Presenting images to client/ public...

[sk66]

A general question.
In my browsing the web I have come across a large number of websites with what appears to be every photo from every shoot. Some pictures are marginal at best.
Now I personally wouldn't put anything but my very best images up on a promotional website (portfolio) even if it meant I couldn't use any from a particular shoot.

But what about when presenting images to a client for selection? Do you really show them all of the pics taken? I would think you almost have to because even a crappy snapshot might have personal meaning to someone...
However, I don't think most customers "expect" to have to cull thru a bunch of "OK" shots, and having to do so might seem negative. It would seem to have the risk of creating an impression that you're not very good.

In magazine type shoots, you're expected to take a ton of pics to get a few keepers. But you get paid for the shoot to get maybe a few good ones.

I think for "personal events" the expectation is MUCH higher while the conditions may be much more difficult.

I don't know, I'm thinking one should "contract" to provide a certain number of good pics from an event (maybe per photographer/helper?) and then present a pre-sorted selection to the clients of only the better shots.

I think this would create a better impression overall. You can always allow them to look thru the "out-takes" if they wanted, and you could then "give them away" at cost (or minimal markup) "as a wedding gift" or some such.
I wouldn't think you really should be charging "full price" for marginal images.

This might disassociate the marginal images from your "professional image"?

So, how do you approach this? I'm not in this field, but I'm curious...

[KendraW]

Since I've only recently begun accepting money as a photographer, this is a question I've had as well. I want to be flexible - I don't like the limitation of "One hour shoot = up to 12 pictures." What if I have one hour's worth of great shots? BUT then I have to EDIT one hour's pictures, and if every 5 of them are essentially the same pose/smile/expression, does the client really want to have to pick out of those 5, or should I just ease the pressure by showing them my favorites?

I see what you're saying about a picture having sentimental value, but something I read (probably on here!) is that you have to remember that every picture you give your client could end up on a picture frame on their mantel. You want people to see it and say, "Wow! Who took that?!" So if there are any pictures in the bunch that would not elicit that response, maybe you shouldn't give them to the client?

I am curious how other people do it - do you assign a number of images to each session type?

[sarahgirl777]

I've only just begun in the business myself, but I definately do NOT show them all the photos. For example I did an engagement shoot the other day and got about 200 shots. I went through them and looked at them for the WOW factor and narrowed it down to 24. I love all 24, yes some of the other ones were good also, but I didn't want to give them too many of one pose or outfit or background etc. She was very excited about them and purchased them all. I made the mistake on my first senior portrait of not narrowing it down enough and she picked some that I don't think were good examples of my best photography. Yes she liked them, hard to argue with that, but I would have liked my best to be handed out at school!

[kelleyrie]

You have to think that they have the potential to show a lot of people your photo and even if they like it, if it's not your best work it doesn't set the tone for your standards. I would only present the best of the shoot to a client.

[sk66]

Originally Posted by sarahgirl777

I've only just begun in the business myself, but I definately do NOT show them all the photos. For example I did an engagement shoot the other day and got about 200 shots. I went through them and looked at them for the WOW factor and narrowed it down to 24. I love all 24, yes some of the other ones were good also, but I didn't want to give them too many of one pose or outfit or background etc. She was very excited about them and purchased them all. I made the mistake on my first senior portrait of not narrowing it down enough and she picked some that I don't think were good examples of my best photography. Yes she liked them, hard to argue with that, but I would have liked my best to be handed out at school!

So, "learning the hard way" huh? Not really, sounds like you've done fine. Any concerns for the "sentimental pics"? (although I'd say senior portraits/engagement isn't quite the same as an actual wedding)

[steelese]

My personal opinion is less is more. I always let the client know that for an hour shoot I will have about 15 photos that they can choose from. If I am selling them the digital negatives they only get those.

This sometimes changes though. I had a photo shoot a while back for a couples engagement photographs. It was one of those days. Not the ones you have nightmares about, but the ones you dream about. I spent 2 1/2 hours with them and had easily 60 to a 100 pictures that were amazing. Light was right, they took direction, and my voice activated light/reflector stand didn't need my direction. I narrowed it down to 50, which was hard. A lot of it was trying to pick the best of a setting. From that shoot I have won 5 first place awards for different competitions.

