# Client from 5 years ago.



## greggphoto (Feb 20, 2014)

I had a client whose wedding I did 5 years ago. I was just starting out and just wanted more for my portfolio.
It was a family member of mine and his now wife. No contract signed however a decent bit was paid. The average rate of a shoot and burn. I told them I would be happy to make an album for them. I provided them with fully edited and airbrushed images, a disc with all the images and album layouts for their approval. 

Have not heard a peep from them in 5 years. All of a sudden, girl wants me to just print the album. She doesn't remember the layouts, admits that it has been 5 years and they haven't selected so much as 1 photo to change in the layouts. (She is not even sure she has the disc or layouts anymore). 

Would it be considered wrong to at the very least ask them to pay for printing costs of the album now that it has been 5 years?! I am now an actual professional with contracts and my time is pretty valuable. I still have the layouts and the pictures but it will cost me several hundred dollars to print them an album. 

Thoughts? Other professionals how would you handle this or have you had something like this happen before? 

~G


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## tirediron (Feb 20, 2014)

This seems like an extreme case, time-wise, and I would very definitely charge for this.


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## The_Traveler (Feb 20, 2014)

Why not charge them? - and give them a contract to sign.


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## ronlane (Feb 20, 2014)

How nice of them to wait to see if they make it past that 5 year mark first and THEN get the album. lol


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## curtyoungblood (Feb 20, 2014)

If they've already paid you to print the album, I don't think it is fair to charge them a second time for that work simply because they took a long time to get back to you. It may be fair for you to charge them a small fee for the extra work they've caused you, but I would think it would be somewhat minimal if you already have the layout done.


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## robbins.photo (Feb 20, 2014)

greggphoto said:


> I had a client whose wedding I did 5 years ago. I was just starting out and just wanted more for my portfolio.
> It was a family member of mine and his now wife. No contract signed however a decent bit was paid. The average rate of a shoot and burn. I told them I would be happy to make an album for them. I provided them with fully edited and airbrushed images, a disc with all the images and album layouts for their approval.
> 
> Have not heard a peep from them in 5 years. All of a sudden, girl wants me to just print the album. She doesn't remember the layouts, admits that it has been 5 years and they haven't selected so much as 1 photo to change in the layouts. (She is not even sure she has the disc or layouts anymore).
> ...



I guess for me it would depend on what I agreed to do for them in the first place.  But I'm different than most I suppose, I've never considered my word to come with a statute of limitations.  Would it be reasonable at this stage to charge them?  Yup.. it would be I think.  Would I do it?  

Nope.  I'd go ahead and honor the original deal because that's what I said I'd do then, so that's what I'll do now.  For me the 5 years, 10 years, wouldn't matter.  YMMV of course, not everybody views the world quite like I do and it certainly wouldn't make you evil or wrong.   But if I could honor the request I would.


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## KmH (Feb 20, 2014)

greggphoto said:


> . . . No contract signed however a decent bit was paid. . . . I told them I would be happy to make an album for them. I provided them with fully edited and airbrushed images, a disc with all the images and album layouts for their approval.
> 
> Have not heard a peep from them in 5 years. . . She doesn't remember the layouts, admits that it has been 5 years and they haven't selected so much as 1 photo to change in the layouts. (She is not even sure she has the disc or layouts anymore).
> 
> ...


They failed to hold up their end of the deal by not selecting layout and photos in a timely manner.

I would charge my current rates for re-doing the layouts. 

If it were an immediate family member - brother, sister, mom, dad - that got married, I would bill them my full rate but give a 100% discount.

I have to ask - Why didn't YOU contact your family member about the album 4 years and 9 months ago? And again 4 years and 6 months ago,. And 4 years and 3 months ago, Etc.


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## SnappingShark (Feb 20, 2014)

You provided them with a layout for their approval - they didn't tell you any changes.

You were not a professional then, but you are now.

They were charged at the time.

I would personally say that you should do it for them and not charge them.

