MpactPhoto » Professional Photography Resource Blog: MpactPhoto

I whole heartily agree with your post.

Just before making a move to Colorado I did a job for a business back in Ohio. It was to be rather simple shoot- just head shots of their employees for a future website. I had decided not to worry about a contract since I had worked with the business owner to sell her some photos had taken of her for a shoot for a newspaper.

Everything went fine leading up to and during the shoot but I did have a few small hints the owner might be a wee bit difficult to please. But there was nothing that I hadn’t seen before, and nothing that really fired up any red flags.

The owner agreed she would be there before the shoot so she could have some input on where I set up and other items, but when I arrived I was told she wouldn’t be there for hours and that I should just go ahead without her. She showed up midway during the shoot and only had flattering words for me.

During the sessions, I was showing the employees their photos as I was going along, and even showed the owner her own photos as well as some of the other employees. Everyone was saying great things about the photos, and the owner seemed happy with the photos I was taking.

She had told me before hand that she wanted to make the decision on what photos to use immediately after the shoot, and I left time accordingly. But when I was done and finished in the agreed upon time, she decided she didn’t want to make the decision at that point and asked if I would put the photos in an online gallery for her to view. We had agreed I wouldn’t be retouching or editing any of the photos before she picked the individual photos. The quoted price didn’t include an online gallery or any retouching prior to her choosing the final images, but to help the process along I worked with her time limitations, and I did do some minor retouching and delivered her a link for the online gallery the next day.

Even though she had seen exactly what I was doing, had seen the background I was using, had seen the photos during the shoot, and the employees were telling me how much they loved the photos during the shoot… a week later she started telling me how bad they were. It started with a minor, “I’m not sure these are going to work for us.” And then progressed from there. I got en email about the background being the wrong shade of brown, and I offered to make it what ever she needed. Then another email about how everyone hated their photos, and I offered to reshoot if needed free of charge. The next day I got a message about how I had lit everyone horribly especially her hair on the left side of her face, and I offered to do anything to help her out.

Each day for a week and a half I seemed to get a new complaint. I took the complaints in stride and tried to work with her or apologize for any perceived short coming. Two weeks after I delivered her the gallery link, I received a call from one of her employees. She telephoned to ask for the password for the gallery because she was told she had to choose everyone’s photos for them that night and hadn’t been given the correct password. She proceeded to tell me how much everyone was loving the photos they had seen online. And then the very next day I got another email from the business owner listing a litany of everything that was wrong along with how everyone hated their photos as well as how bad of a business person and photographer I was.

I listened to her and read every email from her. I was polite and apologized whether I agreed or not. I tried to work with her and told her I would reshoot them all, and that I would gladly buy a new background if she could show me the exact shade of brown she wanted. I even offered to retouch every photo with the correct shade of brown if she wanted to do that.

In the end I had to end the relationship as it was obvious to me after a month of complaints that she was never going to be satisfied. She refused to make a decision on the photos she had or on whether she wanted a reshoot. The kicker to the relationship was at the point when I’m telling her that I don’t think we are able to work together, that was the point when she asked me to at least help out her parents (who were supposedly employees of hers). Her parents were going to use their photos for projects outside of the agreed upon use and she told me they needed them quickly. I turned her down since she had had ample time to choose those photos, and in addition explained to her that her parents had each personally wrote me rather rude (and somewhat vulgar) emails about the photos as well as the business relationship I was conducting with their daughter.

In 20 years of being a professional photographer, I had never had a client like her). I had never turned away a client after agreeing to work together. I had never had parents jump into the middle of a business conversation with vulgar words and proceed to tell me how bad a business person I was.

Though my time may have been spent, and I didn’t make anything from the photo shoot, I learned some valuable lessons. First, contracts for everything even if you don’t think it is necessary. Second, there are people who just won’t ever be pleased no matter how much you bend and flex to meet their expectations or needs. And third, sometimes the parents are ten times worse than you would ever expect.