a tfp photographer needs your guidance

[rocker83]

I think this is business related, and Im sure it has been asked before, but I couldn't find an answer.

But...as a person that mainly does tfp photography, how many shots do you show your client? Does anyone give them all the shots? How do you decide how many shots do you actually give them?
The reason, is that, and Im probably pretty stupid for doing so, I am killing myself night and day touching up all these photos for models who say they want all the photos from the shoot....I know what I'm doing is not right, but I just don't know what the standard is...

If anyone could help, Id greatly appreciate it...thank you

-a very tired photo guy

[sspellman]

Mike-

There is no good reason to retouch all the pics. For individual model shoot-even paid ones-I generally show the model the best 200 and ask them to pick the best 30-50. Using a web gallery such as SmugMug/Snapfish/etc is a very convenient tool for proof galleries, final image downloads, and prints.

-Scott

[rocker83]

Yeah, I am getting that feeling too...I guess Im just insecure, sometimes my "keepers" do need some work. If I show just the small jpegs I get when I take the raw files...I feel they aren't good enough to be seen...

but what your saying is that I should just shove all the untouched keepers on my smug mug, have them pick their fav 10-20 or however many I feel they need, and touch those up?

[sfaust]

When I shoot TFP which, not all that often these days, I offer the model a gallery of proofs, and 5 or 6 retouched images.

The reason is this. Typically, we shot about 3 or 4 different setups. A model shouldn't have more than 1 or 2 images from the same setup in their portfolio. So if they picked the best 1 or 2 images from each setup, they will have more than they can use in their portfolio anyway. The reason I include the proofs is so they can see what worked, and what didn't in relation to their modeling in front of the camera. They don't have the ability to see what things look like from the photographers viewpoint, and the proofs give them that vantagepoint.

There isn't any real reason to retouch all the images from a shoot, since only a small handful would be used in the end. Its better to concentrate more effort on say 5 or 10 images, then to the same effort across a couple hundred images.

Delivery quality, not quantity.

[rocker83]

well thank so far for what you have said...
now when you say proofs, you just mean smaller photos?
what do you mean that they don't have the ability to see what htings look like from the photographers viewpoint?

yeah I definitely agree not to delivery quantity but quality

[sfaust]

now when you say proofs, you just mean smaller photos?

I generally create a web gallery for the models to pick the images to be edited. Its usually 640x480, or 800x600. I include that gallery on the final CD with the edited images.

what do you mean that they don't have the ability to see what htings look like from the photographers viewpoint?

Since they are in front of the camera at the time the images are taken, they don't have the same view of themselves during the shoot. If you only gave them the good edited images, they will never know what poses, expressions, etc, didn't work. Giving them the proofs, allows them to self critique their work.

[rocker83]

oh wow, well thank you for all your help, I will sleep a little better tonight :)