Commercial Photography in Hadapsar, Pune

Who actually signs off

Commercial projects stall on approval far more often than on photography.

Somebody commissions the work, somebody else has views, and a third person has to sign it off — and those three have frequently never discussed it.

The shoot itself is straightforward. What is not straightforward is a set that satisfies whoever briefed it and then gets rejected by whoever approves it.

That is avoidable and it is avoided before the shoot rather than after: establish who has final say and get them to agree the brief.

Where several people must approve, the useful move is to shoot deliberate alternatives rather than a single interpretation.

Two versions of a key image cost a few minutes on the day and remove an entire round of revision afterwards.

It is worth being blunt about this at the outset. Projects that go badly almost always went badly here rather than during the photography.

It is worth asking whether the person who signs off has actually seen the kind of work they are approving.

A great deal of disagreement at approval is really surprise, and it comes from somebody forming an expectation without having looked at anything concrete.

Showing them examples before the shoot converts a late objection into an early conversation, which is enormously cheaper.

It is also worth agreeing what the fallback is if the approved direction does not work on the day.

Conditions change, spaces are unavailable, people are absent, and a project with no agreed fallback stops while somebody is found to authorise a change.

One sentence at the outset prevents an entire afternoon of waiting.