Every so often, one of our clients will post one of their retouched images from us on social media with a filter on it. The absolute wave of dread that washes over me when I see it is painful! It bothered us so much in the beginning that we even added a point about it into our client agreement, stating that our images could not be changed or modified in any way.
As a photographer, you've spent so much time colour matching, evening out skin, dodging, burning, starting over... and over and spending hours uhm-ing & ahh-ing over a colour scheme in order to create something you feel is good enough for your client (and the internet!) to see. Then with a tap of their finger, your beautiful image has been murdered with an X-Pro II, your clients nose has disappeared into the white & you're mortified!
In the beginning, it worried us that potential clients would assume that this was the standard of our work... that what they saw our client post was what we'd created. As soon as we remembered that people only had to view our website or click on our instagram to see our work, it just didn't seem to matter that much any more. People knew our style of work and we're confident, that by now, in 2018, they'd be able to tell if there had been a filter added!
As time goes on, you realise that not everyone is a photographer and you remember that photography is subjective and that what might not be your cup of tea... might just be theirs.
We'd rather our clients love their photos enough to have shared them on social media in the first place and with filters being part and parcel of social media these days, its to be expected.
If posting a photo without a filter requires a #NoFilter hashtag... then you're never really getting away from it!
