Client from 5 years ago.

This is family...not some dude you've never met. He paid you, your cost to make the album is 'sunk'. You wouldn't have charged them then, as it was included. The length of time is irrelevant to the discussion. Is this the hill you want to die on with a family member? I would provide w/out question and in all likely hood make a family joke about it or something. The fact that you are even asking is a bit unseemly. The only caveat to this is that the album should be of the same/reasonably the same as you would have offered 5 years ago. If they are demanding the gold bound edition printed on paper farted out the butt of a unicorn...then charge accordingly.

 

From what you've shared, this would seem to be about 98% your fault. Contract or not, self-proclaimed professional or not, you had an arrangement 5 years ago that you failed to follow through on.

You've already been paid, so you should, IMO, suck it up and provide the album. Obviously, as Christina said above, if the client wants to change or upgrade something, you might consider charging for those changes.

But, this is definitely 98% your fault. Just make it right and go back to whatever you were doing.

 

To clarify -- I had emailed them several times within the first year about it. And they never responded with any changes or approvals. They said they were working on it.

This is a close cousin. Directly related.

The hundreds of dollars is accurate -- 200-300 dollars for an album. I used to use graphi-studio because they were the first album maker with which I was introduced. But that is about how much a digital album costs.

I feel like this falls into an extreme case. It would be like me asking a photo lab to print my images and then never picking them up and expecting them to have the images 5 years down the line. NO?

 

What would the album have cost to print 5 years ago? They paid you for an album. If the printing costs are substantually different then you might charge them part of the difference. If not then Print the album. They paid for it.

5 years or 50 years. As a professional it makes no difference. The photographer that shot my in-laws wedding 50 years ago still had the negatives. We asked if we could get some printed to give to the folks on their 50th anniversary . He said he would but he was more than happy to let us have the negatives so we could have them printed ourselves and save a few dollars. That is a professional. Still customer oriented 50 years later.

 

I would say you charged the going rate at the time, though you say you were not a pro then but are now. You wanted to do this for your portfolio but don't need the recognition now you are established. It would be the honourable thing to finish the "verbal" contract. If it was archived properly at the start it probably wont be as difficult as it seems. just an opinion

 

No it's not like a photo lab. Photo labs give you a contract in the fine print whether it's on the envelope you dropped off your film in or the terms and conditions you agreed to when you placed your order online.

If you don't have the money then I would seriously rethink your career choice.

 

Do you want the advice of the professionals reading this thread, or don't you?

Stop making excuses and get your cousin their album.

 

I am not in the business, but have to go along with giving them their album as part of the agreement. You probably have a time limit or extra fee now in your contracts for such a time discrepancy.
AND it being family, can get ugly....just print it and save yourself alot of grief.
Nancy

My wedding photographer threw out negatives if you had not reordered something in that time frame. When we had a house fire, no more wedding album, I called him. Would have paid for another album..

 

At the very least, I would charge them the difference in the printing prices you'll deal with now compared to five years ago, as well as a PITA charge.

If they haven't been replying to e-mails regarding this for five years, you could've made a damn strong argument that they no longer had an interest in acquiring it...

 

Wow --- quite the spectrum --- I appreciate everyone's input. I am not making excuses at all just trying to provide all the facts so as to get the proper input. The biggest reason I came here was because it involved family and yes it has the potential to get somewhat ugly. I certainly don't wish to upset anyone.

 

In the long run I guess the only question you really need to ask is, what's more important - family or money. Really in the end that's the choice you'll be making. I can pretty much gaurantee that your cousin and his wife will be firmly in the, but we already paid you for the album camp. So you can spend a bit of money out of pocket, save your reputation not so much with your clients but rather with your family and print them the album.

Or you can try to save yourself a few bucks, tick your cousin and his wife off to no end, have them telling everyone in your family their side of the story and not yours, blowing this whole thing way out of proportion and possibly even posting negative stuff about you and your business on facebook and other internet sites that might actually affect your future business.

Will it go that far? Eh, who knows. Is it worth the risk over a couple hundred bucks? Not by the longest shot ever taken in this or any other universe. So yup, you want my advice, pony up and get them the album. Take it as lesson learned, make sure you put something in future contracts so you don't find yourself in this situation again, and move on.

Just my 2 cents worth of course, as usual YMMV

 

Something tells me your a real hoot at thanksgiving Lew.. lol