What to do when things go wrong on a photo shoot.

Image by Claudio Cicali via FlickrIf you are just getting started in photography or are are long time pro, sometimes stuff happens. If you are a portrait photographer, for whatever the reason, you might have an off day and you don't do as well as you would like. What should you do?  Portrait photography customers can be fickle. For example, when I was managing a studio, there were days when I took some fantastic creative shots and the customers didn't seem to like them much. There were other days were I felt my work was so-so but the customers loved every photo I took. What this probably meant was that I didn't do a good enough job of communicating with my customer before the shoot to give them what they wanted.

But in either case, before you go off and give people their money back because the photos were not up to your standards.  Let the customer be the final judge, after all, it's their photos. They may love every one and say great things about you and your photography skills.  You just never know. Now if they hate the photos, you can re-shoot or give them their money back at that time. Bottom line: don't prejudge your customers and learn from the experience. Find out what the customer is expecting before you step into the camera room.