Hostage taking business model
Jul6
Business models that depend on hostage taking really irk me.
Last week, my fiance and I took studio portraits for our wedding later this year. I got a package that contained 2 portraits, a big album, 2 small albums and various other sundries, but I could only choose 30 photos out of the 150+ that were actually taken that day. All the photographs were great; it was hard to choose 30. After 90 minutes, we got it down to the final 30 that would be professionally touched up and used in our package.
We felt these 30 were the best. But I still would have liked digital copies of all the others, but the studio charged up the nose for each additional shot. $40! To get the other 120 would cost $4800! Granted, that would have included professional touch-up, but the studio refused to consider releasing them to me untouched-up. I asked for low resolution copies, so that I would have to come back to them for the high resolution originals in order to print them out properly. Refused, as well. I asked for a proof sheet where each photo is a tiny 1″x2″ on regular white paper. Refused again.
I understood the package I signed up for, but what are they going to do with the other photographs of me and my fiance? Annoying your customers like this is apparently the status quo among photography studios. But as Dan Sherman has also experienced and written about before, there is a business opportunity here.
Update: I totally agree I should have negotiated more upfront to get the original digital copies of all the photos. Lesson learned.
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6 Comments
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4:44 am on July 25th, 2005
I know this doesn’t help you now, but it may help some of your readers. The simple solution to this is to negotiate up front with the photographer to get the negatives. I know the group we went with offered the negatives for little or no extra cost. That way there is no lock in.
6:44 am on July 25th, 2005
Eric:
I had a very similar experience not long ago. My thinking here is that it is only a matter of time.
A little while back, Money magazine published an article “The 10 most over-paid jobs” and weddding photographers were at the top of the list. Yes, the is some artistic aspects of there craft which allow for a premium to be paid, by in a studio, where the factors are fairly controlled, it is not hard to stand behind a camera and snap photos.
In addition, the margins (how much it truly costs to produce the photos versus what they charge) has changed. You can reproduce high-quality photos, store them and send them at a much lower cost than a decade ago, so charging the same rates just does not make sense.
As with many things, we will see a change in the photography business as more and more consumers become acquinated with the digital aspects of the industry.
6:55 am on July 25th, 2005
I completely agree!
My wife and her mother found a photographer they liked for our wedding and engagement photos. They gave me a run down of everything that was included in the package – one of those items was a CD with the pictures on it.
I was happy with that! I thought I would be able to put them on my web site and since their digital I’ll never have to worry about them aging. I’ll have a perfect digital copy forever!
WRONG!
I received a CD with a really crappy photo-viewing application on it. I have to use this application to view the photos. I tried just opening the .jpg’s that were on the CD, but they are encrypted or something.
So in 20 years when modern computers won’t run this crappy Windows application – I won’t have “digital” versions of my wedding photos.
There is definitely a whole in the market!
9:34 pm on July 25th, 2005
Michael,
One way to get around your problem that I have used lots of times for other applications:
- Open and view your picture in the “protected” application.
- Hit “PrtSc” (Print Screen). This should do a screen capture of your screen and put it in the clipboard.
- Open up Microsoft PhotoEditor or whatever photo editing software you have.
- Select “Paste” from the menu
- Crop out anything from your screen shot you don’t want
You should then be able to save a JPEG. Not perfect, but “good enough” to get your picture in a non-proprietary mode.
8:42 am on July 27th, 2005
Hi Mitch,
Thanks for the tip, but I remember trying that and I don’t think it worked. If I remember correctly, the application disables the print screen button.
8:58 am on July 29th, 2005
Michael,
That is just wrong. If that happened to me, I would be super pissed off. This makes my blood boil. I wonder if a third party app could pull off a screen capture. I mean hell, you paid for it! What gives?!
I guess NOTHING in this modern world is ever as it seems. Companies will screw with you left and right.
On a brighter note, with my daughter, service was handled correctly at Kiddie Kandids 9 times out of 10.