Humor: What Some Photography Clients Act Like in the “Real World”

Here’s an oldie but goodie: Scofield Editorial released this tongue-in-cheek video back in 2009 titled, “The Vendor Client relationship in real world situations.” It pokes fun at how clients try to bargain with creative professionals in ways that they would never do in “real world” situations (e.g. eating at a restaurant, buying a movie, getting a haircut).

Many of the top comments on the video were left by photographers. Here’s a selection:

I am a professional photographer, and I keep my responses to these types really simple: “Oh, really, Company X will only charge you $99? Well then you should call Company X.” Prospect Answer: “But I didn’t really like Company X’s pictures online.” MY response: “Exactly. I really prefer the fresh mahi mahi at Brasserie Perrier to the filet o fish at McDonald’s, but I don’t call Brasserie Perrier and ask them to lower their prices because McDonald’s only charges $1.99.” [#]

The only thing missing is “Just think about all the exposure you’d get from this job! Your image will be seen by thousands of potential clients, which is great advertising. I mean, really, you should be paying us!” [#]

Clients nowadays doesn’t seem to differentiate between a picture and an image. Everyone can take a picture, but few have the dedication, the insight and the brilliance to visualize and produce a stunning image – over and over again. There’s image takers, and then there’s image makers. The problem is that the takers also call themselves “photographer” or “photography” and get paid in gratification, leaving the market as a whole with a bad reputation. [#]

I had a client for whom I did product photography, photo editing (basic like cropping and creative like changing colors or objects and compositing elements to digitally create new products) and page layout of a digital catalog and 50+ line sheets. After her 4th round of revisions (I do 1 round free and charge for all client requested revisions after the first one,) she asked me to put everything into a Word Doc so she could do the edits herself! I told her I couldn’t…she didn’t understand why. [#]

I received a request for my photography services with an offer to ‘pay me’ to take some pics of their product which they sell at market. Yes, I said, and I’ll keep it reasonable. As soon as I confirmed I would indeed be accepting payment (& we didnt even get into how low i was prepared to go)…the person came back with, ‘oh maybe i’ll just take some shots on my iPhone and get you to take a look at them for me…’ Suffice to say, the conversation ended there! [#]

If you can relate to the video and have had similar experiences as the people above, leave a comment sharing your story with us!

(via YouTube via Reddit)

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