A Tale of Two Clients.

Client number one approached me through an ad agency.
Not any agency, possibly the best agency in Auckland.
In fact, the client - they were reputable. I covered them for Broadsheet when they first opened - the coolest salad bowls in the CBD. They’ve adapted to providing meal boxes during COVID. They have 60k followers on Instagram, my cool vegetarian friends order them.
I jumped on a zoom call with the account manager and designer.
I asked how did they find me, they said they have a pool of photographers and everyone wrote down the one they liked the most and I won the lottery. (I think they say this to all photographers.)
They provided references and work-in-progress brand guidelines.
Happy for me to organise a food stylist, props and hire a studio for this shoot.
In short, legit AF.

Client number two approached me through a design agency.
I’ve never heard of the agency prior, but they seem to specialise in property development. So I suspect they’re providing retail architecture AND interior AND the branding for the client’s new restaurant. A one-stop-shop.
The email was short and to the point, but they asked enough questions for me to realise that they’ve never done a professional shoot before.
At least not with a food stylist, or a studio set up.
I was cautious.
Ok fine, also because they were Asian.

Shooting for client one stressed me out. 14 salad dishes plus product and lifestyle shot. The CEO came with their two chefs to help out with the food stylist while I managed two cameras and two backdrops simultaneously. The CEO knew what he wanted, made snap decisions, but our enemy was time. We basically crammed a two-day shoot into one. The stylist and I were both thinking the same thing: to have this in our books will be beneficial. In fact, we were just coming out of lockdown in March. To have a job with good clients? Shake the damn tambourine, amirite?

Shoot number two wasn’t that much better. We had to shoot at the restaurant since the dishes had to be prepared in the kitchen. It wasn’t as smooth sailing as I thought. Compared to client number one we had a lot less to shoot, but a lot more to style, to ponder. I sensed the client wasn’t too pleased when the food stylist freaked out with the live lobster. We were shooting with the restaurant manager who second-guessed what everyone wanted. The designer came in and said hi, then ran off to another meeting. The intern of the company came in and said hi. The owner came in, had a look, and walked out. They had wagyu, but it was frozen. When I asked them if they’re happy with the photos, and I’m not kidding here, the answer was ‘we don’t know’, then followed by the kiss of death, ‘we’ll know when we see it after.’

Fatality.

Now that I’ve set up the scene, my dear Watson, take a guess: which client do you think ended up paying me on time, and which eventually vanished into thin air?

Fine, you’re smart.

You’ve been baptised by modern cinema - by the Nolan and Shyamalans.

The culprit who bailed on me was the too-good-to-be-true client number one.

Did you know, that the average term of payment with an international advertising agency, the big ones with Lastname & Lastname and acronyms with D, B, and O, is 90 days?

That’s basically a season. Shoot in summer, get paid by fall. In the meantime, the agencies YOLO your pay into the stock market and gain 10% return in 3 months. At the very least, a fixed-term deposit.

Creatives, we ah, we were told that if you try to talk money, then you’re uncool. In ad school, they never taught us to negotiate our worth. Because, lol, if we know our worth, and form a union, then no one would work in advertising.

Anyway, before you go ‘Harvard, how could you, after 10 years as a photographer, be so stupid? Didn’t you have a contract / plan B / system / lawyer / common sense?’
I hear you. I’m just saying, I knew the money would come, but it’d be slow.
That’s the system.

I was told to invoice the client straight away (makes sense because the agency is overseas.) I gave the RAW files for the agency to retouch (need it yesterday!) they showed me what they did. My beautiful photo of a beetroot salad was featured on their soon-to-be rebranded website.

I had no reason to suspect otherwise.

Until June, when tax time was peeking behind the door.
Until my emails to the client came bouncing back.
Until the website went ‘we are currently unavailable, please try again later.’

Since I was the one doing the retouching, I sent client number two a gallery of low-resolution images and the invoice, told them that once paid, high res will follow.

That was the way. Said The Mandalorian.

And the payment arrived in less than a week.

That was the way. Said Drake.

We were camping in Walkerville. I remember leaving a voice message to client number one to chase up my invoice and simultaneously thanking client number two for the swift payment.

Don’t worry.
The ending to this story is a happy one.
A jump scare.

The Auckland agency, being a good one, decided to pay me out of their pockets.
The founder called and informed me that client number one went into liquidation.

In my whole life, I’ve never felt such concrete crystallisation of the saying ‘sorry, not sorry’.

Because I paid upfront for the studio hire, the stylist, the props, the time I was away from my family.
I vividly remember how he gave me life advice, career advice, that CEO finger wiggle of ‘next time’.
Next time, we’ll be prepared.
Next time, we’ll shoot two full days.
Next time, we’ll have more flavours.

Come on, you didn’t know your company was going under in 60 days?

I’m not sure if client two is going ahead with their launch either.

The designer came back with some feedback, asking to make the colours ’pop’.

On any other day, I’d roll my eyes.
But I slide that saturation slider like a motherfucker.
In fact, I gave them colours at 30% saturation, then 50% then 80% so they have a choice.

Which would you prefer, a demanding parent, or no parent at all?

I see the giant ‘coming soon’ poster in Chinatown.
That was before the 4th lockdown.

The designer later asked if it’s ok to forward my contact to the client.
They’d like to use me for future projects.

That was before the 5th lockdown.

So you know what, you lot might be the only ones who get to witness these beautiful photos of lost hopes and broken dreams.

On the phone, with the founder of the Auckland agency, I asked:

How? How did they manage to engage a client from Melbourne? To coordinate a campaign remotely with someone they’ve never met? How did they decide who to trust?

He sighed and replied:

Back then we were under a full lockdown.
We just took whatever we could get.’

Isn’t that the plot device of all stories in 2021?

And no one has any idea how they will end.

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