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TPF Noob!
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2014
- Messages
- 8
- Reaction score
- 1
- Location
- UK
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos NOT OK to edit
Hi all. I'm new and this place is huge, so sorry if this is the wrong area to discuss this.
I was recently contacted by a woman who wanted her three sons photographed. She had issues getting to the studio so it was arranged that I would take my mobile kit and conduct the shoot at her residence. When I arrived, she was waiting with her three sons but also had her two nieces there, wanting all five to be photographed. I felt a bit ambushed as this wasn't what was agreed, but I figured it wouldn't make too much difference and I was already there so I set up and began the shoot.
All 5 children were under 5 years old and most were quite unruly. On top of this, two just would not stop crying throughout the entire process. I've worked with lots of children over the years and I am fully aware that they have their on rules and will do as they please, but the mother was unwilling to put any control over them and I am of course limited in how much I can say and do with other peoples children so I just tried to muddle on.
About 15 minutes in, the mother removed all but the two crying children from the set and asked that I shoot them alone, which I did, though neither stopped crying. She then recalled the three other children to be shot without the two who were crying. By this point the children had lost all interest and were not keeping still or doing anything else asked of them. The shoot was turning into a disaster and I could tell the mother was starting to feel embarrassed and a bit stressed out. She asked that I take the two sets of images and edit them together to make whole group photos. Now, I'm pretty handy with my edits but I said to her that this would be a long and challenging process (she was having 50 prints) and that there wouldn't be enough material to work with without duplicating some images. She had only booked me for an hour and we were already way past that.
I decided to try again getting them together in a group, but again to no avail. There was never less than two of them crying at any one time, which instinctively made them get up and try going to their mother, who then kept dragging them back down in front of the camera, while the ones who weren't crying were getting distracted by the drama and climbing all over the equipment, etc.
In the end she said she had had enough of trying because the children wouldn't play ball, and I think she was a bit embarrassd, to be honest. At this point I knew the whole thing was going to be a bust and I was now late to another appointment, so I offered to come back on another day and reshoot in the hope that the children would be a bit more settled. I even offered to do it at no extra cost because I knew that the photos would be poor and I didn't want her to be disappointed. She turned down the offer, telling me to just try my best with what I had. She was fully aware that the images would not be up to standard and that splicing them together wouldn't make up for the lack of good quality images, and she was even apologetic for how badly it had all gone. I again offered to reshoot, but she once more turned the offer down.
Just as expected, when I ran the images through the editing suite they were a disaster. The only redeeming quality they had was that the lighting was excellent, but other than that I was faced with runny noses, crying eyes, heads faced away from the camera, spots where children were missing entirely and a whole host of other problems. Had the order been smaller I could have done the job fine, but the idea of building up to 40 images out of random parts to get the full total was daunting. Once again I spoke with the client, explained the situation and offered to reshoot. She again said no, told me that after the way the children behaved she would be happy with anything and told me to get on with it. So I did.
It took longer than normal, as I explained it would, and to be honest about 75% of the finished product was a mess. Edits are one of my strongest points, but I found this to be extremely difficult and I was working on images I wouldn't normally dare even show to a customer, let alone offer as part of their package, but I didn't know what else I could do. Every offer to re-shoot was turned down and even when I explained that they wouldn't be amazing, she still wanted me to go ahead and edit them together anyway. I did the best that I could manage, tried to hide as many issues as I could and then sent her the proofs by the due date. Now, the images were by no means perfect, and I admit that I would never show them to another soul as my own work, but considering what I was working with they could have turned out a whole lot worse than they did and some of them turned out fantastically, though I admit they were in a small minority.
Anyway, when she got the images back she was not pleased, as I expected she probably wouldn't be. She is fully aware of my work and so knows that this is not my usual standard, however she is also very aware of the challenges we faced on the day of the shoot and so I did expect she would react slightly better. She is now demanding a reshoot and her money back (one or the other is perhaps understandable, but both seems extreme) and is threatening to bad mouth me to everyone she knows. I'm from a small community and despite some stiff competition I do pretty well for myself. People are aware of me and my work and I get a lot of interest, but I've never had a negative response so far and now I'm worried that my reputation will be unfairly damaged. I have offered the reshoot, as I feel partly responsible, but that doesn't mean that she won't complain to everyone about it anyway. And despite her not liking 'a single damn picture', the email address she contacted me with within an hour of having her proofs already had one of them as the profile image, and a quick snoop on facebook showed that another seperate one was now her profile picture there (with lots of likes and positive comments, too).
I know that this is a huge ranty post, and for that I apologise, but I was wondering what others think would be the best course of action here? Or if anyone has faced anything similar. A reshoot is easy enough and that can all be put right, but her bad words against me, if they come, could be far more damaging. Am I worrying over nothing or should I do more than agree to a reshoot in order to keep her happy? If it makes any difference, I've also got written copies of our correspondence where she turned down reshoots and where I have explained that the quality of the images are not as good as I would have liked due to issues on the day, and her saying she doesn't care etc.
