The next session is ushered into the camera room. She’s a stunning twenty-
two-year-old girl. She tells the photographer that she wants a photo from the
waist up and she also has a variety of clothing. The photographer notices that
most of her outfits consist of low cut tops and short skirts. Noting that she is a
shapely woman, he assumes that she is doing photographs for a love interest and
selects the clothing accordingly. Since she is just “so cute” (and so much of her
was showing), he decides to take some extra photos for his sample books. He
runs over the session’s scheduled time but feels it was worth it, because now he
can put new samples in his books and maybe a new sample on the wall.
The third woman is a little unhappy because she is starting her session 35
minutes late. She’s a refined-looking woman in her fifties. She looks very suc-
cessful and the only thing she says is that she wants nothing that shows below
the waist and nothing too close-up to show her wrinkles. This woman also has
clothing, but it is all very trendy for a woman her age and quite casual. This one
has the photographer really confused, but he thinks that he will go through his
most popular poses and she will like something.
In each of these scenarios, the photographer made logical assumptions given
the limited information he had to draw on. Unfortunately, the client in sessionCREATING PORTRAITS BY DESIGN 9If you want to please your clients—and
make a living in this busines—you have to
start with the end in mind.