Les Baldwin <fotofx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > I think 99% of my clients are fair and would never intentionally steal > from me. My return customer base has always been my best advertising. > Many of my wedding clients became commercial clients as well. Many move, > or change jobs in the Silicon Valley and contact me with their new > positions and bring me along for new projects. The cases I spoke about > are frustrating to be sure, but most of my best customers call and ask > in advance about this or that usage, knowing that I will probably grant > their wish, sometimes with token amounts if they are a good paying > customer. Well, that's nice, anyway. Probably hard to remember those when dealing with that 1%, though. I think wedding work (which I've done semi-professionally a very few times; only for people who I'm sure understanding what they're asking for when they hire me, mostly for friends) in the normal commercial mode is one of the areas where people have a hard time understanding why they can't get a wedding album 8x10 print for the price of that print from Wal Mart. That's mostly the ignorant customers' fault -- but the pricing setup, where the shooting is usually underpriced with the profit to be made on print orders, also contributes. If prints were priced at what a *good* lab charged to make them, plus enough to cover overhead handling the order, people wouldn't find the prices so outrageous. And then the shooting itself would have to be priced at what it was really worth, and people would find *that* outrageous. All in all, these are the reasons I haven't considered trying to really do wedding work professinoally. I don't know how to set it up so it works for both me and the clients and we all understand it. -- David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b@xxxxxxxx>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/> RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/> Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
