For the sake of clarification, I will break our clients into three categories:
1. New clients
2. Repeat guests that we see 2 to 3 times a year and know by name.
3. Guests who have become our personal friends and we enjoy diving and traveling with
Category One clients buy the photos if they want them. Category Three clients/friends know how serious I am about my photos and would NEVER ask for copies of my images...besides, most of them are photogs also. The problem seems to occur primarily in group number two. Because many of our repeat guest enjoy occasionally diving with one of the owners (it makes them feel special and I want all our clients to feel like they are the most important guests we have), I will jump on a boat with them and go for a few dives. There is always a guide in the water so I will usually bring my camera. These "category two" guests all know I am into UW photography so we often discuss what I may be looking to shoot while we're diving. (we all know how frustrating it is when you have the fisheye on and everyone wants to show you sea slugs!) Now, here's the rub, after the dive, I am constantly asked to give/send/burn a disk of my photos. I know that part of this comes from the "familiarity" that these guests feel with me but I don't want to give away my images and I don't know how to tell them that politely. It's not like I went out and took a bunch of photos of them...that might be different. These are images I shoot hoping to improve my portfolio, possibly publish, or enter in competitions. I always shoot in RAW and most non-photogs don't know what that is so they have no idea of the extra work required to "just email them to me". It's very frustrating. I don't want my "Category Two" clients to become the "never come back" clients because I offend them or they think I have delusions of grandeur...but DAMN! I work hard on my photography and I don't want to give it away! I even have a photo CD for sell in the shop of stock images so asking for free photos is just RUDE! (okay, now I'm getting mad!
