I gotta question about customers and this site.

[lee]

I answered that I would be uncomfortable with my photo tech being a novice. The main and really only reason is the handling of my negatives. I don't just give anyone my negatives to handle. That is the only reason.


lee\c

[Silverpixels5]

"Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice" - I say take advice from where ever you can get it. As long as the customer is happy with the outcome, then they shouldn't worry about how you got there.

[inthedark]

Wow, thanks for all the quick responses. Lee, just so you know, my hands are always gloved when handling your negatives, and even when handling the unexposed films because photochemistry and something in my skin react to each other. If I touch unexposed film or paper, it will develop as an exposed blob even if light never touched it. So the "handling" shouldn't in and of itself be a problem. Also I don't develop negatives for others, I always recommend to the point of insistence that for rolls and sheets that they exposed, a proper lab should be used. I only develop films which I have exposed.

I guess for now I will hold tight, but maybe Sean's offer would be good. Just tone down the direct connection, make it a bit harder to figure it out.

BTW, that's why my avatar disappeared again. So I guess now I have to admit that it was me and I wasn't comfortable with the concept that my customers would figure that out likety split.

Thank you for all the feed back.

[inthedark]

I saw what you did for Don, and have been seriously considering sending you some negatives to enlarge for me. You are brave enough to ask when you don't know, and good enough to work through and make exemplary work. Like Ed said, I would be more worried if you thought you knew it all. At that point you would give up too easily if the things presented were not easily done. Keep up the goopd work, and as they say, "YOU GO GIRL!"

Thank you, Aggie! This feels good. I will be happy to enlarge some negatives for you. I am trying to figure out some pricing, right now I am roughing them to be about $25 a piece, but I will need to do some more research to see if that is too high.

And by the way, as Don found out, if you send me something that I either haven't tried yet, or have not succeeded at yet, that job is free except for postage sending back and forth. In this way I am able to honestly try new things, risk failing on a round or two in order to figure out what to do to get it right the next time. I have two clients that keep bringing me new things, accept that I will probably fail the first try, then they agree to bring them back in a month or so for me to try again. For one fellow I actually completely replaced my light deck after his job showed me that it had a fatal flaw for doing his dense slides. He hasn't been back for me to re-try yet (and since his slides are denser than anyone elses I cannot just try any ol' slide to see if success is at hand.) but this is his travelling season so I expect he is out of town till October some time.

[SteveGangi]

I would not be too concerned. If they were here and asking questions, it shows an interest in gaining knowledge. What is really more important is, does the tech do what I want / what I tell him or her to do and what the final result looks like.