Either you got the shot or you didn’t. “It was too hot,” “it was too cold,” “it was far away,” “it was a long day,” “I was tired,”—all of this doesn’t matter. Sure I will lend a sympathetic ear, and some days I remember as a photographer working my butt off trying to make the perfect image and nada, nothing, it was just a bad day. What ultimately matters though is whether you got the shot or not. “I tried” won’t get the picture published, and “I worked really hard” is not going to sit well with an editor either.
If the shoot did not go well, learn from it and move on. A client, or editor, doesn’t want to hear what went wrong, so instead of making excuses, accentuate the positive. Play up the strengths and what went right instead.
