Recurring assignments with changing end-client approvers

Recurring work builds trust. After a few events, the agency, client and photographer know how things work. That trust is valuable, but it can hide a quiet risk: the people who approve decisions change, and the habits stay the same.

This page is part of our guide to agency and recurring event-photography commissions. It covers how to keep the current approver visible.

Why do approvers change?

Marketing teams reorganise, managers move, and projects pass to new owners. Sometimes the person who approved the last event is still around but no longer responsible for this one. From the photographer's side, the email address may be the same and the instructions may look familiar, but the authority has shifted.

Nothing is wrong with change. The problem comes when work continues on old approvals and a new approver sees the result for the first time.

What does an approver actually decide?

Break it into three decisions, because they can belong to different people:

1. The brief: which moments and people matter, and the style.
2. The selection: which photographs are accepted as the delivered set.
3. Image use: where the photographs may be published or shared.

A communications lead might approve the brief, a director the selection, and a legal or brand team the use. Our guide to image approval across marketing, agencies and leadership explains how these roles can differ.

Record it for each event

For every event, keep a short record:

Item	Detail
Event and date
Approver for the brief	Name, role, contact
Approver for the selection	Name, role, contact
Approver for image use	Name, role, contact
Delegates	Name, scope, dates
Last reconfirmed	Date

An image-use and approval register is a practical place to hold this, and a photography brief handover tracker helps pass it on when staff change.

A worked example

For example, an agency has photographed a client's quarterly town halls for a year. Before the fourth event, the client's communications manager leaves and a new manager takes over. The agency tells the photographer only that "there is a new contact".

We would ask the agency to confirm in writing the new manager's name, whether they approve the brief, selection and image use, and whether earlier standing rules still apply. If the agency does not yet know, we would hold the event brief as provisional and confirm it once the new approver replies. The new manager then sees a record of how earlier events were handled and can change anything they want to.

Standing approvals

Some clients prefer a standing rule, such as "use the same brief for each town hall". That is sensible if it is written down, names who gave it and says when it should be reviewed. A standing rule saves effort, but it should lapse or be reconfirmed when the approver changes.

Our guide to working out which photography decisions belong to the host helps identify who owns each decision, and the page on booking when the company approver is away covers temporary absences.

Partly confirmed programmes

In a recurring programme, some dates are confirmed and others are not. Approvers may be known for the first and uncertain for the later ones. Our page on recurring photography with only some dates confirmed explains how to keep that clear.

Telling the photographer

Ask the agency to send a short message whenever any of these change: the approver, a delegate, an approval rule or the contact for questions. The message need not be formal. It only needs the name, role and date.

Onboarding a new approver

A new approver benefits from a short summary: what was agreed, what the last events looked like and what decisions they now own. Share past briefs and the approval register with the agency, so the new person can adjust the approach instead of starting from nothing.

What we confirm with you

For each event we confirm in writing who we take direction from, who approves the selection and who decides image use. When a name changes, we update the record and confirm what still applies.