Do Clients Always Want More?

[robbins.photo]

Ok, well keep in mind here I don't shoot professionally not do I have a desire too, but I have been roped into a couple of sessions that were paid despite my best efforts to get out of them. On that first senior photo shoot I did, I would fire off a few frames and then I'd take the camera over to her, cycle through them on the LCD, find the one I liked and say - see, now that's a keeper! I did this maybe a couple of times on the first few shots - and from there she understood that even though I was taking 5, 6, 10 frames of a shot that of those only 1 or maybe as many as 2 might be used and that they were all very close to being the same picture anyway.

It pretty much set that expectation for her without it being awkward. When it came time to go through them and select the ones she wanted, she wasn't at all surprised or dissapointed that out of all the pictures we took that day there were only a little over 20 or so for her to select from. YMMV of course, but that might be something you could try as well.

 

[W.Fovall]

a hour shoot i take 75-150 shots and deliver 50

 

[KmH]

Is retail photography a full time job for you?

How long have you been doing retail photography?

 

[robbins.photo]

a hour shoot i take 75-150 shots and deliver 50

Yikes. I must be horribly slow I guess. Wow, that's between 1 and 2 shots per minute for the entire hour. I have to admit I'm curious as to how do you get them to cycle through 50 different poses and I'm assuming at least a couple of different backgrounds that fast?

 

[D-B-J]

Is retail photography a full time job for you?

How long have you been doing retail photography?

Definitely new to me, and NOT my main source of income. I would love to one day have it be a real source of income, but who knows if I'll ever reach that level. Mostly, it's for fun, and to make a few dollars on the side.


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[D-B-J]

a hour shoot i take 75-150 shots and deliver 50

Yikes. I must be horribly slow I guess. Wow, that's between 1 and 2 shots per minute for the entire hour. I have to admit I'm curious as to how do you get them to cycle through 50 different poses and I'm assuming at least a couple of different backgrounds that fast?

That was what I was wondering. I don't see the sense in giving the client 12 shots of the same pose.


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[robbins.photo]

a hour shoot i take 75-150 shots and deliver 50

Yikes. I must be horribly slow I guess. Wow, that's between 1 and 2 shots per minute for the entire hour. I have to admit I'm curious as to how do you get them to cycle through 50 different poses and I'm assuming at least a couple of different backgrounds that fast?

That was what I was wondering. I don't see the sense in giving the client 12 shots of the same pose.


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I didn't either.. lol. That's why I did the "see, this is a keeper" thing with the seniors I shot. They got to see that the other 5-10 shots I took were all pretty much the same and they were getting the 1 out of that series that was the best. They got to see them on the camera LCD so if it turned out the "keeper" was actually a slightly different shot than the one I stopped on and proclaimed as a keeper they'd never notice the difference anyway.

That way later on I got to go through everything, pick out the actual keepers, put them together to present to the client then let them pick from that subset the ones they wanted to keep. Worked well for me at least.

 

[D-B-J]

Yikes. I must be horribly slow I guess. Wow, that's between 1 and 2 shots per minute for the entire hour. I have to admit I'm curious as to how do you get them to cycle through 50 different poses and I'm assuming at least a couple of different backgrounds that fast?

That was what I was wondering. I don't see the sense in giving the client 12 shots of the same pose.


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I didn't either.. lol. That's why I did the "see, this is a keeper" thing with the seniors I shot. They got to see that the other 5-10 shots I took were all pretty much the same and they were getting the 1 out of that series that was the best. They got to see them on the camera LCD so if it turned out the "keeper" was actually a slightly different shot than the one I stopped on and proclaimed as a keeper they'd never notice the difference anyway.

That way later on I got to go through everything, pick out the actual keepers, put them together to present to the client then let them pick from that subset the ones they wanted to keep. Worked well for me at least.

I'll definitely have to give that a shot.


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[W.Fovall]

a hour shoot i take 75-150 shots and deliver 50

Yikes. I must be horribly slow I guess. Wow, that's between 1 and 2 shots per minute for the entire hour. I have to admit I'm curious as to how do you get them to cycle through 50 different poses and I'm assuming at least a couple of different backgrounds that fast?

i mainly am doing family and couple portraits outdoors... i always have it set to hi speed multi shoot and snap 3-5 shots with every button press... people tend to blink and twitch so i always shoot many of same look..
you don't need to change the background much just a turn of the head is enough for a different look. i also shoot between when they don't think I'm shooting... kids are often the most photogenic while walking from one side of the park to the other...

 

[runnah]

Clients are like a horny teenage boy on prom night and vendors are a buxom blonde cheerleader.

Just trying to find any way to screw you.

 

[D-B-J]

Clients are like a horny teenage boy on prom night and vendors are a buxom blonde cheerleader.

Just trying to find any way to screw you.

You're such a cynic, runnah :mrgreen:

 

[imagemaker46]

I always try and give clients more than they expect or asked for.

 

[KmH]

I've done the math here on TPF many times showing income potential based on how many shooting days a retail photographer can count on having in a year, and the cold hard fact that 75 % of a full-time retail photographers time is spent on business tasks rather than on doing photography tasks.

What it boils down to is that to make a living wage doing retail photography on a full-time basis requires an average sale of about $1000.

In today's economy we should probably call that an average sale of $1200.

 

[D-B-J]

I've done the math here on TPF many times showing income potential based on how many shooting days a retail photographer can count on having in a year, and the cold hard fact that 75 % of a full-time retail photographers time is spent on business tasks rather than on doing photography tasks.

What it boils down to is that to make a living wage doing retail photography on a full-time basis requires an average sale of about $1000.

In today's economy we should probably call that an average sale of $1200.

That's why I'll probably never have photography as a full time job. It's something I've taken on as a hobby, and it sometimes makes me money. But if I never made a cent off of it I'd be okay [emoji16]


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[tirediron]

a hour shoot i take 75-150 shots and deliver 50

Yikes. I must be horribly slow I guess. Wow, that's between 1 and 2 shots per minute for the entire hour. I have to admit I'm curious as to how do you get them to cycle through 50 different poses and I'm assuming at least a couple of different backgrounds that fast?

You and me both Ape-face! A typical 90 minute - two hour modelling session for me will produce about 60-80 rough images which is weeded down to 20-30 for their proofing and session and a typical delivery is 6-8.