What to do when ...

Thecageyone

You have organised a shoot for a large family, where only one of them specifically asked you, but all of their kids were involved [I was asked to shoot 12 Grandkids, then a few shots of the Grandmother with the parents of the grandchildren, then a shot of the guy who's asked me in the first place and his own immediate family] - But afterward, all the single families start jumping in to frame for their own personal small family shots?

I wasn't asked to cover these, but took them anyway, now I have a bunch of images that will remain unprocessed until maybe they come looking for prints.

Just wondering, do you seize the opportunity quick? And start naming prices right there and then? Explain that sure, you'll do the shoot, but if they ever want to see the results they will have to pay? Or, Not shoot them, as you aren't being paid to do so, and you're finished what you came to do? This is the first time it's happened me so I was off-guard and just kept shooting. But afterward I did say to the guy who'd hired me that I can do prints for the others, but for a small fee [getting paid little anyhow] - And he agreed, saying it was a nice little spontaneous opportunity and he'll pass my number on to them all. If they want prints done up, I should charge them individually. Fair enough ... but I should be better prepared for next time.

PCPhoto

you were asked to do a shoot of the lot ... give them a pic of the shoot they requested ..... if they want more they have to pay for more.

there are photo studios who charge silly amounts of money when they have the same situation - they take tonnes of pics and have loads printed at extortionate prices and hope for impulse purchases from customers.

In the same situation you do all the pics that the client or anyone else wants .... they all know who organised the shoot so will goto that person to see the images - no harm in giving a contact sheet with all the images - to show the other family members.

Thecageyone

Yeah, the studios can print at will I guess, and people are probably more likely to buy when they see the images on glossy paper. But I'd be at a loss if I was to go printing them all up. I'll Do up the ones I was asked to do and maybe send on downsized copies of some of the others via email as teasers?

PCPhoto

thats why I suggested the contact sheets - so they can see the images - without the costs involved in printing them.

Alternatively .... give everyone "free" 4x6 prints .... as a bonus !!

They feel like they are getting something for free (the cost to you is minimal) .... and they will more than likely want larger prints - which will allow you the opportunity to recoup costs from the 4x6 prints.

Oh and Glossy Paper ??? .... Not for me !! .....(Lustre) Matt finish all the way

dakar

Seize the moment! A pile of potential business has just fallen into your lap without you having to go looking for it. Contact sheets or a select few 4x6's for everyone who's interested, and bigger prints for those who'd like to pay for them.

Win win. Nice one

Thecageyone

See, it's all learning, contact sheets eh ...

I like the 4 x 6 idea. No doubt some of them will just be happy with those, but I'd only need a couple of them to bite for bigger.

And yeah, that's just it, it just fell into place and they were taking turns in front of the camera and light-stand, I was about to pack up! But I did keep shooting, and I do have those precious shots of them and their kids

Yeah... I'm not too sure I'm fully on board with the 4x6 idea. Seems like you're just giving stuff away at that stage (i'd imagine a vast majority of people would be happy enough with a 6x4 they could just scan onto their PC). Also most albums and lots of frames cater for 6x4 so people may not be that bothered about going bigger.


If you're gonna give free 6x4s, id at least toy with the idea of a watermark.

EDIT: and as PCPhoto said above, go with Matte over Gloss paper. Much better finish (in my opinion, anyway).

Thecageyone

I personally prefer matte too, the last time I did a set for a family though, they asked for gloss. Who am I to argue?

I'm only going to process and send on the ones I was asked to do. And print up the ones he choses. I figure the rest of the family will see them and remember they sat for shots too. If they like what they see , they'll come looking.

dakar

An option to consider might be to leave a 'flick book' with the guy who ordered the shots, basically a glorified contact sheet of shots of the other members of the family who sat for shots, but presented in a slip folder book or one of those plastic comb binders with a smart cover.

Decent size thumbnails (2x3ish), but just enough to whet the appetite! Watermark them if you feel the need. Minimal processing, just a quick crop or tidy up, not to much effort in case no-one comes back with orders.

smelltheglove

I do these kind of shoots quite regularily. So I take it the initial request came from a friend, my most recent shoot was similar to this and this how I played it, each to their own.

