12. Finish the Job

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You don’t take a photograph, you make it.

—Ansel Adams

If you are passionate about photography, you’ll refine your craft by reading books and blogs, attending workshops, and practicing new techniques. You’ll spend time with your clients learning about their children, conceptualizing and styling a shoot, and then photographing their kids. You’ll do whatever it takes to get the shot. After the shoot, you’ll spend yet more time editing the shoot and making sure the best images are ready to show your client.

Most photographers average seven to nine hours per shoot. And that’s just the time aspect of the shoot. That doesn’t take into account the money you’ve spent on your gear, computer, and software. After investing all this time and money, what happens to those carefully crafted images that you’ve put your heart and soul into creating?

This final chapter has nothing to do with photographic technique or children. Instead, it is an appeal to finish the job you’ve started by valuing your time and your work, refining your product, and seeing it through to the end. I’ll provide a brief look at how I’ve chosen to work in my business and explain why I’ve made these choices. Describing how I work is not meant as a prescription for everyone. But it might help you develop your own way of working that can evolve with you over time.

During our conversation, Lindsey’s concerns centered on five compelling reasons for calling me—reasons that highlight problems she has experienced before when having her family photographed. In the interest of helping you avoid some of the mistakes that I and many other photographers have made, I’m sharing these reasons with you. The following five “wants” are, in Lindsey’s words, what she was hoping for and why she was looking for a real photographer:

• A professional. Lindsey wanted someone whose job it was to make portraits and who could and would handle the process from beginning to end, not a friend “with a nice camera.” She wanted someone who would return her calls, show up on time, and create a beautiful end product for her.

• Not overwhelmed. Lindsey confessed that she had discs full of unedited photos of her kids taken by other photographers. And because there were so many images on the discs, she couldn’t decide which shots she wanted to print; consequently, she had become overwhelmed and had done nothing with the images, so they live on her computer rather than on the walls of her home.

• Some direction. Lindsey expressed hope that during the shoot I would direct her family and tell each member either how to stand or what to do. “We’re not models; we don’t know how to pose to look good in a photo.” She talked about frustrating past shoots where her kids ran wild while the photographer seemed reluctant to take control.

• Your opinion. Like every client, Lindsey had questions about the clothing selection for the photo shoot, but she was actually more concerned about getting guidance when it came time to selecting the actual photos. “Will you tell me which ones you like best, or do I have to pick them all?” She was worried that I would show her 100 photos and that she’d be overwhelmed again.

• Images on my walls. “I’m bad with decorating,” Lindsey confessed. Her family had recently moved to a new home, so she was excited about the prospect of finally having photos of her kids on her walls but didn’t know where to start when it came to framing and finding a place for the portraits to hang.

It is your business; you can make it what you want it to be.

Over the years, I think I’ve made almost all of the mistakes Lindsey complained about. But when I saw that what I was doing didn’t properly serve my clients, I changed how I worked. Lindsey’s list of requests validated some of the toughest decisions I’ve made in my business, decisions such as not selling digital files, insisting on a consultation before the shoot, and viewing the images with my clients rather than posting them in an online gallery. Choosing these practices has served my clients well.

The rest of this chapter addresses each of Lindsey’s comments and how you might handle similar requests from your own clients.

My work wasn’t being presented in the way that I knew it should be, and I hated that. At least those clients were printing their photos. I was more concerned about clients who weren’t printing their photos at all. What was happening to those images (FIGURE 12.1)?

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FIGURE 12.1 How do you want your work to be portrayed?

It occurred to me that Ansel Adams didn’t turn over his negatives of Yosemite to the National Park Service and let them print the photos. In his opinion the print was as much a part of the art as the capture. Adams’s famous quote, “The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance” is still valid for digital photography. With digital photography, the capture is only one-third of the job. The other two-thirds are postproduction and the final print. Having come a from a film and darkroom background, I knew just how magical a good print could be. From that point on I was determined to settle for nothing less for my clients.

Is there something about your service that is bugging you or that you don’t like? If so, change it. It is your business; you can make it what you want it to be. Set your standards high, because clients who value those standards will find you and appreciate your attention to quality.

Your clients want your opinion, so have one.

