kind of a rant but also genuinely asking for advice. finished a job last week for a small construction company, they wanted progress photos of a commercial build site. delivered 40 edited aerials within 48 hours which i thought was pretty quick. client came back saying they wanted different angles on two of the structures and could i just go back out and reshoot those. no extra payment mentioned, just kind of assumed id do it.

i went back because it was my first time working with this company and i didnt want to burn the relationship, but it took another half day and another round trip. now im wondering if i should have pushed back or at least charged something. do you guys put reshoot policies in your contracts or just handle it case by case. i feel like i need to tighten up my paperwork before this happens again

contracts man, contracts. this exact scenario is why i spent a weekend two years ago actually writing up a proper service agreement instead of just emailing people and hoping for the best. mine now specifes that reshoots due to client preference changes (not weather or my error) are billed at a half-day rate minimum. i just send it with every quote now and most clients dont even read it closely but when something like this comes up i can point to it without it being a personal thing, its just the contract.

for this situation i probably would have done what you did the first time too honestly, first impressions matter. but going forward id just be upfront ? something like hey happy to go back out, just so you know that would be billed as an additional half day. most reasonable clients get it.

ugh i hate this situation, been there. i think you made the right call going back for a first client but yeah definitely need something in writing. i actually use a pretty simple one page agreement i found and modified, covers stuff like revision rounds, weather reschedules, and exactly what gets delivered. saved me from at least two awkward conversations already.

also side note ? 40 edited aerials in 48 hours is pretty solid turnaround, do you have a fast culling workflow or are you just fast in lightroom? asking because my editing time is honestly embarrassing right now and its eating into my margins