I’ve been looking to hire a photographer for an assignment. I contacted a photographer who’s a long-time online acquaintance of mine, and made her an offer.

She emailed me back and said the offer was way below her normal rates (which I suspected, but that’s the budget I have).

Before my cheeks had turned completely red, I had pulled out my notebook and drawn these up:

Unintentional model:
C Photographer says my offer is way below her normal rates.
T She thinks I’m clueless or cheap.
F Embarrassed, stupid.
A Mull/stress over it, never contact her again.
R (? Not sure how to loop this back to my T.)

Intentional model:
C Photographer says my offer is way below her normal rates.
T That’s a valuable data point.
F Interested.
A Ask her what her normal rates are, for a possible future project with a bigger budget.
R I now know what her normal rates are (= data point more precise).

So good! Now I just need to figure out if I can budget and pay three times more than I planned to spend on this! 😆

Clotilde in Paris.