Ask the agent

An agent hated the photos and won’t pay. What do I do?

Find the real complaint before you defend the photos

The thread did what threads do. Photographer after photographer looked at the set and told the poster the photos were fine. Maybe they were. It doesn’t matter. Fine to you is not the test. The test is her seller looking at the listing on a phone at 9 p.m.

So don’t argue the photos. Ask one question: which three bother you most? "I hate them" can’t be fixed. Three frames can. Most of the time the answer is smaller than the fight you were bracing for: a sky, a crooked doorway, a room that looks darker than it felt.

The number one complaint I get is that the photos look washed out. It’s almost always the time of day: midday sun, no clouds, nothing anyone could have edited around. I tell her that plainly, and we book a reshoot at the right hour. That one sentence ends most of these.

Fix it free. Roll the money forward, don’t hand it back

Here is the rule at my studio. We fix the problem, every time, at no charge. If she still wants a refund or her money back, we roll it into her next shoot. She keeps the credit, you keep the agent.

A refund closes the account. She gets her money back and books the next listing with someone else, and you’ve paid to lose her. A credit does the opposite: it gives her a reason to call you for the next one, and the next shoot is where you show her the version she wanted.

Keep the raw files for at least a month. I keep every frame about that long because agents come back way after the fact. Half the time the fix is an angle you already shot and didn’t deliver. If you shoot four angles in every room, you’ll have it.

Lock the files until the invoice clears

The real mistake in that thread wasn’t the photos. The agent already had them. Once the full files are in her folder, "I don’t like them" costs her nothing, and chasing her costs you more than the invoice.

From the agent’s side of the table, this is normal. Paying before download doesn’t offend her. It’s how a checkout works everywhere else she spends money.

So send a watermarked preview, and release the full files the moment the invoice is paid. You’ve got to pay before you get the photos. The agent who loves them pays in a minute. The one who was never going to pay finds out before she has anything to use.

Straight answers

Should I refund a client who doesn’t like the real estate photos?

I don’t refund. We fix the problem first: a re-edit, or a reshoot when the light was the issue. If she still wants her money back, it rolls into her next shoot as a credit.

What do I do if a real estate agent won’t pay for photos she already has?

Ask which photos she wants fixed and fix them, then send the invoice once more with the fix attached. For every shoot after this one, deliver a watermarked preview and release the full files only on payment.

How do I stop agents from refusing to pay after the shoot?

Take payment at booking or lock the full files behind the invoice. An agent who has to pay to download never gets to decide afterward whether she feels like paying.

Related questions

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• An agent said ’We found someone cheaper.’ What do I say?

Julian Lundgren sold real estate for nine years before he shot a listing for money. He runs Cineminn, a Minneapolis real estate photography studio, and writes these answers from the agent’s side of the table. Send a question to info@cineminn.com.