Now this is where professionalism and business savvy come into play. What I don't want is for my clients to choose the wrong picture. A lot of my business is now referrals. In fact I pulled down my website because I honestly don't want anymore business than I have (I don't do this full time, I produce commercial video for businesses). What I want is for someone to look at that picture and want to know who did it. I want the viewer to start asking questions about the photo. If the photo looks just like everything else out there, I don't want it above a fireplace.

I think taking pictures is too easy sometimes. I talked to another very good photographer who told me if %20 of his photographs aren't keepers he is upset. I come from a film and video background. I have spent more hours slicing film or editing video than most people have ever watched television. My last documentary I filmed took me three months to film, just film, and it lasted 50 minutes. Each cassette lasts 1 hour and by the end I had 300 cassettes. that is point three percent. Really, I thought that was too much, but I needed to fill a standard length.

So as photographers, we need to be editors as well. The key to editing is making things concise and brief. If a certain pose and location didn't work out, don't show them the best one from that. Don't show them one from it at all.

All right. I have talked too much.

Thanks,

[jdepould]

Expectations are inversely proportional to the size of your paycheck.

[Eberbachl]

I take lots of pictures, purely as a hobby, and most of them stink.



I only show people what I believe represents my best photos. It's a matter of pride. There's no way I'd ever show anyone the entire contents of my card - most of them will be dumped into the great digital garbage can in the sky.

Now I don't offer my photos for sale, but if I did, I would operate in precisely the same manner.

I'd do a shoot, and only allow people to purchase what I thought represented my best work.

[Mr Guy]

I'm not the most professional of the voices here, but I've done some family shots and some baby shots. I've been classifying my pictures into four groups.

I take a first pass and delete the majority of my shots (I hope to have this number fall and fall) as being flawed technically. Bad lighting, bad focus, flash didn't fire, really weird face, bad angle, whatever.

During that first pass I move out the ones I think are "good" into a folder I creatively call "First Pass". I move both ones I think I really good, and ones I think may capture something fun or sentimental. Like even if a picture isn't technically or compositionaly impressive, if the subject has a really natural laugh or something like that, or a tender expression, or whatever, I may toss it over.

Then I take a second pass to see if any jump out at me I may have missed.

This is the point I, in theory, delete all the extra junk ones. So far though I've been too paranoid to get rid of them, so I've got them hanging around forever.

Depending on how many made it into the First Pass folder, I'll either process all of them, or selectively process only the best ones. I've been then just doing quick color correction on the rest, scaling them to more web-album size, and dumping them into a zip file and giving that to the parents. Then I put only the best, fully processed ones out for public display/ordering through smugmug.

10 to 15 pictures an hour worth displaying is pretty accurate for me as well, but I haven't promised anyone anything! I usually get about 5 I love, 5 more I really like, 5 more I think are good enough to do something with, and then maybe another 20 that I think they may like enough to have as a screensaver or to send to grandma. With emotional events, like children or weddings, I'd personally want to give them the ones that weren't much more than snapshots for their memories, but I'd downsize them and I certainly wouldn't mark them with my logo (you know, when I HAVE a logo) or process them. They'd be, oh and here's some snapshots for you.

[chalkie7]

lol...just going through this dilemma myself too. I had a studio day a few weeks ago with 8 clients booked in. Rather than expecting them to choose on the day (which I had done before - not a good idea!), I decided to upload a selection of the shots to a client-only area of my web-site. I uploaded between 40 and 60 shots per client. Then 5 of them asked if they could see even more from the shoot, so I obliged by supplying them with re-sized / watermarked pictures on cd. This had several affects:-

1) i think i sold more from some of the sessions than I would have, as the clients did pick some shots that were not real winners in my eyes.
2) several of these shots appeared on social networking sites within hours without my consent!
3) it certainly slowed the whole process down....3 weeks on and I have 2 of the clients still to make their final selection.

I'm still looking for the right balance!