Do you compose for the image or the print?

[Al Kaplan]

It's great discipline when shooting to print "full frame, black borders" when you're shooting for yourself but it's not the reality of the market for most of us. Maybe HCB can get away with telling the art director or editor "Crop it and that's the last time I'll shoot for your publication!" The rest of us can't. It's better to frame loosely and let the final crop be done with a red marker on the contact sheet, and you are NOT the one using the marker.

If the woman was the client for the shoot then you do have a problem there! If she's just wanting a print of something you happened to shoot on your own then put on your "artist cap" and act haughty about your "vision" and "artistic integrity" and tell her to find another photo by another photographer. It's worth a try because you're in a seemingly lose-lose situation, so hold your head high and lose with dignity. Or you just might win.

 

[Disaster_Area]

Well... the situation is somewhere in between those two poles... I shot a charity dance show, from which this shot came. Almost a year later, thanks to Flickr, the mother of the woman above stumbled across the photos and contacted me, wanting to buy prints. I'm willing to compromise in this case because I'm sure she's looking for a memento of her daughter more than a piece of art, and I'm fine with that. It just made me consider the future as I'm getting a steady trickle of these kind of requests now and have to draw up some guidelines for myself.