The Free Photography Experiment ... and the lesson it has taught me
/This isn’t a typical post…
… but it’s one I feel like I really need to write. A week or two back I posted a video where I talked about my portrait experiment. You can watch it here. But, in a nutshell, I am in the process of rebuilding my portrait portfolio and wanted to jumpstart the project by offering a free portrait session to anyone that answered an advertisement that I posted online.
In the ad I explained that the shoots would be completely free and that in exchange for the model’s time I would provide them with a full set of edited and retouched, high resolution digital images that they would be free to use in any way they wished. I also spelled out that, for their comfort, the photos would be taken in a busy public location and that they were free to bring someone with them. Under-18s were told that a parent would need to be at the shoot and prepared to sign my standard release. It seemed like a pretty fair deal to me. They get a free portrait session and all the selected images, and I get to photograph a variety of real people for my portfolio. What could possibly go wrong?
My first volunteer, Taryn. Incredibly easy to work with, and a talented model.
The response to my ad was completely unexpected. I was contacted by over fifty people who wanted to participate. I wasn’t prepared for quite this big a flood or inquiries, but I answered every single one with a personal email in which I thanked them for contacting me and asked a few questions. The questions that I asked were as follows:
What type of portrait are you interested in and how do you think you will use the images (to post on social media, as portfolio images, to use in marketing, and so on)? This was to give me some idea of how I wanted to approach the shoot.
Where do you live? I told them I didn’t want an address, just a town or area so that I could arrange the location to be convenient to both of us.
I asked them to send a couple of phone pictures, snapshots really, so that I could start thinking about outfits, props, and so forth.
How old are you? I made it clear that it made no difference, in that I would photograph them regardless of their age. But I needed to know if they were under 18 so that I could address the parental permission matter early on.
The last thing I wanted to know was when they could be free for a 1-2 hour shoot. Again, for planning purposes.
I responded to every inquiry within 24 hours, but it actually turned out to be a lot less than that for most replies.
My second volunteer, Sadie. Another fun shoot with someone who had been photographed before.
After my response emails went out it was just a matter of waiting. Right away I had several men and women get back to me with answers to all my questions and most of them included a snapshot or two. About half of the people that had contacted me never answered my first email. The ones that did answer me all sounded very excited and enthusiastic to get things rolling. I started scheduling shoots right away and before long I had eleven folks lined up to get their photographs taken.
This was when things started to fall apart. My first two scheduled shoots never showed up at the location and have not answered my followup emails. Both of those locations were 45 minutes from my studio, so I essentially lost two afternoons traveling, waiting, and traveling back. After that I decided to get confirmations the day before, or the day of, the shoot. Number 3 confirmed one day, but was a no-show the next. Several of the models never responded to my confirmation email immediately prior to the shoot. Some of those who had provided a phone number weren’t answering and at least a few of the numbers turned out to be bogus.
Then I had two successful sessions in a row, Taryn and Sadie, pictured above, and I thought that things were finally going to start moving in the right direction.
Unfortunately, this didn’t turn out to be the case. More no-shows and unanswered emails followed. The most recent no-show was two days ago and I want to tell you what happened. This young lady (I can’t use her name because I haven’t asked her permission to do so yet) had contacted me and followed up to my response email almost immediately. I was really excited about meeting this model because she actually was an experienced model. She had done some commercial shoots as a kid and was really interested in trying to get back into the business. She was also a keen motorbike enthusiast. So we decided to do an outdoor shoot at a old, derelict gas station and feature her with the bike. We were both fired up about this opportunity to get some really out-of-the-ordinary portrait images. I showed up at the location an hour early and set up all my gear and lights. I took a few test shots and was really happy with the way everything looked. So I got out of the cold and sat in my car to wait. And wait. And wait.
After an hour, or two if I’m including the setup time, I broke everything down, reloaded the car and drove home. I was really upset about the whole thing. This no-show was the last straw and on the way home I decided that the experiment was over. I was done. And then, later in the evening, I decided to write a scathing article about the experience and about how inconsiderate all these people were.
Another shot of Taryn
I was sitting at my desk, gathering my thoughts for the article, when my phone started vibrating. It was just a telemarketer, one of the 30 or so that call me every day, so I didn’t answer. But I was surprised it had been on vibrate. It had been three days since I had last recorded a YouTube video or podcast episode - I always silence everything to record - and I had apparently forgotten to turn the ringer on. So I decided to check my voicemail, just in case one of my kids had called. And that was when I found four voicemails from numbers I didn’t recognize, that had all come in over the preceding 3 days.
The first was from no-show #1, apologizing for not showing up. She had been in the nursing home with a grandparent who wasn’t doing well and had completely forgotten about our session. The second was from another no-show who was also calling to apologize. He was a firefighter and had been called out on an emergency on the morning of our shoot and had been so preoccupied with the emergency, he had forgotten to call. I was starting to feel very small and petty as I punched play on the third message. This lady, one of the ones that had not confirmed our appointment, had been in the ER with a fractured ankle and her phone had been turned off the whole time. Much like I had just done, she found the message from me and was returning my call so that she could postpone her shoot until she was in less pain.
The fourth voicemail was the hardest to listen to. The message had been left 24 hours prior to my gas station shoot with the motorbike model, and it was from her dad. He was calling on behalf of his daughter who had been in an accident on her bike. He told me she was pretty banged up and would be recovering for a while. I called her dad and talked to him for some time, checking on his daughter and telling him I was sorry for not calling sooner.
Over the course of about 20 minutes I learned exactly what it feels like to be a self-important, impatient, and righteously indignant old fool. I was ready to lash out at these inconsiderate, ungrateful people for not understanding how precious MY time is. How dare they!
Thank goodness I didn’t write that article. And thank goodness that all these folks are going to be OK. I feel humbled and ashamed for having reflexively jumped to so many uncharitable and closed-minded assumptions about people I don’t even know. I wish these weren’t lessons I have to keep re-learning.
Anyway… There will be no whining article about my modeling experiment, but I will gladly share the images and stories with you as I go along. And I will honor every request to participate that I have received. And I’ll be eternally grateful to every Taryn or Sadie for their generosity in giving me some of their time and their awesome talent.
Now let’s go shoot something!