The “sneak peek”, good idea or client experience disaster?
If you don’t know what the “sneak peek” is it refers to the practice of sending a few, probably lo-res, images to a client immediately after a shoot with the intention of generating some post-shoot buzz for the photographer and some tantalizing teasing to the client.
I’ve done this myself in the past but now find myself questioning the practice. Instead of creating some buzz does it actually kill the post shoot sales experience? Imagine the flip side of what the sneak peek is supposed to achieve. Instead of the photographer being able to control the post-sales experience, that being a large sized monitor, tv, or projector in a calm and carefully controlled environment where the clients only focus is on their images and how you, the photographer, is coaching them through a sales path the client gets to see their picture on a cell phone screen while navigating the dairy section of the local Albertsons? Not such a nice experience, right?
Or is it?
If you only allow one or two images of the shoot, perhaps not the best ones, to be released are you actually increasing the chances of making a large sale at the client sales session? Are clients so used to seeing images on cell phones, horrifically distorted and filtered “influenza” shots on Insta that to them, the perfectly color balanced shot presented on your best display is unrecognizable to them?
I hope we’re not that far gone. I hope that real photography, like vinyl records, can make a come back. Unfortunately at the moment the signs are not good!
