I Almost Had A Session At A Factory And What I Did About It

"Could you do it at my son's work?"

That was the email my client sent me. We had been trying to schedule a family session while all her kids were in town and the scheduling was challenging. In an effort to find a time that worked for everyone. She asked if we could do it at her son's work on his lunch break. I looked up where her son worked and my heart sank.

He worked in a factory.

Concrete, fences, metal, roads... nothing pretty, nothing nice.

My first reaction was disappointment. I mean, there was no way I could make this good. It wasn't going to be good. But then I remembered something Amy & Jordan told me. They shot everything like it was going to be blogged, because it WAS going to be blogged. That changed my thinking. I was going to give it everything I had and do my best to make it work.

But I still had one thing I wanted to try. See, many times, clients don't know what they don't know. She probably wasn't thinking about backgrounds and such, she was just trying to find a time that all her family would be in one place! So I gave her a call. My plan was fairly simple - tell her I would be happy to do the photos at her son's work, but I was concerned that she would not like how the photos turned out with the background. I would of course do whatever she wanted, but my professional opinion would be to try to maybe find a park nearby that her son could meet us at? Or could we do it before he even went to work?

With these thoughts in my head, I started the conversation and was pleasantly surprised to discover that she had indeed thought of this concern and had some other options. We ended up doing the photos before her son went to work, and while the location was still not my ideal, it was much more workable. Plus, it was so hot that day and being on concrete would have been absolutely miserable. 

This experience drove home the point of client education. My client did end up thinking about the background, but what if she hadn't? A lot of people don't think of backgrounds and lighting, simply because they don't know that it's a major element of their photos!

However, the client is "the boss". Often, they'll ask for your suggestions and recommendations, but if they want something, you're there to serve. If she had said that the only day and time that would work out for them was to do the session at her son's work, then that's what I would have done; happily, with a smile, and giving it my best effort. I'm so thankful it didn't come to that, although that would have made an interesting story in and of itself :)