In Chapter 10 you learned about taking control and directing the photo shoot. Although it might put you out of your comfort zone to direct and pose your clients, it is part of your job as a professional photographer. To help you learn to direct and pose better, pay attention to and collect poses that appeal to you in magazines and online. Start a Pinterest board for poses you find and refer to it before your next shoot. Trying to re-create or use those poses as a starting point will go a long way toward giving you the confidence to direct and pose your clients.

Your clients want your opinion, so have one. You are the artist, even if you feel weird seeing yourself that way. Your clients see you that way. So, how do you think the images should be printed and displayed? Do you see them as a series of images hung together or one large image hung alone? Should they be framed and matted or printed on gallery-wrapped canvases? The options for printing and the presentation of digital images is overwhelming, even for photographers who deal with these decisions every day. Imagine then how your clients feel.

If you are having a difficult time helping your clients decide what to do with their images, think about what you would do if these were photos of your kids and you were going to put them up in your home. Begin there. Your clients don’t need to know about every possible variation of luster coating and substrate board. They just need to know how you think it should be done.

While visiting the Museum of Modern Art in New York several years ago, I had an epiphany about presentation. As I toured the exhibits, I realized that the curators used a consistent treatment for displaying photography and fine art—a white, archival, 8-ply matting and black frames or stretched canvas that was timeless.

Matted and framed or wrapped canvases are how I present my work in my photography studio and in my home. It is also the method I recommend to my clients for the portraits I’ve created for them (FIGURE 12.2). This presentation style has worked with the many different décor styles I’ve had in my home over the years.

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FIGURE 12.2 My studio specializes in creating timeless portraits for display in my clients’ homes.

What type of presentation rings true for you? Which method do you love best when it comes to printing your work? Don’t select a frame or presentation method based on what’s on sale at the lab this week. Select your presentation based on what gives your work integrity and how, in your professional opinion, your work should be displayed.

Select your presentation based on what gives your work integrity.

Installations are the closest most moms get to that Christmas morning feeling. Having us show up at her house with photos of her children and hang the photos on the wall for her is a rare treat.

As I was writing this chapter I called Lindsey to check in to see how she was enjoying her photos and also to make sure I remembered our initial conversation accurately. I asked her how her experience with our studio was different than the other photographic adventures she had had. Lindsey shared several compelling last thoughts:

• Sitting down ahead of time. Lindsey commented on how comforting it was to sit down and plan ahead of time during the consult. She knew what to expect and was less stressed about every aspect as a result.

• Not going to be cheap. Lindsey talked about saving up for the portraits and how she knew when she called that it was going to cost more than she had previously paid but that it was worth it to her if she could reach her end goal of having portraits on her walls. She said that the whole process was “quicker and easier than other shoots, and we got exactly what we wanted and more.”

• Love the results. “I didn’t know I’d love it this much,” she said. She knew she would love having her family on her walls (FIGURE 12.3), but she didn’t know how much she would love seeing them every day and how they made her new house seem so much more like home.

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FIGURE 12.3 Lindsey and her family. This client knew exactly what she wanted.

This is the successful beginning of what I hope will be a lifelong relationship with this client. I may see her only every other year or every three years, but if she knows that I care and can get the job done for her, we’ve established a foundation of trust and have formed a mutually beneficial relationship.

Pursue your art with integrity and passion.

Much like the art of photography, the business of photography is a process of trial and error. The best decisions I’ve made have usually been made after I’ve done something the wrong way, realized it wasn’t working, and then tried something new. Don’t be afraid of evolution and change. Both are essential to your growth as an artist and a human being. How do you like to work? Why do you do what you do? The answers to these questions will differ from one photographer to another. Considering your responses will enable you to communicate clearly and confidently with your clients.

Because you’ve chosen to be a children’s photographer, you are in a unique business in that what you create becomes more valuable over time. The images you create are priceless enough to be the first items your clients would grab on the way out of their burning home (after their kids and dog, of course). The images you create are all that will be left when the children in those images are no longer on this earth. The images you create today are tomorrow’s heirlooms. They have value. My hope for you is that you’ll pursue your art with integrity and passion. Trust your instincts, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes—a lot of them, and some of them more than once. You’ll learn from every experience. My favorite quote of all time, which happens to be by Erma Bombeck, sums up my philosophy: “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’”

Use yourself up in the pursuit of your dreams. You’ll never regret it.