How I Handle a Client Who Doesn't Know What They Want
Some of the hardest briefs I've worked from weren't hard because the client had demanding, specific requirements. They were hard because the client genuinely didn't know what they wanted yet, and expected me to somehow arrive at the right answer without a clear starting point to work from. Early in my career, this kind of vagueness frustrated me, and I sometimes responded by guessing at a direction and hoping it landed, rather than treating the ambiguity itself as a problem I needed to actively solve.
I've since built a real process for exactly this situation, and it's become one of the more valuable skills in my actual working process. If you want a fuller framework for managing client relationships through every stage of a project, I cover it in The Adventure Travel Photographer's Playbook. Here's how I actually handle a client who can't yet articulate what they want.
Recognizing the Pattern Early
A vague client rarely announces themselves directly. The signal usually shows up as a brief full of broad, abstract language, words like "adventurous" or "authentic" repeated without any concrete specifics attached, or a request that I simply "capture the vibe" without further definition of what that vibe actually looks like in practice.
I've learned to treat this pattern as an early warning rather than something to push through with generic assumptions. A client who can't articulate specifics this early in a project is very likely to have strong, specific reactions later, once they actually see images that don't match a vision they never fully defined for themselves in the first place.
Catching this pattern during the initial brief conversation, rather than discovering it mid-shoot or during a difficult revision round, has saved me from producing an entire body of work built on a foundation that was never actually solid to begin with.
Why This Happens More Often Than People Admit
Clients aren't being difficult on purpose when this happens. Often, the person I'm talking to has been handed a project by someone else internally, a marketing director or brand lead who has a clearer vision that hasn't been fully communicated down to the person actually managing the shoot day-to-day.
Other times, a client genuinely hasn't done the internal work of translating a business goal, more brand awareness, higher engagement, into a visual specification a photographer can actually execute against. They know what outcome they want in a business sense without having translated that into concrete creative direction.
Understanding that this vagueness usually comes from a genuine gap rather than a client being careless has changed how I approach the situation. My job in this moment isn't to judge the client for not having a clear brief, it's to help build that clarity collaboratively before real production decisions get made.
The Questions I Actually Ask
Rather than asking open-ended questions that invite more vague answers, I ask specific, concrete questions designed to surface actual preferences: which competitor's or peer brand's visual style do they admire, what specific past campaign of their own felt successful, and what would make this particular project feel like a clear failure if it happened.
I've found that asking what a client explicitly doesn't want often produces clearer answers than asking what they do want, since people frequently have stronger, more specific reactions to things they dislike than they have a fully formed positive vision they can articulate on demand.
I also ask about the internal audience for the final deliverables, who specifically will be reviewing and approving the images, since that person's actual preferences sometimes differ from what the person I'm directly speaking with initially describes, and surfacing that gap early avoids a late-stage surprise.
Using Reference Images to Build Shared Language
Words alone often aren't enough to close a genuine vision gap, so I lean heavily on reference imagery during the discovery phase, showing specific examples and asking a client to react directly rather than describe their preferences abstractly from a blank starting point.
This approach converts a vague verbal brief into a much more concrete visual conversation quickly. A client who couldn't describe what they wanted in words often responds immediately and specifically to an actual reference image, pointing out exactly what does or doesn't match their instinct once there's something concrete in front of them to react to.
I build a small reference deck for exactly this purpose on any project where the initial brief feels underdeveloped, treating it as a discovery tool rather than a finished mood board, since the goal is drawing out the client's actual preferences rather than presenting my own predetermined direction as a fait accompli.
Proposing a Direction Instead of Waiting for One
At some point, waiting for a fully formed brief from a client who genuinely can't produce one becomes counterproductive. I've learned to propose a specific creative direction myself, grounded in whatever concrete signals I've gathered, rather than continuing to ask open questions indefinitely and hoping more clarity eventually emerges on its own.
