I am a semi pro photographer still with a lot to learn. I had a photoshoot recently where it all seemed to go wrong and I don’t know how to address it with the client.
This is a client I have worked for a lot in the past and they’re always happy with my work and rehire me for all their event photography.
They reached out saying they needed a lifestyle / headshot type shoot in their restaurant. This was split into two parts, one with a child and a food product and 5 different types of shots to get the 4 different type of shots with multiple food products. They gave me 1 hr to do the whole shoot.
I arrived an hour early to set up but client turned up 20 mins late. Then the restaurant didn’t have the correct food products for the shoot. There was no representative from head office just the two staff members to be in the shoot (not models)
We spent half an hour alone trying to sort the food products out and then I finally began shooting. 1st staff member was a reluctant model and it too a while to get her to relax by which time food product had melted and needed to be remade.
By the end, I was on site for two and a half hours, even though I was only being paid for 1 hour.
I’m not even happy to provide the client with the shots because they’re not good enough. (Client with eyes closed, blurred or product out of focus)
Currently, I’m thinking of sending the client what few shots I do have and explaining the issues but I don’t want to make it should like excuses for my lack of experience.
Do I write the whole shoot off and use it as a learning experience? I have definitely learned not to let the client dictate the time of a shoot.
I'm going to disagree with half of the thread on one point - taking good photos while trying to navigate this clusterfuck is going to be extremely difficult, this kind of baffling shit would have anyone off their game. They didn't do their part, on any front. Your images probably aren't acceptable quality but if you're in any way involved in sorting out personnel issues or supply issues for the things they're supposed to be providing things have gone terminally sideways anyway.
In your shoes I'd offer to schedule a reshoot at a discount - depending on how good they've been in the past, potentially comped - with the note to them that the organization needs to be WAY better for the second round. I'd consider working on your scheduling and setting expectations more than fretting over the quality of work; if it's big enough that you're scheduling an hour of setup, it's probably more than an hour of session time. If it's an hour of session time that a commercial client is a third of the window late for, the discussion should probably be on a serious discussion of extending the billed time or rescheduling because that's just kinda wild to me.
The bit about the reluctant model is enough to make me think that the company needs a good hard whack on the subject of professionalism and what preparing for a photo shoot actually means because that is *so* not your job to deal with, either. They shouldn't be forcing someone into a photo shoot that they don't want to be a part of.