People not getting back with you after their photo session?

[Ursula]

I've done a few small "just vows" weddings lately for well, pretty darn cheap. But moving on, out of the past 3 I haven't had one of them get back to me on what they want!

An hours worth of photos online, emailed to them to view the gallery. Then to let me know which 24 they'd like as prints.

But nothing.

I'm concerned it's my photography but at the same time I do a beach portrait session and people love them to pieces. :confused:

So my question is, do people sometimes buy a sitting and do everything and never finish it up or contact you again?

This seems quite bizzare to me. If I paid for prints I'm going to get my prints!!

[forcebender]

I'm thinking if they are doing a 'simply vows' they aren't into the whole wedding thing, which of course includes pictures. I do hope for your sake you charge up front. If so, well, hey, whatever floats their boat.

You also could put in a contract bit about having to order within 6 months. That could speed it along.

[Ursula]

Well I'm not quite dirt cheap to where I'd think they'd forget about me. I charge $200 and that's only for an hour (usually it's about 30-40 minutes though) I require a $100 despoit aswell.

Putting it in a contract is something I didn't think about. I am worried that like a year from now Bob and Jenn want prints and it takes so much time to look them back up and figure out which they were, etc. So thank you for that suggestion I will do that.

[staereo]

Ursula,

I read you concerns about your photography. It is kind of funny how being an artist can lead you between feeling completely full of yourself and dominant amongst peers, then the next moment be sitting around wondering if you're up-to-snuff. Anyways, that's neither here nor there. But I think at one point or another, even the most confident of photographers has moments where they over-scrutinize themselves, or feel the tingle of self doubt. I hope you don't mind that I opened your site just to see, and from an objective point of view, you have perfectly fine pictures! I'd say your clients are certainly getting more than their money's worth from you. No need to worry about that.

As far as making money, I am not sure of your pricing methods, because the pricing you mention on here doesn't match the quotes on your site. However, if this is a normal thing, and you have built any of your shooting/post processing/retouching time into your print costs, I would ensure that you make sure that enough prints are built in to the front cost of the wedding fee to be able to not lose any 'time' out of your pocket. In other words, ensure that the time you spend on the wedding (phone calls/planning/meeting/shooting/post work/web publishing, etc) is all covered. That way you really don't miss out on YOUR cut of the time you spend working for the client. Then, if they blow off the receipt of prints after the fact, it is on them, and is not detrimental to you.

Perhaps some sort of line in your contract that addresses the length of time for which initial prints are available for purchase, and that after a given date there will be a fee attached to re open their file from your archive. (again, you don't want to lose money on time spent for the client, this is work, you need to get paid)

Digital Asset Management is super important in streamlining that whole process. I'm not sure if you've read the book: "The DAM Book". If you haven't, I strongly suggest it. It has made my life infinitely easier.

Ultimately, you just need to make it so it doesn't change your life if they don't want the prints.

The OTHER option you have is to make it customary to give them a call and sell your work to them. You know, follow up. Call and ask them how they like the pictures... if there are any that they particularly like, or whatnot. You know, talk about their big day and kind of pop their minds back into the sentimental wedding mode and then get them thinking about pictures. Perhaps even a letter including a 4x6 of something you think captures some emotion... you know, of a special moment that evokes their thinking about the wedding and the pictures they want... Maybe say something in the letter thanking them for having you photograph their special moments. Then just make this behavior customary.

I don't know.. it's just ideas, and I'm no business expert. So take it with a grain of salt. Either way, you shoot nice photographs. Maybe you just have to lay on the business tactics a little thicker. ;)

Bruce

[Pinto]

I've done a few small "just vows" weddings lately for well, pretty darn cheap. But moving on, out of the past 3 I haven't had one of them get back to me on what they want!

An hours worth of photos online, emailed to them to view the gallery. Then to let me know which 24 they'd like as prints.

But nothing.

I'm concerned it's my photography but at the same time I do a beach portrait session and people love them to pieces. :confused:

So my question is, do people sometimes buy a sitting and do everything and never finish it up or contact you again?

This seems quite bizzare to me. If I paid for prints I'm going to get my prints!!

Hi Ursula, I took a look at the wedding portion of your site and I certainly wouldn't think that the quality of your images have anything to do with it. You do very nice work. I will offer another possible reason for the lack of wedding print orders... They already have them.

The images on your site are much too high a resolution, and I would suggest that your clients could be simply printing their own prints from your site.