Presenting a concrete proposal gives the client something specific to react to, which is often far easier for someone to do than generating an original vision from scratch. Even a client with no clear initial direction can usually tell me quickly whether a specific proposed concept feels right or wrong once it's in front of them.
This shift, from extracting a vision to proposing one and inviting reaction, has moved projects forward that would otherwise have stalled indefinitely in a cycle of vague questions and equally vague answers that never actually converged on anything concrete enough to shoot from.
Getting Alignment in Writing Before the Shoot
Once a direction starts to take shape through this back-and-forth, I document it explicitly, a written summary of the agreed creative direction, shot list priorities, and specific reference points, and get the client to confirm that summary before committing to a shoot date.
This step matters especially with a client who started out vague, since it creates a concrete record of what was actually agreed to react against later if expectations shift after delivery. A client who can point to a written summary they confirmed is in a very different position than one relying on a loosely remembered conversation.
I treat this written confirmation as a genuine safeguard for both sides, not just a defensive measure for me. A client benefits from having a clear record of their own stated direction too, especially if they need to explain the project's creative choices to someone else internally after the fact.
What Happens When the Vagueness Continues Into the Shoot
Occasionally, even after a real discovery process, a client's uncertainty persists into the actual shoot day itself, reacting indecisively to setups in real time rather than confirming a clear direction in advance. In these situations, I lean on my own judgment more heavily, making decisive creative calls rather than waiting for direction that isn't coming.
I still narrate my reasoning out loud in these moments, explaining why I'm making a specific choice so the client can react and redirect if something doesn't match an instinct they're only now discovering they have. This keeps the collaboration alive even when the client can't lead it as actively as I'd prefer.
I've found that decisive, confident execution combined with an openness to real-time feedback works better in this scenario than continuing to ask open questions on set, where time pressure makes extended back-and-forth genuinely costly in a way it isn't during earlier discovery conversations.
Managing Post-Delivery Surprises From an Unclear Brief
Even with a solid discovery process, a client who started vague sometimes reacts with surprise to delivered images, discovering only after seeing the final work that they actually wanted something different than what they'd confirmed earlier in the process. I treat this as a real possibility to plan for, not a personal failure when it happens.
Having a documented, confirmed creative direction from earlier in the project gives me a concrete reference point for this conversation, one grounded in what was actually agreed rather than what a client now remembers wanting. This doesn't eliminate friction entirely, but it grounds the conversation in something more objective than competing memories.
I also build reasonable revision terms into my contracts specifically for this scenario, a defined number of included revision rounds beyond which additional creative changes become a separately scoped and priced request. This protects against a client's evolving uncertainty turning into unlimited, unpaid rework on my end.
Why I've Come to See This as a Real Skill
Helping a client find clarity they didn't arrive with has become one of the more valuable, if less visible, parts of what I actually offer as a working photographer. It's not a skill that shows up in a portfolio image directly, but it determines whether a project goes smoothly or turns into a difficult, drawn-out negotiation.
I've come to see this ability as a genuine differentiator, since not every photographer is comfortable navigating a genuinely vague brief without becoming frustrated or defaulting to generic, uninspired choices simply to move the project forward. Clients who've experienced this process with me have specifically mentioned it as a reason they keep coming back.
What started as a frustrating pattern early in my career has become a structured process I actually feel confident handling now, discovery questions, reference imagery, proposed direction, written confirmation, each step designed to build clarity collaboratively rather than waiting passively for a client to arrive with it already formed.
The Internal Stakeholder Problem
A particularly tricky version of this challenge shows up when my direct point of contact has a reasonably clear vision themselves, but that vision hasn't actually been validated with the internal stakeholders who'll ultimately approve the final deliverables. The person I'm working with directly can be confident and specific, and the project can still collapse later when a creative director or executive sees the work for the first time.
I've learned to ask directly, early in discovery, whether the vision we're developing together has already been socialized internally with whoever holds final approval, rather than assuming my direct contact's confidence means the whole organization is aligned behind the same direction. This question sometimes surfaces genuine uncertainty that my contact hadn't fully acknowledged themselves.
