The Commercial World: The customer is always right.

For some reason, this morning I was reflecting on a interesting commercial shoot I did a couple of years ago. I’m going to change some details of the story (for obvious reasons), but the facts are true.

I was hired by an ad agency to shoot some photos at a company that restores and refurbishes chrome car parts. They can take an old rusty bumper that looks destined to be recycled and make it a thing of beauty. My job was to shoot photos of the restoration process and then shoot some before and after photos of a bumper. Simple enough, right?

Shooting the restoration process went well and the Art Director (AD) and the client were both happy. So it was time to shoot the before and after photos. I found the ideal location for the shoot. The weather was nice that day with lightly overcast skies. So the AD and I had a workman bring the bumpers outside to a shady place beside the building. I had set up a roll of gray paper and a couple of lights and using that in conjunction with the natural lighting, created a beautiful lighting setup. The reflections in the chrome were under control, the graceful curves of the bumper were sculpted by the light and shadow, all was well.

I shot a few frames and felt pretty good about the results so the AD suggested that I show them to client. I went to the client’s office and told him I had some sample shots. He looked at the display on the back of my camera and immediately shook his head. He said he wanted the bumper to look “shinier”. I pointed out how the reflections and highlights in the chrome helped show the smoothness of the lines and contours of the bumper. He nodded and said he still wanted it to look “shinier”. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I knew the AD had worked with this client in past and felt confident that he knew what I was missing.

I went back to the set and told the AD what happened. He asked me “what does he mean, shinier?”. My only idea is that he wanted harder, more specular highlights. So I added more lights and removed all the modifiers. Shooting with only standard 7 inch reflectors, I took several more frames and returned to the client’s office. He said he liked it better, but it still needed to be “shinier”. He then took out his phone and showed me a photo he’d taken in his warehouse of a bumper. He said “like this”. I finally knew what he wanted. He wanted a professional quality, camera-phone-like, photo of a bumper.

Returning to the set, I told the AD what transpired. I had an idea to make the client happy. We abandoned the set and moved into the warehouse. We placed the bumper on the floor with the chrome surface facing up. I used a couple of lights to partially illuminate the ceiling, then set up an 8 ft ladder next to bumper. That’s how I photographed the bumper. It was mostly lit by the warehouse ceiling lights which caused lots of small specular highlights against the dark ceiling. The strobes I added helped reduce the darkness of the ceiling and but retained the contrast. The only problem was that there was a small reflection of me standing on an orange ladder, but that could be fixed in post processing.

We showed the photos to the client and he loved them. His bumpers looked “shinier”.

There are lessons to be learned here. The first is, the client likes what the client likes. We can try to educate our customers the best we can, but it really comes down to making them happy. You have to put your ego aside and listen to your customer. The next lesson is about communication. It’s good to have clear expectations as to what the client wants before the shooting starts. And finally, you have to think outside the box and come up with creative and unconventional solutions to problems. Not everything you try will work, but you have to be willing to go outside your comfort level and try something strange and different.

While the final images would not have been the ones I would have chosen, it’s the client’s product that he’s trying to sell. He’s responsible for his advertising choices. It’s my job to provide him with the images he wants to accomplish his goals.

Well, that’s it for this time. Thanks for reading and be sure to check out some of my commercial images here.

-Ken.