[7-11] Less is less
Comparing 2021 with 2020:
After a long reorganization process (I did not anticipate I would photograph so many people), here are some cursory figures:
2021: 14,019 kept images (raw images), 84 portrait-specific customers => 166.9 images/client
2020: 12,804 kept, 70 portrait-specific customers => 182.9 images/client
This is good. First, I have more customers so far this year than all of last year – great! Covid-19, for one, but also that my quality has improved, and the marketing engine has improved as well.
Second, I am trying to reduce the # of images per client. If you image a roll of 35mm film has 36 images, then 166.9/36 = ~4.5 rolls.
At 182.9 images/client => ~5.1 rolls/client.
This is not bad.
However, a few changes this year:
• Send a contact sheet (pdf) => more formal, cleaner (single file)
•• Remove images that are not worthy, or duplicates => makes the selection easier
••• (!) Send the client your favorites; this is a big deal, it forces me to look at the images carefully, adjust them from RAW —> SOOC, and then present my favorites. This is part of a larger process of “previewing” the shoot to a client. This is for safety, I am trying to prove to the client the shoot was worth it. If I send a bunch of small images, including the crappy ones, it basically hands a lot of unnecessary work to the client, which is a major turn-off.
•••• Create two or more contact sheets (this helps reduce download problems, as each file is smaller than a single large pdf)
And so forth.
In the solo indoor portrait session today (4582), I produced 66 images. Of those, probably 50-70% are not useful, but stay there maybe to prove that the images were taken.
I always send the SOOC files to clients because often, I realize that retouching doesn’t improve the image significantly, and perhaps many clients in the past would have prefer to have the option to use an unedited image. Other photographers would call this blasphemy, but I think it’s just decency and good for my business to offer a little more.
