Great work Rob... I followed this thread back in the beginning and forgot all about it until I just noticed it at the top. Not only did you send a lot of time at the shoot but you have spent a lot of time here on the forum explaining and sharing with everyone! Both interesting and educational

Thanks!

You guys are NOT going to believe what their reaction was. I showed them the pictures, and they pretty much said nothing except commenting on which girl in the shot was prettier. Then I gave them a presentation on the prep work I did, starting with the initial reference shots I took of the location (the ones on page one of this thread).

And their exact words were, "We like these better. They make our offices look BIG."

I replied, "Errr, those are REFERENCE SHOTS of the location, just a visual note for me to go home and have something to look at while I design the lighting. They are DUMMY shots. There are absolute no thoughts that went into these dummy shots. I just raised my hands and snapped away. You could take those with a disposable camera. There's no lighting to speak of, and the place is a complete mess--dirty and broken down."

They replied, "We don't even care that the place is dirty and broken down and has no pretty lighting, we just want the place to look big."

So there you have it. All of my f$cking hardwork and they prefer the kind of shots that any idiot could've taken with a disposable camera.

Welcome to China.

I'm going back to the States in about 6 months. I can't wait to be outta here.

What a total Bummer!!!
I Feel Your pain.

Nonetheless Rob, you can hold your head high knowing you accomplished something that very few Pros ever could.

We here on FM appreciate it..

They replied, "We don't even care that the place is dirty and broken down and has no pretty lighting, we just want the place to look big."

So there you have it. All of my f$cking hardwork and they prefer the kind of shots that any idiot could've taken with a disposable camera.

Welcome to China.

I'm going back to the States in about 6 months. I can't wait to be outta here.

Is it possible that they're pulling your leg? Why? If they acknowledge your most excellent of efforts, then they realize they've incurred a debt because of your professional efforts, unintended on their part or otherwise.

When the brochure comes out, you'll know the honesty of their comments. If they're really that cheap, then the brochure won't come out and these folks aren't long for the business world. If their attitude is, they don't care what the shots look like as they only want shots that make the place look larger, this will be reflected in their professional efforts, their products and they'll have zero chance at growth above being nothing more then a hack house and you can take that to the bank.

When you get back to the states in six month, we'll still be singing your praises for your fine efforts and will welcome you back with open arms.

Was that enough smoke to help


Edited by BeeMan458 on Oct 30, 2004 at 09:36 AM GMT

Hehe, not a problem here. Elena loves hot chicks as much as I do, so if some nubile hottie wanted me to shoot her in her birthday suit, as long as my wife gets to watch, she's fine with it.

If that's the case, just take your camera to the decent local bars, taking a few pics while there. The gals in the bar will do the rest.

Unbelievable, unfortunatley regardless of what we say here the client is always right!
Your hard work was incredible and I have enjoyed every minute of it but if the client was not happy then all that time and effort was to no avail.
You simply wanted to have pride in your work, don't loose that, there are plenty of people out there that are going to appreciate your skills in the future!
Great lesson on the morons we have to smile at every day of the week.

lunatique wrote:
I've agreed to take a on huge assignment--partly to help out a friend, and partly to gain more experience--

quoting from your orginal post it appears you acheived your goal to gain more experence, after the disapointment passes the valuable lessons learned remain.
1. ask for deposit.
2. hard to beleive but photography is about communications, something everyone can improve.
3. know who has final say and get feedback before and during assignment.
4. listen to guy
5. it never hurts to have a hot chick in a picture

i am impressed by what you did, your skills are apperant and when the moment hits take images that are meaningful to you. i look foward to seeing any and all of those images.

alan

BeeMan458 - No, they're not pulling my leg. That's what they really think.

I look forward to returning home and taking Elena to a bar. . ..

Guy - You know what pisses me off the most? They had a creative director with me the whole day I was shooting. He couldn't have mentioned what they wanted? It was partly my fault too, because I didn't show him the shots on the camera's LCD as I took them. I didn't because I did not want people breathing down my neck and making all kinds of comments and suggestions while I'm already boggled down with the shoot.

The truth is, if I had taken this on as a paying assignment, not as a favor to a friend, then I would've thrown every single self-centered thoughts and ideas out the window and did EXACTLY what they wanted, bent over backwards and asked in detail for anything and everything they could possibly think of. But because I did it mostly for myself to gain the experience, and to help out a friend, I was more self-centered than I would've been otherwise. So in the end, I took the kind of shots "I" wanted, and maybe the way this ended is actually quite fair.

jasin - Yeah, and sometimes we learn lessons in the strangest way. Life is such a mystery.

alan - They are already posted on page 6.

I look forward to returning home and taking Elena to a bar. . .