When I sense this internal alignment hasn't happened yet, I'll suggest building in a check-in point before the shoot, sharing the documented creative direction with the broader internal team for sign-off, rather than discovering a misalignment only after delivering a finished body of work that the actual decision-maker never actually approved in advance.
This extra step occasionally feels like added friction to a client eager to move quickly, but it's saved several projects from a much more painful outcome, a full reshoot or a bruised relationship after delivering work that satisfied my direct contact but not the person who actually held final approval authority over the project.
When I Recommend a Formal Creative Brief Instead
For projects where the vagueness runs deep enough that informal discovery conversations aren't converging on real clarity, I'll recommend a more formal creative brief process, sometimes even suggesting the client bring in their own internal marketing or creative team to help articulate goals before we go further into production planning together.
This recommendation isn't about pushing responsibility back onto the client unfairly, it's a genuine recognition that some vision gaps are too large for a photographer to close through questions and reference images alone. A client's business goals sometimes need real internal strategic work before they translate into anything a photographer can meaningfully execute against.
I frame this recommendation constructively, positioning it as protecting the client's own investment in the project rather than as a photographer being difficult or overly bureaucratic about process. Most clients, once they understand the reasoning, appreciate this honesty rather than feeling like an obstacle has been placed in front of them unnecessarily.
This has occasionally meant delaying a project's timeline to allow for this internal clarity work to happen first, and I've found that a delayed project built on real clarity produces a far better outcome, and a smoother working relationship, than a rushed one built on a vision that was never solid to begin with.
What I've Learned About My Own Patience for This
Working through a genuinely vague brief takes real emotional patience, and I've had to be honest with myself about how much of that patience I actually have available on a given project, especially when it's layered on top of an already demanding production schedule and other client commitments happening at the same time.
I've learned to build extra discovery time into my own schedule specifically when I sense early signals of a vague or unformed brief, rather than assuming the standard discovery timeline will be sufficient and then feeling rushed and frustrated when it predictably isn't enough for this particular kind of project.
This self-awareness has made me a more effective collaborator in these situations, since a photographer who's visibly frustrated by a client's uncertainty rarely helps that client find clarity any faster. Building in the time and patience this process actually requires, rather than resenting it, has made the whole experience considerably smoother for everyone involved.
I've also come to genuinely appreciate what this kind of project teaches me creatively, since collaborating a client toward clarity from a genuinely blank starting point occasionally produces a more original direction than a project that arrived with a fully formed, conventional brief already attached.
What used to feel like a frustrating obstacle to good work has, over enough repetitions, become one of the more rewarding parts of the job, precisely because it asks more of me as a genuine creative collaborator rather than simply an executor of someone else's already-finished vision. It's a reminder that the most valuable part of this work sometimes happens before a single frame is ever captured, and it's a reminder I try to keep close every time a new brief lands on my desk without a fully formed vision already attached to it, since the client who arrives most uncertain is sometimes the one who ends up happiest with where the collaborative process eventually leads. If you want a deeper framework for managing every stage of a client relationship, from an unclear first brief through final delivery, it's covered in full in The Adventure Photographer's Playbook.
Reflection Questions
- Do you recognize the warning signs of a vague brief early enough to address it before production decisions are locked in?
- Are you asking specific, concrete questions during discovery, or open-ended ones that invite more vague answers?
- Do you document and confirm an agreed creative direction in writing before a shoot, especially with an initially uncertain client?
- How do your contract terms protect against unlimited revisions from a client whose vision keeps shifting after delivery?
Dalton Johnson is a professional adventure and editorial photographer with over a decade of experience creating images on all seven continents. His client work includes Patagonia, GoPro, Arc'teryx, Four Seasons, Nike, Rivian, Big Agnes, Ford Bronco, and 160+ other brands. He runs Dalton Johnson Media as a full-service studio, from pre-production through post and distribution.