pictures, but no order yet. After reading about the people finding ways to copy pictures I am thinking that may be what happened, even though I hope she wouldn't do that to me.

At first of the year I plan on raising my sitting fee to $50 instead of $30 in hopes people will only book if they plan to buy. I am also considering adding watermarks which I prefer not to, but realize it may be a neccesity.

As far as your case I would book again and while doing so ask her if she plans to purchase any of the previous shots. She may be thinking of doing one purchase for both shoots.

Best of luck!

Aaron

saurora

Raise your fee.......you should be paid for your work and time, even if no prints are ordered. I would definitely use obvious watermarks for photos for sittings like these. If you want to post on this forum, just post one without a watermark and store it in your own "protected" gallery, as they are not easy to critique with heavy watermarks. It is so unfortunate to have to feel that people might be ripping you off. I would call her up to set up a booking and at the same time suggest she places her order for prints. Good luck!

JimM

I personally don't like to use watermarks across the image on portraits. I think it makes it difficult for the purchaser. I don't allow right clicks and don't post larger than medium sized images though.

Sam

Heather,

Several things jump to mind (what's left there anyway). She obviously liked your work from the first sitting to book a second.

I would simply ask. "Client, I look forward to taking photos of your precious new baby! By the way my workload is picking up through the holiday season, and I do a little extra to each and every print before I send them out to the lab for printing. So to make sure you get all the prints you want quickly, do you plan on ordering any prints from the first session? Do you have any idea of what you might be looking for with this new session? Thanks, that really helps me with scheduling the workload."

If she were to no, she didn't have any plans to order prints, I would act (actually wouldn't be an act) somewhat hurt, and would want to know if she didn't like them. I would explain I want all my customers to be happy with their photos. If she were really displeased with the photos I would discuss it and if had merit, I would off another sitting at no charge, but that's just me.

You don't have to harsh or over aggressive, but find out what is going on. Maybe she can budget for the sitting but not the prints, thinking she can always get the prints later. You owe it to yourself, and the client to ensure a good relationship and a happy satisfied customer.

My two cents worth.

Sam

Jeffro

I'm not sure how you have your galleries set, so I can't beging to tell if she has found a way to steal them. If you leave the galleries up forever, she may feel it's worth $35 to have some great shots of her family that she can view at anytime.

She may also be happy to grab screen shots of the photos, especially if they don't have watermarks on them. Screen shots can be used for slideshows, and to send in e-mails to family and friends.

Just a couple of thoughts.

Jeffro

Here's an example:

Screen shot:
Attachment not found.

Jeffro

To this:

Attachment not found.

It doesn't take much to make people happy these days. A bigger watermark would stop some of this. And keep in mind I had to make these smaller to post them as attachments. I bet they even print a fairly nice 5x7.

Barefoot and Natural

Thanks everyone for your input.
Yes, I know my sitting fee is low....but small town, just starting out.....blah blah......just think, in February I was charging a sitting fee but then it went towards the cost of prints!!
I got over that fast!

Sam: Thank you! This is advice is very useful and I will go this route.
I will contact her and possibly see what is going on with her order (politely, yes )

Jeffro:
I was wondering about how long most people keep their clients galleries "active" for them. I wanted it to be were after I made their gallery active to them.....an order would have to be placed within 4 weeks or I would have to make it "inactive" (private to them). If an order was placed then I would keep the gallery on the site for 4 months incase of friends or family ordering.
I have set up all of my private galleries with right-click protection and no access to originals. Does that cover me? I don't know....my dad says he could print a picture out of those galleries IF he really wanted to...... he know a lot about computers and so-on and so-on.......but sometimes I think he is full of.......

Thanks again everyone....I will do the baby shoot....I just LOVE newborns so she is lucky I am a sucker for baby feet!

Angelo

want a reason to place a big ole watermark across the face of your photos?

www.snagit.com


that's just one program and there are countless free shareware programs out there that help people steal images.

Jeffro

A buddy of mine has been limiting his clients to 4 weeks, then the gallery is gone. It seems to be working for him. If you get a big order from a gallery, and want to keep it open for them I don't see a problem. But if you feel they are just having you "host" their portraits, I'd close it after the 4 weeks. I've had a wedding gallery open for quite awhile, but they made a significant order, and asked that I keep it open for awhile. I told them it would come down at the end of the year.

I mosty do event stuff, and will take this past seasons photo's down Jan 1st. Next year I am considering leaving them up for even shorter periods of time, kind of an increased pressure to buy.

I use right click protect, no originals, and I place a watermark on the proofs. Nothing stops the screen grabs, but hey even Wal-Mart gets shoplifters!

Scott_Quier

Barefoot and Natural wrote:

Sam: Thank you! This is advice is very useful and I will go this route.
I will contact her and possibly see what is going on with her order (politely, yes )


I have set up all of my private galleries with right-click protection and no access to originals. Does that cover me? I don't know....my dad says he could print a picture out of those galleries IF he really wanted to...... he know a lot about computers and so-on and so-on.......but sometimes I think he is full of.......

Heather,

with Sam - very good advise - find out what the client is really thinking before making any decisions (but have a game plan in mind before you contact the client).

I've gone one better then the right-click protection - I have denied clients access to both the large and original sized images. I may still get some theft of the medium, but you do what you can. I don't like the idea of putting nasty watermarks on the shots - it just seems so low-budget to me.

In terms of session fee - I think you are WAY too low, no matter the size of your community. I believe one needs to charge what they are worth. If you do this, your clients will value your services/talent/skill/etc that much more. Experience has shown me that people place a value on a product based on what the product has cost them. You do good work (and you do, I've seen some of it!), but charge low, clients will have a lower opinion of the product. Do the same quality job but put a more reasonable price on it and your clients will value it that much more. My pricing structure (to whatever extent this helps you) is such that I get all I need to clear expenses (or close to it) from the session fee. I price the prints very, very reasonably (go to www.lnl-photo.com and click the pricing button for more on that). Then, when/if I get sales (and I've got some now!!) that money will go into growing the business (that's read - more toys!!).

Finally, I do my best to qualify my clients before the shoot. Can't always do that, but you can sometimes get a feel for if they are out to get the session and then grab the shots of their screen (as seen above).

Hope this helps some.