Upset mother; How many Senior pictures?

I have searched, and have really found nothing into this specific type of situation.
I was contacted by a mother to take senior pictures for her son and his girlfriend, as well as some "engagementish" pictures on the same day and same location. I gave her the price for the session, which might I add is very affordable for the area. She agreed to the price, and we set a date.

The date comes, she informs me that she is sick and wont make it to the shoot. So the guy and girl show up with the girl's mom and the shoot goes on for around 2 and a half to 3 hours. It went really well, and the kids seemed to enjoy themselves. I told them i took around 300, but that quite a few would be pull backs and test shots.

I edit them, delete all the trash, and get about 45 for each kid. I post them online and I get a call from the boys mother saying that she hopes that this isnt all of the images, because the other mother mentioned 300 images.

Is it too crazy to return 45 images to a customer fully edited and varying in locations and poses?

Let me know if I am totally out of line with my number of images.
Thanks guys.

You have learned a valuable lesson early on. NEVER EVER EVER tell the client how many images you just took of them. NEVER. Even back in the film days I NEVER told anyone how many images I took and if they asked I told them I didn't know for sure.

Guess what happens now? She will NOT be happy now unless you show her all of the "crap" images and even after she sees them she won't be happy. Oh and guess whose fault it is they are crap? Hint, it will not be her precious child, it is YOU. YOU were the one taking the images, you were the one in the know and supposed to be knowledgable about all things photographic.

Benji

What Benji said.... I learned the exact same lesson not too long ago. I NEVER say how many pics they are going to get nor how many I plan on taking. For weddings (when the Bride/Groom REALLY want a number)I generally say well I will take anywhere between 500 - 600 photos, but you will end up with a fraction of that because alot of them will be test shots and photos where someone has their eyes blinking or someone running through the shot... it happens... I find that by being honest and using the word "fraction" I am not committing to a specific number and they get what they get.

Just tell them there must have been a misunderstanding. You meant 300 Megabytes worth of photos (That's abotu right for 50 JPEgs, right?)

HOnestly I don't see why you can't just say you took 300 and only 45 made the final cut and the rest have been deleted. I would think for any reasonable person a simple explanation would suffice.

Benji wrote in post #9009025
You have learned a valuable lesson early on. NEVER EVER EVER tell the client how many images you just took of them. NEVER. Even back in the film days I NEVER told anyone how many images I took and if they asked I told them I didn't know for sure.

Guess what happens now? She will NOT be happy now unless you show her all of the "crap" images and even after she sees them she won't be happy. Oh and guess whose fault it is they are crap? Hint, it will not be her precious child, it is YOU. YOU were the one taking the images, you were the one in the know and supposed to be knowledgable about all things photographic.

Benji

So the damage is done? I dont understand that. How many are they really going to pick? 5? 10? There is only 1 going in the yearbook. Geez. I guess just take a lesson learned?

tkbslc wrote in post #9009074
Just tell them there must have been a misunderstanding. You meant 300 Megabytes worth of photos (That's abotu right for 50 JPEgs, right?)

HOnestly I don't see why you can't just say you took 300 and only 45 made the final cut and have been deleted.

Thats what I am thinking, and it was more like 90 or so made the cut because there were two of them.

zelseman wrote in post #9009079
So the damage is done? I dont understand that. How many are they really going to pick? 5? 10? There is only 1 going in the yearbook. Geez. I guess just take a lesson learned?

It will make no difference to them how many they may order from only that they have been "screwed" by you for not showing them all of the shots.

Years ago I shot a family of 14 in the studio. I posed them and took 20 (film) images of the entire group and never varied the pose. Then I reloaded the camera and shot about 20 more images of the various families within the big group ending up with grandma and grandpa alone. While paying the session fee grandpa asked how many images I shot. I said enough to get the job done and I smiled. Then he asked how many shots can my type of camera get onto one roll of film. I told him they make two different lengths of film for this camera a 120 and a 220. Then he asked how many exposures can you get on a 120 roll. I told him it depended on which back I used. Then he asked me which back I used. I said one of each (this was an attempt to confuse him and it worked.) Then he asked if I had used two 120s or two 220s. I said one of each on my 6 x 7 back. By that time his wife reminded they were all supposed to all meet for dinner and she couldn't see where all his dumb questions would end up at so they left.

When they came to look at the proofs he again asked me how many I shot of the big group so I finally told him 20. He then counted the proofs and demanded that I show him "ALL" of the proofs. So I did. There were six where various members of his family had their eyes shut. He carefully studied them and finally begrudgingly admitted that I was right, but gave me a dirty look like it was my fault that his children had their eyes shut.

Benji

I just got off the phone with her, and she is saying that since I told them how many I had taken they were expecting 150-200 pictures of each kid. Which is unreal. Im stretching my people skills to the limit here because she is being quite rude. She had seen my work from previous seniors, none of the galleries show that I would take more than 30-50 pictures.

Im at a loss right now.

zelseman wrote in post #9009357
I just got off the phone with her, and she is saying that since I told them how many I had taken they were expecting 150-200 pictures of each kid. Which is unreal. Im stretching my people skills to the limit here because she is being quite rude. She had seen my work from previous seniors, none of the galleries show that I would take more than 30-50 pictures.

Im at a loss right now.

If she pushes too hard, just tell her that she hired you as a photographer for your artistic and creative ability and not just a button pushing technician. In your creative and artistic judgement the images that you have provided are the best from the session and that you feel the other images have fundamental flaws that would prohibit you from allowing them to be shown as representative of your work. Those exist only as your work product and are not in the scope of the agreement. If she pushes harder ask her to provide documentation that would provide every image.

Kinda stuck in this situation with myself, but on the other end.

I had an E-session where our 'tog told us how many she shot, and the finance wants to at least SEE the other 200 that we didnt get. . .

Sigh..

I told her I would show her every image. All 276 of them. I even broke it down into numbers for her on how many were excluded because of blinking, or stray hairs or a car in the background, or simply how some were duplicated to ensure that I got the shot with none of the above involved.

I told her that no where in my contract nor in our verbal agreements had anyone mentioned anything about 150+ images for each kid. However, i am currently revamping my contract to prohibit this from ever happening again.

johnward82 wrote in post #9009469
Kinda stuck in this situation with myself, but on the other end.

I had an E-session where our 'tog told us how many she shot, and the finance wants to at least SEE the other 200 that we didnt get. . .

Sigh..

Were you unsatisfied with the images you did recieve?

Jeeze, peoples expectations are jacked up. Why in the hell would anyone even want to see images that the professional photographer thinks didn't make the cut. I'm glad this isn't my source of income and probably never will be.

Its not my primary source, but I am trying to get out of the GWAC area of photography and return a professional result at an affordable and competitive price as to not bring down any local full time pros that I might be one of someday.

BTW, I love this place. Thank you all so much for the help. I have learned so much here and I am learning new stuff everyday.

Yeah, sorry, it wasn't a dig at you or any other pro, just saying that "the customer is always right" is complete bull. A lot of customers are twits.