And when asked; "What-cha doin?" Just say you're working on a few glamor shot ideas, have Elena dressed sexily, for an advertising spread which you can't speak about cause of the NDA you signed in regard to the idea you're working on. They'll do the rest.

Be sure to give them copies of the images for their vanity portfolios and be sure to get model releases signed We'll look forward to the results.

if it is of utmost importance to tether the camera to a laptop, then perhaps you might invest in a pcmcia firewire card? theyre inexpensive, and open up a variety of opportunities, such as capturing dv footage to the laptop (though I don't know if you do video at all, I do, so this is important to me), and being able to alter your camera's settings on the laptop on the road.

I don't know if this is a good analogy but my clients could care less about how I got from A to B. They are just interested in the result. I know that all of my behind the scenes work gets that result but they just know that they want to stay out of jail. It does make a differecne when they pay you though. The more they pay the better they listen and the more appreciative they tend to be in the end.

Sorry to say - but somehow I also like the pictures on page 1 and dislike yours of the later shootings. The initial pictures show the reality and the rooms (after a little cleaning) will look great and generous.

The pictures you took are artistique pictures - but they appear like discotheque pictures - so unreal lighting - very strange.

Fascinating thread -- one of the best I've seen.

Hindsight is 20/20, but there were early posts which predicted the ending. Getting more detail as to what the client wanted, what they wanted to use the pictures for, what was their vision was, was probably the biggest lesson. Second, trying to do the whole thing in one day was probably another lesson. Concept shots to illustrate what your idea to ensure it's in synch with the client's would allow you to adjust if you're not on the same page with your client. Third, if this was a "freebie" for a friend, perhaps the client didn't treat the shoot seriously. So what if the pictures didn't turn out? What did he lose? Perhaps they would have spruced up the place, allotted more time for the shoot, provided more input had they been paying $5K for the shoot.

I'm in the IT business and certainly NOT a professional photographer. The above lessons are important to IT projects and I think are applicable to many professions. Understand what the client wants, plan in advance (you did that in spades!), seek feedback from a pilot project, charge a fair price.

I'd be happy with the experience. You gained valuable experience, you've educated a large group of people (thank you!), you've demonstrated tremendous ability to realize your vision of what you wanted from your shoot. If you're not too pissed off, you can return to the place later with your 12-24 and briefly shoot a few natural lighting shots which make the place look big and make the client happy.

Thanks again for the wonderful thread. I know for sure I don't have what it takes to do this professionally -- and more understanding and admiration for those who are professionals.

excellent shots! you did lots of post processing work -- I wonder if it is really "right" in your window shots to paste in a picture of a city at night, unless they are really in the middle of the city. people viewing the shots might get the wrong perception. Also I don't know if taking out things like pipes is good either, but I think it's okay. While you want your shots to look good, you also want to portray a relatively accurate snapshot of what the interiors look like. If you were a real estate agent and did this sort of post processing to clean up the interiors of a house you were trying to sell, you'd probably get sued for not projecting an accurate image of the house to your customers. just a thought.

Thomas - It'll happen one day I'm sure. She keeps saying stuff like "let's take a girl home with us tonight" since we met three years ago, but so far, no action taken.

PShizzy - since I don't do this for a living, and this assignment is likely an one-time thing, I might not go that far.

Guy - Hahaha, that might just work. I don't think I'll do this kind of thing ever again while still in China though. I wouldn't mind shooting tethered to a laptop in the States as Americans are far more pleasant to deal with.

John Power - Well, it goes both ways. If they paid, they'd have the right to bitch and complain and even get pissed off if you stray an inch away from what they had in mind.

laupi - I chose those colors because they evoke a mood of high-tech CG studio. Normal colors won't convey that as easily.

Mark - Thanks! Yep, I learned a great deal. Very valuable experience.

Scott M - I understand what you're saying, but this is China, a very different country with very different way of thinking. I wouldn't do that in the States.

Amazing thread!

Amazing work Rob and i'm real sorry to hear about your misfortune! Just use those shots to show to other prospective clients. Look at it this way, you got to use all of their offices and people for free to get some excellent portfolio shots!

I'm trying to think positive! He he!

Chris

P.S. I totally agree about americans, a lovely bunch to work with, always friendly and helpful!

thanks for takinh the time to recap your work... you did great!

The English writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson once said, "No one but a fool ever wrote except for money."

The same could be said of photographers.

If your "clients" are not paying for it, they won't take it seriously, and neither should you.

Lunatique wrote:
You guys are NOT going to believe what their reaction was. I showed them the pictures, and they pretty much said nothing except commenting on which girl in the shot was prettier. Then I gave them a presentation on the prep work I did, starting with the initial reference shots I took of the location (the ones on page one of this thread).

And their exact words were, "We like these better. They make our offices look BIG."

