The purpose of my retainer is to secure a date/time for a future shoot(s) and covers the the administrative aspects of the booking before the shoot happens. Correspondence, scheduling date(s), changing dates (this happens a lot), coordinating staff required including but not limited to make up and hair, stylist, catering, securing studio time, securing hotels, booking flights, accounting and other miscellaneous costs associated with securing the shoot. I’m stupid busy at times and with my team, deal with over a hundred emails per day, and the time spent setting up the shoots behind the scenes takes up much of our time. Once your shoot is set up, the work has already been done, cancelling a shoot only serves to increase the amount of work as I also have to cancel everything else. As well, if it’s close to the date, there is a good possibility that time will go unbooked whereas it would have been taken by someone else. The retainer is taken off the total of the shoot but as all the other events have transpired, the retainer is not refundable.
