The crazy client - an educational moment not to be forgotten.

[hotflash]

Sorry, its just not worth the insults.. what should have been a place to learn has turned into a pit of vipers.

[Rentham]

Bummer. Tough lesson to learn, but at least it put you on the right track.

[Biomech]

Yeah good lesson :P And don't forget to grow some balls, a lot of people are scared of saying no to clients because they don't want to upset them. Then they take the piss. Don't be afraid to be blunt with a client like that.

Just think about what she got, 1600 images down to 700 with 143 to keep, over 5 sessions for $100!
I charge up to $315 per shooting HOUR!

[RyanSandsPhotography]

Hotflash,

I have to say your entire story doesn't make me want to sympathise with you. In fact I would absolutely 100% side with the client in your situation. You did just about everything you could possibly do wrong in regards to working with a client on a job. It astounds me on how backwards you are. And then to come on here and complain about said client on top of it all? Let's analyze your situation shall we? So that you can possibly learn from this, instead of thinking all you need is a contract to save your ass next time you screw up so badly.

I don't even know where to begin. I'm assuming you haven't even made up a business plan, or researched how many hours it will take you to complete this kind of job or what your cost of doing business would be for this project. Only after these steps can you come up with a reasonable price to charge this client. $100 total? Are you out of your mind? What kind of person does this to a client and then expects everything will turn out fine? She didn't "take advantage of you"....you did it to yourself.

You mismanaged expectations horribly! Spending hours and hours on retouching and editing out distracting elements in your photographs? Did you even discuss this with her beforehand? Or did you just let her walk all over you and demand things? Wasn't there some kind of verbal agreement on what you would provide? Or did you just tell her to go buck wild and demand everything under the sun?!

So after you edited all of her images you let her take another 6 hours of your time culling them down? Why would you do this? You know your working for pennies right? You know your hourly wage has gone down to probably just few dollars an hour...you can make more then that working at McDonalds.

On top of letting her suck hours from you...after you have culled her images...you then proceed to delete them?! What is wrong with you? You DELETE a client's images that they payed for?! I tell you what....your asking to be sued. I hope you get insurance and a lawyer soon, because if you keep going down this path your going to need them both.
The client wanted her images to take to the drugstore to get printed correct? You probably agreed somewhere in your verbal talks with her that she can keep all the images. I can easily see this flying out of your mouth. So again she is most likely correct and has a right to be extremely displeased with your "service".

This client IS open to "explanation, logic, common sense or otherwise". Like I said before, you horribly mismanaged expectations so poorly that you have found yourself in a very bad situation. Promising everything under the sun and then not delivering.

To think that having a signed contract will ALWAYS protect you is a very immature and stupid move. Just because you DO NOT know how to run a business, let alone a photography business does not give you the right to come on a forum and bad mouth a client, let alone spread nonsense bullsh!t about how you were "screwed over" by this client. To think that your out "$1000s in time & expenses" is a laughable joke. To me your service isn't even worth the $100 you got paid because you screwed up so badly.

In closing I would like to say this. To be perfectly honest, you are one of the main problems with the photography business. Your sheer lack of business knowledge, experience and common sense is astounding. To take a beautiful craft such as photography and to not only devalue it but to sully it with your poor level of service is an insult to hard working professional photographers everywhere. I only hope that in the future you do not continue to infect any more amateur photographers with your misguided line of thinking.

[graciousness]

Originally Posted by RyanSandsPhotography

Hotflash,

I have to say your entire story doesn't make me want to sympathise with you. In fact I would absolutely 100% side with the client in your situation. You did just about everything you could possibly do wrong in regards to working with a client on a job. It astounds me on how backwards you are. And then to come on here and complain about said client on top of it all? Let's analyze your situation shall we? So that you can possibly learn from this, instead of thinking all you need is a contract to save your ass next time you screw up so badly.

I don't even know where to begin. I'm assuming you haven't even made up a business plan, or researched how many hours it will take you to complete this kind of job or what your cost of doing business would be for this project. Only after these steps can you come up with a reasonable price to charge this client. $100 total? Are you out of your mind? What kind of person does this to a client and then expects everything will turn out fine? She didn't "take advantage of you"....you did it to yourself.

You mismanaged expectations horribly! Spending hours and hours on retouching and editing out distracting elements in your photographs? Did you even discuss this with her beforehand? Or did you just let her walk all over you and demand things? Wasn't there some kind of verbal agreement on what you would provide? Or did you just tell her to go buck wild and demand everything under the sun?!

