Steve, I understand. Also please understand that stopping work to take photos and send or post them interrupts build flow, and, to put it bluntly, costs money, and too many of the most demanding clients in this regard will try to grind me for a lower and lower price. It becomes an untenable business model.
I've instituted a charge for each photo session in custom builds, and I state that photos do not necessarily properly represent what will be the finished product. Every minute that one of my luthiers or I spend taking and sending pictures and blabbing about instruments is a minute that we don't spend building a uke or guitar. Every custom client wants to feel special and that they have a relationship with the builder. Well, you can, but in the end someone has to pay for that. That's the reality of custom lutherie. Frank Ford at Gryphon Stringed Instruments tracked...in excruciating detail...a year of his work: how many hours at the bench working vs. how many hours spent talking to customers. It was 1,000 hours of working to 1,000 of talking. So if his shop rate was $75.00 an hour, it was actually $37.50 an hour. Hmmmm. OK, so some of that time can be written off as promotion of the store, etc., but...
One of the least financially rewarding custom builds I ever did was with a client with whom there wound up being 135 exchanges of emails, and yes, photos were a part of that. Who do you think sucked the big one with that? My bookkeeper knows the answer to that!
So just understand that when you do choose to be a "helicopter client", either you're taking lunch money away from a luthier or he or she has built that time (which = money ) into the quote. A good friend of mine, Jeff Traugott, builds guitars that start at about $26,000.00. Would you care to guess what about $10,000.00 of that is? It's paying for the relationship with Jeff.
And you still won't know what the uke or guitar or bass or whatever will look like 'til it's done and you see it in person. It's really hard to take that leap of faith, but you know, I do it every day when I go into my shop and look at the work in progress. I know what the stuff is going to look like. It doesn't look like that today...
You should (not) see some of my "dyed in the wood" sunbursts right after I shoot the color onto the bare wood. They look like utter dog s**. Then I shoot or wipe on the first pre-sealer coat...night and day, and still a month away from gorgeous. I don't want clients to see my 'bursts in that first stage; nobody would get it.
So go light on the luthier...well, go light on a good one!