I replied, "Errr, those are REFERENCE SHOTS of the location, just a visual note for me to go home and have something to look at while I design the lighting. They are DUMMY shots. There are absolute no thoughts that went into these dummy shots. I just raised my hands and snapped away. You could take those with a disposable camera. There's no lighting to speak of, and the place is a complete mess--dirty and broken down."

They replied, "We don't even care that the place is dirty and broken down and has no pretty lighting, we just want the place to look big."

So there you have it. All of my f$cking hardwork and they prefer the kind of shots that any idiot could've taken with a disposable camera.

Welcome to China.

I'm going back to the States in about 6 months. I can't wait to be outta here.

This certainly is an engaging thread. The tribulations in this one experience are analogous to lessons learned through decades of dealing with clients. a few general comments...

Get the relationship squared away from the start. Buddy deals or semi-professional situations seldom end with both parties being happy. Clients respect your work (and you) to the degree they're paying for it. Get some money (and/or contract) up front–especially important in new relationships. It's a symbol of comittment as well as a practical matter. You dont' want to be the only one with an investment in the project either while it's underway or when it's finished.

If the client's expectations are vague, focus the client first. Guide them toward a clear description and agreement of what it takes to satisfy the requirements of the job. This helps to make happy clients, but it also protects you in case they aren't. Work from a defined shot list so that each and every shot is it's own separate production. (applies to commecial)

Get approvals at each stage–objective, concept, design, execution. By the time you present the finished product they've substantially approved it already! They will have as much ownership in the project as you do. In case they refuse to be involved, or cannot be on location, you need a line in the contract stating that in absence of a client rep for approvals they accept photographer's interpretation of the assignment. This is one more thing that helps define the relationship and gives them some ownership of the outcome.

Rob,
I found this thread just now, in November. Did the shoot take place? Are you willing to post the final shots? I found everyone's tips to be quite helpful to me too. Thanks everyone.

Paul

It's on page 6.

Rob
Regardless of what the client said, you did an excellent job with a very difficult subject. I would get their permission to use your work as an example and then make, some pages on your site, that shows what you can do. It may open the doors to some other opportunities.
I am sorry about the dose of reality in the end. Try not to take it to hard.
You do really good work. Pearls before ? comes to mind, but I digress.
What to take away from the experience.
It is important to do more prep work in determining what your client wants.
What they are trying to achieve. What their goals for the eventual images are.
It is far to easy to get caught up in the moment and give them great work, but not exactly what they want. Because I come from a PJ background, I often get the "Money" shot first and then allow my internal artist to play. In this case, the warning sign was.
>>"I want it to look like that fishbowl effect where everything's all distorted and funny lookin'. "
So, a couple of pre-shoot fisheye shots would have helped bring out the fact, that they wanted to make the place look as big as possible.
When dealing with clients, I often find myself using a form of communication that is called relative listening. Where I try to rephrase what they are saying, so that we are on the same page. So, I would being saying things like. "So, what you are trying to do is to show your work flow, from beginning to end, show that you have an actual office, with a lot of space, and a lot of employees, you only want 4 main images for a full color brochure and the images will have a maximum printed size of 5x7 each." This reflective listening plus summarization helps everyone get on the same page, helps with price negotiation, equipment choice, resolution, ISO, etc. prior to starting a shoot.
Once again, I really like what you did with the place, and keep up the good work.
Bob

Natron wrote:
I can't really help you with the lighting or ideas. Sorry about that. What I'm here to ask is...... what in the world is that guy doing with a full roll of toilet paper on his desk??

I had the same question but then I thought they may be too busy ... so ... you know !!!

By the way, my former boss who is now working in China told me that they build the toilet paper holder OUTSIDE the restroom so that people who take the paper would hesitate to waste it, that might explain a personal roll of paper is probably from a visiting worker from the US.

Lunatique wrote:
Ok guys, I promised to share everything in detail, and here we are, the moment of truth, and the aftermath.

Let's start with the weekend...

.... Big thanks to all of you that gave me suggestions, and I hope this entire ordeal has helped some of you as much as it has helped me grow as a photographer--and more importantly, proved to myself that passion, tenacity, ambition, and thorough planning can overcome overwhelming odds.

AMAZING!!! , thanks for sharing all this with us.

Rule number 1: Get it in writing. This is how friendships are tested. If you are good enough to get the job, you are good enough to get paid.

If you are going to move forward with this "job", I would buy a firewire card and enable my computer to use a firewire connection. I assume that you are shooting digital so I would shoot in Raw mode and color balance in post. You need to decide if you are shooting in lifestyle mode or not. If so, light the people and let the enviroment fall off nicely. If not, light the room and make that the priority. If you are not able to light the shot, you are just another guy with a camera. A "high quality" annual report is just that and it sounds like you are in over your head.

My advice is to drag the shutter and blowout the backgrounds and make it about the people and their energy.