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So we’ve probably all been there… the moment you have to decide what to say after a client/friend/family member says something really ignorant about your line of work as a photographer. Natural instinct is to want to haul off and hit something; however, for the sake of saving face you have to find a cordial way to counter what they’ve said. Here are five common lines I‘ve repeatedly come across and the ways I’ve found to retort with a polite, but honest response.
“Can I bring my camera and take some pictures too?”
“If you’d like to bring your camera and take pictures before and/or after the session, that is totally fine, but while I am working I have a strict no-photography policy. It takes a lot of time to get the lighting right and sometimes other camera’s going off will set my flashes off and it makes the process a lot longer.”
It’s hard not to mention that the fact they want to hire you is because you know what you’re doing and know how to pose people. The worst about this is with formal wedding pictures. It seems like you always have Aunt Rosie and Grandma Betty following you around taking the exact same pictures that you are taking. They must think you don’t notice when the bride doesn’t order as many prints from you and chooses to use Aunt Rosie’s version and get them printed at the drugstore.
“Oh my GOSH! You charge THAT much for a sitting fee? The place at Wal-Mart is only $14.00.”
“That’s true, but when you look at my photographs and compare them to the quality of Wal-Marts, you will be pleasantly surprised that the amount you pay for the sitting fee will be well worth the images you receive from me. Not to knock Wal-Mart, but you definitely pay for what you get.”
I can’t even tell you how many times this has engaged me. It’s hard to explain to someone who isn’t a photographer ALL of the reasons why your prices are set the way they are and it’s pretty tacky for someone (ESPECIALLY a family member) to even bring Wal-Mart into the discussion if they have actually seen your work and are choosing you because they like your style. People just don’t understand that in order to get that amazing image of their baby in a basket for their wall, they are going to have to pay more so they can get a photographer who knows what they are doing.
Any variation of “Can you just Photoshop that/leave parts in color but make the rest black and white/put ‘missing relative’ in it?”
“Well, I will see what I can do about editing but I usually like to take more of a natural approach to editing my images because it keeps the integrity of the photograph.”
These questions aren’t as bad as others, but still annoying. You want to just tell them to back off and let you do your work, that there’s a reason people hire you and you know how to do your job. Obviously if Christina has a huge pimple on her nose in her senior pictures you’re going to take it off.
“Can I get a discount if you just put all the pictures on a CD and I edit them myself?”
“You can purchase a CD of your images, but the price includes my color correction and some cosmetic editing if we think it’s necessary. I don’t offer a disc of RAW images to anyone for a discount, but I do have a really great referral program in place so you can earn discounts based on the number of people you refer that book sessions with me.”
I had a distant family member do this once and it is a really hard one to step around gracefully. In the case of a family member or a close friend, I would almost rather just knock the price of my fully edited CD down so they can get the images I envisioned them getting when I shot the wedding as opposed to them “messing with” what I had in mind.
And last but not least, my personal favorite….
“Hey, I’m inviting you to my wedding/birthday party/bridal shower; do you think you could bring your camera and take some good pictures for me?”
The response to this really depends on who it is you are talking to. If it’s an immediate family member or someone close, I usually just do it for them (unless it’s a huge event like a wedding). In other cases I’ve used, “Yes, sure I can. I generally charge ‘x amount of dollars’ for that type of event,” or “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it, but if I do I’ll try to remember to bring it.” I really favor the second one because it gives you the “oops, I forgot to bring it” back door out and also tells them up front that they may want to have a backup plan.
These are just a few ideas that I have used and seem to work pretty well. Hopefully, you’ll be able to pre-think how you would respond to these situations if they have yet to happen to you. I had to learn the hard way of being thrown right into it and trying to dig myself out because people want to take advantage of the fact that I’m young. The best thing is to just be confident (not cocky) and to stand up for yourself and the awesome work you put your name behind. People will either respect it or they’ll keep searching for their discount deal.
It may be hard to imagine turning a client away, but in some cases the hassle of dealing with their disrespect for the price of artfulness in the industry is not worth it. You risk losing money and/or getting bad word-of-mouth advertisement to your unhappy client’s network of people. Over time, I was able to form an instinct about people from their pre-shoot inquiries and have learned to gauge whether or not they are a client worth taking on. To quote our former President, John F. Kennedy, “There are risks and costs to action, but they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.” Be proactive and be confident; after all, it’s your business.
