It is incredibly daunting to go from doing photography “freelance” vs making this business “legit” as a sole proprietorship. Honestly I don’t think it’s going to change much about how I do my taxes and all but still. Reading up on all sorts of legal things about contracts and such and I have to wonder how many asshats are out there – hearing some stories about people being absolute jerks to their photographers, publishing without credit, pushing back on contracts, etc etc.* It makes me sick with stress about why am I doing this?! But I’m also so incredibly thankful to my clients for being so awesome. I’ve had about 99% excellent experiences with you guys. There’s been barely a handful over the years – we’ve just not clicked or my work didn’t meet some standard of theirs I didn’t know of but no animosity, no bad behavior. I’ve offered refunds a few of those times and I think I was maybe taken up on it once? It’s kind of delightful. The thing that makes me feel like I’m doing this right. Makes me not want to find clients via Google and stick to word of mouth.
Apparently I’m supposed to have long detailed contracts detailing every tiny bit of minutia or potential sidetracking event for every single shoot I do. If you’ve worked with me before I’ve only done the most basic of contracts (more agreements than legally binding contracts probably) for events or larger organizations. Now I’m just trying to think of a way to legally have the client sign, “I won’t be a jerk,” and I’d sign, “I promise to do whatever I can to make this work out for you.” Cut and dry. Sadly, I don’t think that will work. And I kind of don’t care. I’ll spare you from the rambling thoughts on correlations between people with more money and socioeconomic status with their increased likelihood to treat those below them like trash. But I digress.
*Some of the stuff I’ve been reading about what other photographers get push back on feels entirely the photographer’s fault in a way. For example, their contracts say the client’s gallery is up for 30 days and the client has that long to choose the final images they want for their final delivered files/prints. Then the photographer is left chasing the client down when they go over 30 days. Or gets annoyed when the client ghosts them after gallery delivery and then 6 months later contacts them to choose prints. I get that it’s bothersome but really? Don’t put clauses like that in your contract and suddenly it’s not your problem. Sure, I’d want my clients to pick their images ASAP but what’s it to me if they don’t? Eliminates a ton of administrative work on my end. Plus it’s good customer service when someone emails me 6 months later when they realize they didn’t download their images and I have to spend 2 minutes updating and emailing a new link to them with a, “Not a problem, happy to help! Enjoy!” message. So, yeah. Back to doing things how I’d like a photographer do it if I was hiring them. Coincidentally, our wedding photographer nearly 18 years ago worked this way and it was awesome.