Call out charge was waived and a disc of images supplied to the friend. Full price on the canvas prints requested, one which would be the friends immediate family, i.e. wife and kids and one with his siblings and parents. If any of the other siblings would like to order prints it would be full price, as with the origial quote, I have still made my money for the day through the original orders and there is the bonus opportunity for more money to be made. I upload all images edited for them to choose from for their prints and deliver the disc of edited images along with these prints. The client (friend) has already saved a nice sum of money by the waiving of the call out fee and disc fee and there is no awkwardness in regards to how much of a discout to give afterwards on prints.

Edit wise I dont find it takes too long, for a normal client I would be editing all images anyway and making money on the disc sale, because lighting is pretty much the same in all images a batch process can be done and images would require quite little tweaking outside of this process.

Thecageyone

I don't really know the guy who initially asked, if it was a friend I would have found it easier to tell them I'm only doing what i said i would, i think.

The original customer, if you like, is the manager of a band I did a shoot for in the past. That shoot was a return favour for them doing a couple of gigs for our fundraiser. I made it clear I wanted paying this time though as it was a private session at his family home. I knew there would be a good few kids [turned out to be 12] - and I knew he wanted shots of his wife's family with their mother. I didn't know there'd be so many people there and I suppose I was being polite by continuing to shoot when they started sitting in individual families. I never promised anything.

I've sent him the processed images he originally hired me to do, and said if the rest want theirs done up, printed or otherwise, they can ring to specify what they'd like done exactly, and I'll work something out with them.

smelltheglove

So you've done the shoot for free but are just charging for prints? I suppose its a bit awkward since you have to figure this out after the shoot. I would reiterate to anyone who asks for images that you have not charged for the shoot so they have saved x amount of money already, then explain your usual prices per image or per disc and maybe offer a percentage discount, percentage being up to you, say 10-25% or buy 2 get one free sort of thing.

The contact sheet is a good idea, what I find works best for me is uploadig the pictures for all to see, I upload to facebook and only allow the family members to view, this works well for two reasons, they dont have to be together to see all the images and can view within days of the shoot. The second reason it works well is in order to view this way, being the easiest way to arrange it, is they need to do a friend request also to see, which means I will be on their friends list ad will most likely be the first to come to mind for any future photographic work they require. It works quite well for me to be honest and since going this route I am getting more work through the frieds network on facebook.

Thecageyone

No, sorry, I got a small amount for the shoot/processing and I'm including some prints within that. But it was made clear I was only doing a print of the kids and all adults together, plus the guy's own small family. He did specifically ask for just those shots too, the rest where outside of this. I guess he could say that could be deemed part of the shoot? But I wasn't covered for processing or printing any extra images. He did say it aloud himself on the day "if anyone wants his number for prints I'll pass it on to you" so he knew these shots were extras.

I really ought to get cards done up! The facebook thing would work, But I don't even know their names I will mention these ideas to him [original client] when passing over his prints. Cheers.

smelltheglove

smelltheglove wrote: »

I upload to facebook and only allow the family members to view

How do you manage that? I assume you can change settings somewhere along the way?

sNarah

Deleted User wrote: »

How do you manage that? I assume you can change settings somewhere along the way?

Yup - every album can be set to private and then you can select people allowed to view.

Thecageyone

Another thing I really must factor in is the processing time. I've spent the guts of 2 days just fine tuning them at this stage.

smelltheglove

It really shouldnt take you 2 days though to process one shoot unless you did a huge amount of shots. Is the lighting varied in it?

The more often you do it the less time it takes to process really, you are looking for consistent images so in camera raw you would be looking to ensure that the white balance is even throughout and exposure is consistent. After that then generally it is crop and straighten, I would batch process the images which would take a couple of hours on the computer, where I am not needed at all and then go back and spend another couple of hours tweaking.

Thecageyone

I know, I'm just being a bit perfectionist about it, as I want them to look as good as possible. The client has a lot of connections and this could well lead to future work. I'm just being real nit-picky about the images. I'm not great with masking, and I've done some layer mask work to brighten the backing while maintaining the depth and contrast on the people.

There was some shadow to kill and also some cloning work [A light fixture I couldn't avoid, but knew when taking the shots it could be easily removed, also the covering on the floor wasn't quite long enough to stretch across the framing, stuff like that I need to get right on location in future]

A second strobe would have saved me a lot of processing.