Tom, how nice were you with the woman even after his banging at the door? I had my little son christening last august. Believe it or not, I was unable to find a photographer until the day before, using the yellow pages. One told me: "Listen, you call me with little to no time window. I don't have my equipment ready, and if I tell you I can do it and then I can't, you are gonna go ballistic because your son christening is just once in a lifetime. Give me half an hour to see if I can buy professional film and my cameras and batteries are ready and I will let you know whether or not I can do it, but don't stop looking for another photographer".
Five minutes later I called another one -a woman- who was very surprised at me calling. She told me she usually don't do weddings or christenings but she would be more than happy to help me so I can have pictures of the christening. She told me she would come to my house and show me some of her work.
The other man called me telling he was ready but I told him I had arranged with the woman. We agreed to wait wether or not I would give the job to the woman and talk later.
One hour after the time she told me she would be knocking at my door I called her and she told me she was just leaving. She asked me if I mind if she come with his 10 year old son because she had nobody to leave him with. Of course I said no problem.
She phoned me when she was at my street but couldn't find my appartment block. I came down and met her. She only talked and talked and talked. Looked like a lovely woman and very sensitive with children. Even told me she was divorced and his in-law was in hospital so she had to go after our inteview.
So I thought "What if his inlaw dies or gets worse?" What if she had nobody to leave the son with? What if she doesn't have the equipment ready? What if she can't find the church tomorrow?" So I phoned her later and told her I was sorry. She started to cry saying she knew it was because of the price and that she just wanted to help me. I felt very bad, but I was not sure she can do it. Phoned the other man, he came one hour after the christening to meet us, went to the church to see the place, took the pictures, and charged a lot of money that I willingly paid.
A couple of days later I called the girl and explained the reason. She told me she would have had not problem with the pictures, but she understood me. I liked her so I will have her took some shoots of our little couple in a next future, when they are posing and if the pictures go wrong the only thing you have to do is to repeat them.
What I mean Tom is that family celebrations are very important to people, and they can get very nervous if they feel somebody is not taking seriously their most important day in their life. It takes a little psychology to deal with this things, and I'm sure that if she sees the pictures and the result is good, nothing would have happened after that.
What amazes me is how important my wedding picture were and it has been at least 10 years without taking the album out of the closet....
In any case, a trial is always a bad thing because nothing guarantees that the one who is right will turn out as the winner. The only winners are the lawyers, because they make money regardless of how their clients come out. And I'm not talking bad about them -something very easy- because we need them regardless of what we think of it. In Spain, courts are full of trials in which only a miserable amount is at stake. In manyh cases, people is willing to forget about money, but won't forget about hurt feelings. Sometimes an apology and an explanation is all it takes to avoid a trial.
Just my two cents.
Raul