Try it yourself. Just do a simple "Print Screen" grab from one of your images, take it into photoshop or some other editing software, crop the photo from the rest of the page and I'll bet you can print a very nice 5x7 or larger print.

If you are getting referrals from previous clients who haven't purchased prints that would be another clue.

Reduce the resolution to the point that the image can be viewed but not printed at 4x6 without severe artifacts.

[Over Actor]

I looked at your Page Wow! Nice pics.

Like pinto said your pics are very high resolution They might be Doind a screen print then saving the pics on discs and getting them printed out.
You might wanna lower the resolution and then water mark them.
Heres an example.
His low resolution water marked pics give you an Idea on how the photos will comeout if you purchase them.
http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/store.aspx?p=228

Good luck with everything

[Ursula]

Thank you for the nice comments! It always means more coming from fellow photographers. That wedding was actually an intimate wedding, for them I start at $200 with a few prints included. I may even up that a touch too. If they don't want the prints that are included well it's less money I spend on them, if that makes sense. I'm not losing anything but I do kind of feel that tingle of "Did I not please them?"

I actually didn't know you could make a 4x6 of those images... I am going to be purchasing a new online proofing shopping cart system for $200 soon and that has a nice watermark feature. I will be changing that soon.

I do agree I am new on the whole business aspect! It doesn't help that I'm a passive person. I've done a good amount of reading of marketing and have experience in online marketing previously but somethings I run into now are definitely new. However, I love it! Haha.

[Yanis]

I've done a few small "just vows" weddings lately for well, pretty darn cheap. But moving on, out of the past 3 I haven't had one of them get back to me on what they want!

An hours worth of photos online, emailed to them to view the gallery. Then to let me know which 24 they'd like as prints.

But nothing.

I'm concerned it's my photography but at the same time I do a beach portrait session and people love them to pieces. :confused:

So my question is, do people sometimes buy a sitting and do everything and never finish it up or contact you again?

This seems quite bizzare to me. If I paid for prints I'm going to get my prints!!


Hello Ursula,

Pinto is right. Your images' resolution are too high. I took it upon myself to save one of your weeding pics (the cake shot) and opened it in PS. The image size is approx. 10"x8". As Pinto mentioned they could have easily saved and printed the pics themselves.

By the way, I deleted the cake pic immediately after I checked the image size.

Peace,
Yanis :D

[th3r0m]

I am worried that like a year from now Bob and Jenn want prints and it takes so much time to look them back up and figure out which they were, etc.

Not sure what you use to do your PP(bridge/photoshop, lightroom, aperture, dpp, etc), but many of the PP'ing programs out there now allow you to add keywords to your photos (ie Bob, Jenn, Wedding, etc, etc) and then allow you to search for photos containing specific keywords. Adding keywords takes a bit of time (a lot of time if you have to go back through 4000 or so photos like I am currently doing) but it makes finding a particular photo very quick and easy.

Another thing to think about is doing custom filenames if you arent already, I typically do something like this "20070629_Senior_JoeSmith", which then allows you to search for photos using the windows/osX file search utilities. Not quite as nice as keywords, but it will get you in the ballpark faster than going folder by folder.

While this will not really help you get your clients to contact you for their prints, it could really save you time when/if they call up a year from now.:)

Good luck.

[Ursula]

Hello Ursula,

Pinto is right. Your images' resolution are too high. I took it upon myself to save one of your weeding pics (the cake shot) and opened it in PS. The image size is approx. 10"x8". As Pinto mentioned they could have easily saved and printed the pics themselves.

By the way, I deleted the cake pic immediately after I checked the image size.

Peace,
Yanis :D

I don't mind so much for my portfolio pictures. In total I only have maybe 30-40 pictures in there. I'd like them to be big so you can see detail, most of those pictures we're done as TFP anyhow.

Thank you for the tip th3r0m! I've been meaning to add more names to my files so I can look it up by say the mother or father instead of one or the other. (etc) A year down the road I'm sure I won't remember how I saved any of them.

[SuzyView]

I have a couple who got married in late April and still hasn't gotten back to me. The wife is in China this week. We e-mail each other. She hasn't had time to look at th 500-600 pictures I took, but I don't mind. Her package is small, I'm only PP 20-50 for her. People tend to forget unless reminded. If I don't hear from her in another week, I e-mail her again. Have a schedule when you sign the contract, in the contract, but if the money is paid, it's up to the customer to contact you. If you didn't get paid yet, they need to be reminded.