Cutting off the nose to spite the marketer

A PhotoShop World conferencee reported an extreme attitude taken by the speaker in a session called "Working with a digital photographer."

Apparently the speaker didn't cover how to work together to get the best shoots for your marketing work. The guy went on a tirade on how marketing people muck up his work. Beyond some general information before the shoot, the marketer should sit quietly in the background in the shoot (if they have to be there at all) and joyfully accept the photos as received.

I was shocked only that PhotoShop World allowed someone with this attitude to present. I wasn't shocked by his attitude. I had sparked this behavior with my local photographer.

I had a run-in with a photographer who wouldn't take a photo of the whole fruit. The photos were great, at the right angle, against a white background, etc. But he cropped each and every photo when I asked him not to. I wanted to use the photos in more than one piece of marketing collateral.

"But the ad you're working on is this shot" he waved his hand submissively. It's true the ad cropped the bottom of the papaya but I wanted a shot of the whole papaya. When I reminded him of my request (and the emails that said as much), he said that he shoots for the ad and that if I needed another shot, he'll shoot that.

"For additional cost!" I said emphatically.

"The photo is perfect, why are you complaining" he retorted.

"You shot the whole fruit. I saw it in your viewfinder. If you want to get paid, I get the image file with the entire fruit."

To get paid, he sent over a jpeg. I waited. Finally he sent the raw file, with a note "next time you don't come to the shoot."

There wasn't a next time. I signed up for a digital photography class the next day. I showed up for the class and guess who was the instructor. I went to another class, and another, and another. I'm not great but I can hammer out 90% of what I need. And when I give myself attitude, I go pour the photographer a glass of wine.

Photography is not that difficult. I won't win awards, although I did win a class award for 'most improved'. Given that I never owned (and still don't, I use the company's camera) a 35mm camera, that's pretty good.