How many photographs do you give to your client?

[tecboy]

I set a limit about five dog photos for the clients. Each photo is cropped to various sizes for printing. It takes a quite a bit of works. The clients want a lot more than five photos, because I took a lot of pictures. Many of them are same poses or just repetition.

 

[tirediron]

I give them as many as they pay for.

 

[Designer]

Do you have a written contract that specifies how many they get?

 

[tecboy]

Do you have a written contract that specifies how many they get?

Just five.

 

[tecboy]

I give them as many as they pay for.

So, I shot about 77 photos. Is it okay to give that many?

 

[tirediron]

I give them as many as they pay for.

So, I shot about 77 photos. Is it okay to give that many?

If they pay for them, sure. I might shoot 100 images at a session; typical purchase by a client is 3-5.

 

[Designer]

I give them as many as they pay for.

So, I shot about 77 photos. Is it okay to give that many?

You need to be strong and resist their demand for all the photos. I usually blurt out the truth; that the others are no good. In my case, I'm lucky to get maybe 10% fairly good (or at least "fixable"). Anyway, don't give out anything you are not proud of.

 

[SquarePeg]

Maybe have your contract spell out that the session price includes their choice of 5 and then add what you charge for additional shots. You can do a quick cull and crop the keepers for their viewing/choosing then only spend your time on fully editing the ones they want for their 5 plus anything else they are paying extra for.

 

[tecboy]

They said they want more just for personal copy, and they don't care if the photos are unedited.

 

[tirediron]

Here's my process: I start by explaining to them that the session fee is simply that, a fee for the creative process and exclusive of product. I then explain that there are typically X poses from the session and I normally shoot Y images per pose (session-type dependent). I tell them that usually results in Z (That's "zed" by the way, NOT "zee"!!!!) images for them to review. For a typical family session that lasts say, 90 minutes, that usually means 4 - 5 poses and 6 - 8 frames per pose. Having made sure that they understand that, once the session is shot, I take the images, and bin all the junk, closed eyes, missed focus, etc, etc. I then take the remaining images and create a slideshow or Lightroom gallery (depending on whether or not I'm doing in-home or on-line proofing) and they pick what they want in terms of size and product. The images in the slideshow/gallery are only given a basic crop and colour correction.

 

[tirediron]

They said they want more just for personal copy, and they don't care if the photos are unedited.

I want to win the lottery, but that doesn't happen. Explain to them that the images are your product and your brand, and that just like a painter doesn't release an unfinished painting, you don't release unfinished (or unpaid for) images.

 

[KmH]

They said they want more just for personal copy, and they don't care if the photos are unedited.

"That's great Mr/Ms/Mrs customer. Additional images are (insert price here) per image. Would you like 15 or 50 additional images".

"I do not sell images I have not edited, because (ya gotta tell 'em why) a digital image straight out of the camera is not a finished image by my professional standards of image quality.
On that basis I do not sell images I made that, for whatever reason, cannot meet my standards of image quality even if those images are edited."

I'm curious. How much does a customer of yours pay to have you shoot the photos and then provide 5 edited images?

When you "cropped to various sizes for printing" what you're actually doing is cropping to various aspect ratios.
The size of a print is determined by the print resolution and the image resolution.
Cropping alters the composition and the image resolution but does not alter the print resolution.

Note that tirediron and I both call them images, and don't call them photos.
It would be worth your while to wonder why. (Hint: Marketing & Salesmanship)
You can make your apparent skill/knowledge/product more professional, and more valuable, by using business, technical, and artistic language that the average person isn't used to hearing.

 

[tecboy]

They said they want more just for personal copy, and they don't care if the photos are unedited.

"That's great Mr/Ms/Mrs customer. Additional images are (insert price here) per image. Would you like 15 or 50 additional images".

"I do not sell images I have not edited, because Iya gotta tell 'em why) a digital image straight out of the camera is not a finished image by my professional standards of image quality.
On that basis I do not sell images I made that, for whatever reason, cannot meet my standards of image quality even if those images are edited."

I'm curious. How much does a customer of yours pay to have you shoot the photos and then provide 5 edited images?

When you "cropped to various sizes for printing" what you're actually doing is cropping to various aspect ratios.
The size of a print is determined by the print resolution and the image resolution.
Cropping alters the composition and the image resolution but does not alter the print resolution.

Note that tirediron and I both call them images, and don't call them photos.
It would be worth your while to wonder why. (Hint: Marketing & Salesmanship)
You can make your apparent skill/knowledge/product more professional, and more valuable, by using business, technical, and artistic language that the average person isn't used to hearing.

Don't worry, I got everything workout. They actually like the images. They just want more.

 

[KmH]

Yep, it's good they want more.
Now all you have to do is convince them to spend more than they intended to spend.
That's what marketing and salesmanship are all about.

Think of your work product as a custom made luxury item, not as a commodity.
Then market and sell your work product as a custom made luxury item.

In your contract you have to also apply marketing and salesmanship.
If in your contract you use the words photo or photos, instead of images or photographs, you're leaving money on the table with every. single. customer.
Your contract should also state that the images shown to the client are chosen at your sole discretion and that the client will not see ALL the images you made during the session because not all of those will meet your "professional image quality standards".

Want a good example of what good marketing and salesmanship can do?
Look at Apple's computers and even more so their cell phones.
Experts estimate that 56% of the price of an iphone is pure profit to Apple, which is why Apple has more cash on hand than any other company on the planet.
In other words, $224 of the cost of a $400 iphone is pure profit for Apple.
For most $400 products a manufacturer is doing very good to make a 5% pure profit of $20.

 

[Designer]

One daughter-in-law wants every possible scrap of photographic detritus that she suspects I might have hidden down deep somewhere in the camera. She has boxes and boxes of photograph albums and yes, they're all full. Professional shots and snapshots, usually in separate albums, but I can't believe how many albums she has.