I was recently contacted by a woman who wanted her three sons photographed. She had issues getting to the studio so it was arranged that I would take my mobile kit and conduct the shoot at her residence. When I arrived, she was waiting with her three sons but also had her two nieces there, wanting all five to be photographed. I felt a bit ambushed as this wasn't what was agreed, but I figured it wouldn't make too much difference and I was already there so I set up and began the shoot.
All 5 children were under 5 years old and most were quite unruly. On top of this, two just would not stop crying throughout the entire process. I've worked with lots of children over the years and I am fully aware that they have their on rules and will do as they please, but the mother was unwilling to put any control over them and I am of course limited in how much I can say and do with other peoples children so I just tried to muddle on.
About 15 minutes in, the mother removed all but the two crying children from the set and asked that I shoot them alone, which I did, though neither stopped crying. She then recalled the three other children to be shot without the two who were crying. By this point the children had lost all interest and were not keeping still or doing anything else asked of them. The shoot was turning into a disaster and I could tell the mother was starting to feel embarrassed and a bit stressed out. She asked that I take the two sets of images and edit them together to make whole group photos. Now, I'm pretty handy with my edits but I said to her that this would be a long and challenging process (she was having 50 prints) and that there wouldn't be enough material to work with without duplicating some images. She had only booked me for an hour and we were already way past that.
I decided to try again getting them together in a group, but again to no avail. There was never less than two of them crying at any one time, which instinctively made them get up and try going to their mother, who then kept dragging them back down in front of the camera, while the ones who weren't crying were getting distracted by the drama and climbing all over the equipment, etc.
In the end she said she had had enough of trying because the children wouldn't play ball, and I think she was a bit embarrassd, to be honest. At this point I knew the whole thing was going to be a bust and I was now late to another appointment, so I offered to come back on another day and reshoot in the hope that the children would be a bit more settled. I even offered to do it at no extra cost because I knew that the photos would be poor and I didn't want her to be disappointed. She turned down the offer, telling me to just try my best with what I had. She was fully aware that the images would not be up to standard and that splicing them together wouldn't make up for the lack of good quality images, and she was even apologetic for how badly it had all gone. I again offered to reshoot, but she once more turned the offer down.
Just as expected, when I ran the images through the editing suite they were a disaster. The only redeeming quality they had was that the lighting was excellent, but other than that I was faced with runny noses, crying eyes, heads faced away from the camera, spots where children were missing entirely and a whole host of other problems. Had the order been smaller I could have done the job fine, but the idea of building up to 40 images out of random parts to get the full total was daunting. Once again I spoke with the client, explained the situation and offered to reshoot. She again said no, told me that after the way the children behaved she would be happy with anything and told me to get on with it. So I did.
It took longer than normal, as I explained it would, and to be honest about 75% of the finished product was a mess. Edits are one of my strongest points, but I found this to be extremely difficult and I was working on images I wouldn't normally dare even show to a customer, let alone offer as part of their package, but I didn't know what else I could do. Every offer to re-shoot was turned down and even when I explained that they wouldn't be amazing, she still wanted me to go ahead and edit them together anyway. I did the best that I could manage, tried to hide as many issues as I could and then sent her the proofs by the due date. Now, the images were by no means perfect, and I admit that I would never show them to another soul as my own work, but considering what I was working with they could have turned out a whole lot worse than they did and some of them turned out fantastically, though I admit they were in a small minority.
Anyway, when she got the images back she was not pleased, as I expected she probably wouldn't be. She is fully aware of my work and so knows that this is not my usual standard, however she is also very aware of the challenges we faced on the day of the shoot and so I did expect she would react slightly better. She is now demanding a reshoot and her money back (one or the other is perhaps understandable, but both seems extreme) and is threatening to bad mouth me to everyone she knows. I'm from a small community and despite some stiff competition I do pretty well for myself. People are aware of me and my work and I get a lot of interest, but I've never had a negative response so far and now I'm worried that my reputation will be unfairly damaged. I have offered the reshoot, as I feel partly responsible, but that doesn't mean that she won't complain to everyone about it anyway. And despite her not liking 'a single damn picture', the email address she contacted me with within an hour of having her proofs already had one of them as the profile image, and a quick snoop on facebook showed that another seperate one was now her profile picture there (with lots of likes and positive comments, too).
I know that this is a huge ranty post, and for that I apologise, but I was wondering what others think would be the best course of action here? Or if anyone has faced anything similar. A reshoot is easy enough and that can all be put right, but her bad words against me, if they come, could be far more damaging. Am I worrying over nothing or should I do more than agree to a reshoot in order to keep her happy? If it makes any difference, I've also got written copies of our correspondence where she turned down reshoots and where I have explained that the quality of the images are not as good as I would have liked due to issues on the day, and her saying she doesn't care etc.
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