Yes, they left it 5 years, but you also left it 5 years - that's why you're professional now, because YOU wouldn't do that these days


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## sm4him (Feb 20, 2014)

If you TOLD them you'd be "happy to make an album" for them, you DID have a contract. It was just an oral one, rather than written, and it sounds like way, WAY too much was also left UNsaid, like how long they would have to select the layout for the album.

If it were me, I'd feel like the only ethical thing I could do would be to provide the album I *said* I would do for them.

Question: WHY will it costs you "hundreds" to print the album? How many pictures are we talking about here? I'm no professional, but do ALL your albums have an actual *cost* to you of hundreds of dollars?? Surely there's a more economical choice.

Since this was 5 years ago, and you weren't really a "professional" at the time--what kind of album did you plan to do for them at that time? Surely you didn't plan to do one that cost YOU hundreds of dollars. So, do the kind of album that you would have done for them at the time.


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## weepete (Feb 20, 2014)

I think you should do it. Print the pictures to the best of your ability now and give them an awesome album. 

Sure, now you are a pro and charge a lot more for your time and she probably knows she is chancing it. However if you do this chances are you will be reccomended to everyone she knows and any time in the next few years when someone needs some photography they'll get that story and get told how awesome you are. You can't buy that kind of word of mouth so at the worst write it off as a business expense.

Plus she's family.


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## Nevermore1 (Feb 20, 2014)

I'm not a professional but I would just print and give them the album.  It will be good for your reputation.  Also, you didn't say how close this family member is (is it a sibling or distant cousin that you never see), if you don't do it you may run into some "family drama" if they are the type that would decide to go complain to other relatives that you are close to.  It could possibly make things awkward at future family functions for both of you.  This is one reason I would be very hesitant to offer or accept and offer from a family member or close friend to do work for them.  My cousins wife is kind of a professional (she does it in her spare time) and offered to do his brothers wedding for him at no charge as their wedding gift and was a little upset when they said they wanted a "real" professional to do their photos instead.


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## CCericola (Feb 20, 2014)

You had a verbal agreement and you were already paid. You are both at fault for letting this much time go by. Print them what you were going to do for them 5 years ago. If they want a fancier album then they will need to pay the difference for an upgrade. 

This could get real ugly real fast especially when it's family. So tread lightly.


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## CMfromIL (Feb 20, 2014)

This is family...not some dude you've never met.  He paid you, your cost to make the album is 'sunk'.  You wouldn't have charged them then, as it was included.  The length of time is irrelevant to the discussion.  Is this the hill you want to die on with a family member?  I would provide w/out question and in all likely hood make a family joke about it or something.  The fact that you are even asking is a bit unseemly. The only caveat to this is that the album should be of the same/reasonably the same as you would have offered 5 years ago.  If they are demanding the gold bound edition printed on paper farted out the butt of a unicorn...then charge accordingly.


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## jamesbjenkins (Feb 21, 2014)

From what you've shared, this would seem to be about 98% your fault. Contract or not, self-proclaimed professional or not, you had an arrangement 5 years ago that you failed to follow through on.

You've already been paid, so you should, IMO, suck it up and provide the album. Obviously, as Christina said above, if the client wants to change or upgrade something, you might consider charging for those changes.

But, this is definitely 98% your fault. Just make it right and go back to whatever you were doing.


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## greggphoto (Feb 21, 2014)

greggphoto said:


> I had a client whose wedding I did 5 years ago. I was just starting out and just wanted more for my portfolio.
> It was a family member of mine and his now wife. No contract signed however a decent bit was paid. The average rate of a shoot and burn. I told them I would be happy to make an album for them. I provided them with fully edited and airbrushed images, a disc with all the images and album layouts for their approval.
> 
> Have not heard a peep from them in 5 years. All of a sudden, girl wants me to just print the album. She doesn't remember the layouts, admits that it has been 5 years and they haven't selected so much as 1 photo to change in the layouts. (She is not even sure she has the disc or layouts anymore).
> ...



To clarify -- I had emailed them several times within the first year about it. And they never responded with any changes or approvals. They said they were working on it. 

This is a close cousin. Directly related.

The hundreds of dollars is accurate -- 200-300 dollars for an album. I used to use graphi-studio because they were the first album maker with which I was introduced. But that is about how much a digital album costs.

