Do you really think that a photographer is....

Most definitely!!! That's the job in every service-related endeavor. An entertaining photographer needs to make photos that the customer likes. "Entertain: To hold the attention of with something amusing or diverting." What else would you suggest?

I work at Kinko's. It's a photocopy place. I have a saying.... "Good enough for the customer is always good enough for me." I stand by that.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What looks good to me does not matter. What looks good to the person who is paying for it is the only thing that does. With regard to photocopys, I think certain bright, loud choices in paper color are in poor taste for certain applications, like wedding invitations, for example. But to some people, hot pink is the only way to go. Does that make them wrong? Dumb? Bad? No. It makes them right. The customer always is. I don't argue with them. I make their wedding invitations on hot pink paper, and I'm happy to do it.

"Good" is such a subjective term, especially when is comes to personal choice and taste. I know the same is true in photography. Some like B/W, some like more grain, less grain, harsh, soft, bright, dim, on and on. Is one better? Not to me.

"Good enough to sell." That's a little different. I guess that's what you are referring to. In the photocopy business we have general guidelines we follow: no stray dots or smudges, text straight and sufficiently dark, etc. On occasion though, none of those things matter. Many times legible is good enough. Good enough for the customer is always good enough for me. To suggest something different is rude to the customer.

I never tell a customer they are wrong for liking something I don't, or vice-versa. I think the same should be true if you are selling photographs, couches, cars, it doesn't matter.

While most of the time this may be true, there are exceptions to the rule. What if you print out something that has a slight green cast to it? The customer sees it and says nothing about it. Then they get home and someone with a good eye sees the green and comments about it. Now the customer comes back, unsatisfied. You have let a sub-standard product leave your store and the guy with the good eye is likely to look elsewhere if he has a need for your service.
Case in point, the local CVS by me used to have a good deal on 1 hour prints. I went one time. The prints had a green cast to them, their color was not calibrated to pro film, or at least that is what I thought. I took them back and asked to have them reprinted. While I was there a lady who had picked up her prints began to REALLY look at hers. They also had the green cast. Now I knew it wasn't just the pro film but, all the film they printed. The clerks comment was, "they were good enough for you just a minute ago." I told the clerk a minute ago doesn't matter, she now has two people who are not satisfied. I left a print and a business card and told her to have the Kodak rep call me. Well he did and he said the machine was not properly calibrated and thanked me for pointing that out to the clerk.
I got a free roll development and printing coupon. I used it but never went back just because of the arrogance of the clerk. While the customer is always right is a good policy, sometimes the employee may have a better knowledge and should use it for the benefit of the customer.

This is something of a slippery slope. As we discussed in another (now defunct) thread, anyone who gets paid for taking pictures is, by definition, a professional. As to whether or not they have to be entertainers to do that is not necessrily a logical conclusion.

Take two extremes: a portrait photographer and a landscape photographer. In one case, the communication between the photographer and the subject is almost intimate. The job at hand is to get the subject to 'emote' a certain look or feeling. If the photographer does not have the attention or trust of the subject, little is likely to come of it. Consider a typical baby photographer in a KinderPhoto store in your average shopping mall: Everything is set up for them, and their only job therefore is to make the baby smile and trip the shutter. By definition, they are also professionals, but it certainly be argued that their primary photographic talents lie in the ability to say "Goo goo, gah gah," and to shake a rattle.

The landscape photographer, on the other hand, works in a solitary environment without communication with the subject. It is an enterprise that requires planning, patience, and occasionally, luck. He/she could just as easily be a mute and not be at any operational disadvantage.

Ultimately, a photographer will have to become a salesman---or at least have someone else perform that otherwise distasteful duty for them. To this point I will concede that some of the most successful wedding and portrait photographers I've ever known have also been among the most gregarious. This works well for them at a number of levels, but primarily people are just more likely to spend money with someone they like.

All this is not an argument in support of the contention that picture quality is not important; it certainly is. But there are only subtle differences between good photographs and great ones, and the average person may simply not be sensitive to those subtleties. It’s possible that a good, entertaining photographer may ultimately be more successful than an uninteresting, but extremely skillful artist.

Nobody said life was fair.

That is exactly what I meant when I initially posed the question you responded to.

I can illustrate it by telling a story...

The photographer that photographed my wedding was a sympathic, outgoing personality. He had been highly recommended to me by the people who staged the wedding and claimed to be a professional fashion photographer. The venue took place in a mediaeval castle with a wonderful garden that I had rented for that occasion. It was a great day, and we had a lot of fun.

However, when my wife and I looked at the photographs later, every single one of them (100+) sucked.
Most of the photos were 'technically perfect' (in focus, no smudges etc.) but basically the poses that he had told us to do were very unflattering (like optically adding 30 pounds of weight because of the stance), uninspired and not lifelike. When the pose was somehow acceptable, the hair was blowing around or the dress/tuxedo was not in shape. When the hair was not blowing around, the facial expression was strained because he had asked us to look into the setting sun. He missed the 'right moment' at the handing over of the rings. And so on...

We had some comparison - about 3 months earlier, we had taken some location and studio photographs at our engagement in Taiwan. These had been done by professionals who had been able to convey to us (in Chinese, which I do not understand) the necessary commands so that we had a very hard time to limit ourselves to the 36 photographs we selected for our engagement album. We really looked like movie stars on all the pictures that they showed to us.

So we were absolutely disappointed when we saw the results of the famed wedding photographer's plight. We really couldn't understand that there were not at least some usable photographs. Everyone in my family was equally upset with the poor, uninspired and lacklustre 'memory' of one of our most memorable days.

As legal litigation is not possible in Europe to the point that it is in the US, what we ended up doing was not ordering a single photograph from the guy. We went with the photographs some friends had done with their private cameras and polaroids. (They were better, actually). I was totally pissed off that I had not asked some of my friends who had volunteered to take more photographs. Plus, the engagement album was re-christened wedding album.

Best regards,
Andy

Andy we had a similar experience with our wedding photos, it was not what we were expecting. Basically he was recommended by my wife's church. All he did was take some snap shots with a 35mm camera. Anyone in the crowd could have done the same thing. I don't remember what we paid but, it was damn sure too much.