So after you edited all of her images you let her take another 6 hours of your time culling them down? Why would you do this? You know your working for pennies right? You know your hourly wage has gone down to probably just few dollars an hour...you can make more then that working at McDonalds.

On top of letting her suck hours from you...after you have culled her images...you then proceed to delete them?! What is wrong with you? You DELETE a client's images that they payed for?! I tell you what....your asking to be sued. I hope you get insurance and a lawyer soon, because if you keep going down this path your going to need them both.
The client wanted her images to take to the drugstore to get printed correct? You probably agreed somewhere in your verbal talks with her that she can keep all the images. I can easily see this flying out of your mouth. So again she is most likely correct and has a right to be extremely displeased with your "service".

This client IS open to "explanation, logic, common sense or otherwise". Like I said before, you horribly mismanaged expectations so poorly that you have found yourself in a very bad situation. Promising everything under the sun and then not delivering.

To think that having a signed contract will ALWAYS protect you is a very immature and stupid move. Just because you DO NOT know how to run a business, let alone a photography business does not give you the right to come on a forum and bad mouth a client, let alone spread nonsense bullsh!t about how you were "screwed over" by this client. To think that your out "$1000s in time & expenses" is a laughable joke. To me your service isn't even worth the $100 you got paid because you screwed up so badly.

In closing I would like to say this. To be perfectly honest, you are one of the main problems with the photography business. Your sheer lack of business knowledge, experience and common sense is astounding. To take a beautiful craft such as photography and to not only devalue it but to sully it with your poor level of service is an insult to hard working professional photographers everywhere. I only hope that in the future you do not continue to infect any more amateur photographers with your misguided line of thinking.

True, but very unnecessarily harsh.

I think you must be having a bad day today and you just completely unleashed rath on the OP.

If people didn't feel sorry for him before, they do now.

[Biomech]

after you have culled her images...you then proceed to delete them?! What is wrong with you? You DELETE a client's images that they payed for?

No no, he offered her 700 photos and she chose 143. She said she didn't want / like the other (557). So as they were surplus to requirements, he removed them.

He did a lot wrong sure. But the client is being unreasonable despite having already taken him to the cleaners.

[RyanSandsPhotography]

Originally Posted by graciousness

True, but very unnecessarily harsh.

I think you must be having a bad day today and you just completely unleashed rath on the OP.

If people didn't feel sorry for him before, they do now.

There is a big difference between having a bad day & offering no constructive criticism whatsoever and trying to educate the OP. I am clearly offering advice on how to deal with future situations and at the same time scolding her for being so extremely wrong. What ever happened to accountability?! Do we all just have to coddle each other and say "oh poor baby did that big scary client hurt your feelings?" Are you kidding me? That was about as simple a photography job as it gets and yet the OP still botched it beyond belief. She needs to go take some business courses and learn a thing or two. I see this time and time again on these type of forums and somebody has to step up and do the right thing. Instead of running around like a chicken with it's head cut off let's educate these kind of people so that they don't continue perverting our profession.

[RyanSandsPhotography]

Originally Posted by Biomech

No no, he offered her 700 photos and she chose 143. She said she didn't want / like the other (557). So as they were surplus to requirements, he removed them.

He did a lot wrong sure. But the client is being unreasonable despite having already taken him to the cleaners.

Biomech the client did NOTHING wrong. The OP DELETED a client's images! Who the hell does that? Do you honestly think you could just delete "surplus" images from a job and call it a day? The client paid for those images and even if she didn't you are suppose to ARCHIVE a client's images from their job. Not throw them away in the trash and delete them.

[jdepould]

I'm not going to wade into the swamp of image deletion, but I will say this:

I'd never present a client with 700 images. Ever.

[Biomech]

Biomech the client did NOTHING wrong. The OP DELETED a client's images! Who the hell does that? Do you honestly think you could just delete "surplus" images from a job and call it a day? The client paid for those images and even if she didn't you are suppose to ARCHIVE a client's images from their job. Not throw them away in the trash and delete them.

You're wrong.
And yes, pretty much everyone deletes images from a shoot. The client didn't pay for the images, she paid for the shoot and a selection of images. You're not "supposed" to archive every shot from every shoot, that's just ludicrous. Let me guess, when you get a client you give them everything that comes out of your camera?

To be honest, you're making yourself out to be just as much as a fool.