I feel like this falls into an extreme case. It would be like me asking a photo lab to print my images and then never picking them up and expecting them to have the images 5 years down the line.  NO?


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## table1349 (Feb 21, 2014)

greggphoto said:


> greggphoto said:
> 
> 
> > I had a client whose wedding I did 5 years ago. I was just starting out and just wanted more for my portfolio.
> ...



What would the album have cost to print 5 years ago?  They  paid you for an album.  If the printing costs are substantually different then you might charge them part of the difference.  If not then Print the album.  They paid for it.

5 years or 50 years.  As a professional it makes no difference.  The photographer that shot my in-laws wedding 50 years ago still  had the negatives.  We asked if we could get some printed to give to the folks on their 50th anniversary .   He said he would but he was more than happy to let us have the negatives so we could have them printed ourselves and save a few dollars.  That is a professional.  Still customer oriented 50 years later.


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## jaomul (Feb 21, 2014)

I would say you charged the going rate at the time, though you say you were not a pro then but are now. You wanted to do this for your portfolio but don't need the recognition now you are established. It would be the honourable thing to finish the "verbal" contract. If it was archived properly at the start it probably wont be as difficult as it seems. just an opinion


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## CCericola (Feb 22, 2014)

No it's not like a photo lab. Photo labs give you a contract in the fine print whether it's on the envelope you dropped off your film in or the terms and conditions you agreed to when you placed your order online. 

If you don't have the money then I would seriously rethink your career choice.


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## jamesbjenkins (Feb 22, 2014)

Do you want the advice of the professionals reading this thread, or don't you?

Stop making excuses and get your cousin their album.


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## NancyMoranG (Feb 23, 2014)

I am not in the business, but have to go along with giving them their album as part of the agreement. You probably have a time limit or extra fee now in your contracts for such a time discrepancy. 
AND it being family, can get ugly....just print it and save yourself alot of grief.
Nancy

My wedding photographer threw out negatives if you had not reordered something in that time frame. When we had a house fire, no more wedding album, I called him. Would have paid for another album..


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## Steve5D (Feb 23, 2014)

At the very least, I would charge them the difference in the printing prices you'll deal with now compared to five years ago, as well as a PITA charge.

If they haven't been replying to e-mails regarding this for five years, you could've made a damn strong argument that they no longer had an interest in acquiring it...


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## greggphoto (Feb 24, 2014)

Wow --- quite the spectrum --- I appreciate everyone's input. I am not making excuses at all just trying to provide all the facts so as to get the proper input. The biggest reason I came here was because it involved family and yes it has the potential to get somewhat ugly. I certainly don't wish to upset anyone.


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## robbins.photo (Feb 24, 2014)

greggphoto said:


> Wow --- quite the spectrum --- I appreciate everyone's input. I am not making excuses at all just trying to provide all the facts so as to get the proper input. The biggest reason I came here was because it involved family and yes it has the potential to get somewhat ugly. I certainly don't wish to upset anyone.



In the long run I guess the only question you really need to ask is, what's more important - family or money. Really in the end that's the choice you'll be making. I can pretty much gaurantee that your cousin and his wife will be firmly in the, but we already paid you for the album camp. So you can spend a bit of money out of pocket, save your reputation not so much with your clients but rather with your family and print them the album.

Or you can try to save yourself a few bucks, tick your cousin and his wife off to no end, have them telling everyone in your family their side of the story and not yours, blowing this whole thing way out of proportion and possibly even posting negative stuff about you and your business on facebook and other internet sites that might actually affect your future business.

Will it go that far? Eh, who knows. Is it worth the risk over a couple hundred bucks? Not by the longest shot ever taken in this or any other universe. So yup, you want my advice, pony up and get them the album. Take it as lesson learned, make sure you put something in future contracts so you don't find yourself in this situation again, and move on.

Just my 2 cents worth of course, as usual YMMV


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## robbins.photo (Feb 24, 2014)

The_Traveler said:


> Why not charge them? - and give them a contract to sign.



