Never Say I Can’t

I had a shoot offered to me once, that I really didn’t want to do. It was rather mundane, and it was going to happen on Christmas Day. So I told the client, “I can’t”. His response woke me up to the aspect of client relations. He told me, “can’t means you don’t want to do it”. He had me busted right there, it was a shoot on Christmas Day, and I flat out didn’t want to do it, but instead of telling him I had plans with family that had come into town for the holiday, I told him, “I can’t”. I learned a valuable lesson that day: shoot straight, and never tell a client “I can’t”.

Which brings me to the shot above, I got a call from a client wanting to do a safety poster for drivers of a particular company, warning about the dangers of eating and driving, part of the layout had a cola and French fries flying through the air. Obviously we didn’t leave the Jack in the Box logo in the shot or the type on the side of the cup for that matter.

The point here is, being a “generalist” commercial photographer I get requests for some rather interesting shoots all the time, and my response generally is, “Yes I can”. I haven’t done much with flying liquid in the past, but I managed to get what the client needed, and also walk away with a nice portfolio shot.

Yes I can!

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