Something tells me your a real hoot at thanksgiving Lew.. lol


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## Gavjenks (Feb 24, 2014)

The story in the OP does not make it clear whether he just casually mentioned that he'd make an album AFTER having been paid, or whether that was like, part of the deal for the amount paid.

If part of what they paid was for the album and knew that when deciding on an amount, then you are under contract, and simply walking away would basically be theft. I would choose one of three options:
1) Give them the album they paid for. If it costs more than you charged then that's your fault for charging less than your costs (which can't possibly be higher now than before. Inflation doesn't count since you could have been earning interest on the money).
2) Reimburse them what they paid for the album, or the whole amount if it's unclear how much was for that.
3) Given them the option of paying your current rates or being reimbursed as in #2.
^
All 3 are fair I think, but I have listed them in ascending order of how much of a douchebag they will make you look.


If you suggested the album after they paid you / they weren't factoring that into the price, then you DON'T have a contract for the album (contracts require something of value from both parties, not one sided gifts), and I think it's fair just to try and drop the issue. It won't score you any brownie points with the family, it is technically fair. Though I would suggest against this anyway, though, for the paltry sum of $200-300 it isn't worth the reputation hit. And at the very least I would still offer one of the 3 options above anyway.

Obviously option #1 above is the best for your reputation.


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## robbins.photo (Feb 24, 2014)

Yup.. I can almost hear the cousin now. "We gave that jerk his start. If we hadn't let him shoot our wedding he wouldn't even be a pro photographer right now. We paid him all that money and now he's refusing to give us our pictures."

Fair? Nah, not really. Accurate? Well when was the last time anyone you ticked off bothered getting all their facts straight before they started blowing off steam? So yup, it really is in your best interest to just bite the bullet and fix this before you have a huge mess on your hands.

Like I said, me, I'd do it for them even if I knew for certain they would'nt raise a fuss about it or ever breathe a word to anyone. If I promised them a wedding album and they didn't get it, none of the rest of this stuff would matter to me personally. Family or not, special circumstances or not. To me none of that is really that is really important.

My grandfather once told me, "Son, the only thing a man has for certain in this life is his word. Everything else you can lose. Everything else can come and go. At the end of the day the only thing your sure to have is your honor. Nobody can every take it from you, and you can never lose it. All you can do is give it away."

But again.. I'm a dinosaur. A walking anachronism. So yup. my best advice to you is to spend the cash, get the album printed, and wish your cousin well.


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## pixmedic (Feb 24, 2014)

If it was not family, i would say to tell them they have to pony up a little  money for this...
However, unless this is family you dislike, i would just do it for them for free, providing you arent talking about $300-$400 wedding albums. 
Just make it something simple. They waited 5 years so im guessing it isn't critically important. 
Not because you have some obligation to...
Not because it is the "professional" thing to do...
just because it is family.


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## Steve5D (Feb 24, 2014)

Gavjenks said:


> Give them the album they paid for. If it costs more than you charged then that's your fault for charging less than your costs (which can't possibly be higher now than before. Inflation doesn't count since you could have been earning interest on the money).



That's funny.

I'll go out on a limb and say that the interest earned on the money paid would not be sufficient to cover the increase in printing costs; not even close. The OP doesn't say how much he was paid, but I doubt that it was an amount to generate any significant interest, assuming he kept the money in the bank. When I get paid, that money doesn't sit in the bank for very long.

Additionally, the OP states that he e-mailed them repeatedly regarding this, and received no replies. That works strongly in his favor. The cousins are not without fault here and, in fact, it could be argued that they don't have their album due to no fault of the OP...


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## CMfromIL (Feb 24, 2014)

Steve5D said:


> Gavjenks said:
> 
> 
> > Give them the album they paid for. If it costs more than you charged then that's your fault for charging less than your costs (which can't possibly be higher now than before. Inflation doesn't count since you could have been earning interest on the money).
> ...



That's great Perry Mason, he can use that during his closing argument during the Thanksgiving Day "Family Court" to be judged by all the family.  After all appeals are exhausted (between dinner and desert), he'll still come out looking like an ass.  "Technically" he may have won the argument but realistically he'll lose the war.  Is it really a hill he ought to be dying on?


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