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Bad photographer dont know what to do?


steph_unwin

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<p>I recently got married on the 20/6/15. We hired a photographer who was recommended at short notice as our orginal photographer did not turn up for a meeting. We met with the new one and he explained what pictures he would take, bridal prep, groom arriving, ceremony, formal group pictures, speeches cake cutting and first dance and a photobooth. He said that he does that many weddings that he did not need to see the venue beforehand and i have to give it to him he could talk the talk. <br /> I asked him not to put pictures of the wedding on social media which he agreed, we went on honeymoon on the monday and i got a message of him asking to use a image as advertising at 6.45pm then at 7.15pm that same night he had used it for advertising even though we were away and didnt agree to this. He then put another image on my social media saying more images would be put up the following day, i message him to remind him i did not want them on social media which he assured me they would not be put on. The following day the link to all my edited images were put on social media i phoned him to get them removed.<br /> The edited images he then sent us included of 65 pictures of one of my bridesmaids (fair enough) only 11 pictures of the groom (? ok more of bridesmaid than groom hmmm) and 20 pictures of our videographer (nice guy but dont want him on my wedding album). There were no images of either of our parents. He didnt get any of the bridal prep, groom arriving, set up of the venue either as we requested and e agreed to. i phone him asking if these were all the images he had because i was very upset with them, he said he would post me every single image on disk edited or not. 6 disks arrived in the post a couple of days later, still no images of our parents very upset. 4/6 disks had out of focus blacked out blurry pictures that could not be used however there is 2 images of one of my friends bottom, 3 images of the same friends clevage and he was trying to get a up skirt picture of her as two were out of focus and final one in focus! Fuming is not the word he spent more time taking pictures of one of our guest than getting the important ones. He even took a picture through a window of two other guest legs. I have emailed him explaining we are not happy but am still awaiting a reply he has been paid in full. The person who recommended him to us said we should contact the police after he saw the images of the upskirt shot but im not sure they would be able to do anything. Does anyone know what my options are.<br /> Thanks for reading</p>
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<p>Steph,</p>

<p>I notice that the word "contract" wasn't mentioned in your post. Without a contract, you don't have a lot of options. If you don't have even a single good photo of you and your husband, well, you could hire another photo to take a portrait of the two of you (for which you'd both get back into your wedding clothes). But you can't sue the original photographer for better or even different pictures. Whether you can sue for your money back, I don't know. You could talk to an attorney.</p>

<p>I also notice that you say nothing about the process by which you hired the photographer. Did he show you albums from other weddings he'd done? Did he have a website with lots of good photos that you looked at? On what basis did you decide that he was competent? "Talking the talk" is a good thing for somebody who's going to give a speech. But I sometimes think that brides interviewing photographers should ask the photographers to make their sales pitch <em>entirely without words. </em> </p>

<p>•</p>

<p>I'm a bit surprised about your description of some of the photos. Even if the photographer was a perv, <em>why did he give you those photos? </em>Now and then I have accidentally captured subjects in embarrassing postures — embarrassing in lots of ways, like sneezing, eating, too obviously drunk, etc. Those photos are never seen by the client: In most cases they're deleted immediately. It's hard for me to understand why the photographer would share those images with you. Well, hard to understand but not impossible. Sounds like you hired a "shoot and burn" photographer who showed up, took a lot of photos and simply sent them all to you. </p>

<p>Did you get <em>any</em> decent photos? Would you mind saying how much you paid?</p>

<p>Will</p>

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<p>I do have a contract which states he would provide images of the full day starting from bridal prep to the evening. Some of the pictures are ok, alot of them are out of focus and a lot are of the back of my husbands head.<br>

The photograopher showed us albums and a webpage which he has, ( i have now found out his has 4 other photographers working for him and putting their work on his page too).<br>

As to why he gave me these pictures, i asked if he had more because the edited ones were rubbish and none of family which you would expect. So he sent me all the pictures including the inappriprate ones of one of my friends. My step dad is a photographer but i refused to let him do all the wedding pictures as he had enough to do walking me down the aisle and he said the same why did he send those pictures to you? He was £400. His facebook page also has 4.9/5 star ratings ? no idea how though.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>I do have a contract which states he would provide images of the full day starting from bridal prep to the evening. Some of the pictures are ok, alot of them are out of focus and a lot are of the back of my husbands head. The photograopher showed us albums and a webpage which he has, ( i have now found out his has 4 other photographers working for him and putting their work on his page too).</p>

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<p>"A lot" of the pictures are out of focus? Sigh. Hard to understand that. I'm not the world's greatest photographer, but I just went through the photos an old wedding that I did when I was just starting — one of my first paid gigs — and out of 800 or so photos, there were only two, perhaps three that were badly out of focus. There are lots of ways to take a bad photo! But focus simply shouldn't be a problem for any semi-competent photographer these days. <br>

<br>

I'm taking your report about the photos at face value, which is all I can do without seeing the images. But even if this is not completely fair to your particular photographer, it's a fact that there are plenty of people shooting weddings who don't know what they're doing (including some that will go on to become masters) and, alas, there are more than a few complete frauds in the business, too. In the U.S. and perhaps the U.K., it's an unregulated industry. Absolutely anybody can put up a website and solicit business as a photographer. You don't even have to have photos: More than a few photographers (including a couple famous ones) simply steal other people's work. <br>

.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>As to why he gave me these pictures, i asked if he had more because the edited ones were rubbish and none of family which you would expect. So he sent me all the pictures including the inappriprate ones of one of my friends. My step dad is a photographer but i refused to let him do all the wedding pictures as he had enough to do walking me down the aisle and he said the same why did he send those pictures to you? He was £400. His facebook page also has 4.9/5 star ratings ? no idea how though.</p>

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<p>Ah, I see. My guess is that I wouldn't have <em>taken</em> those photos in the first place, but if I had, I sure as heck wouldn't have turned them over to you. Most of us with any experience have a clause in our contracts that states that the client (i.e. you) will NOT see "all" the photos that are taken. I've never kept a count on this, but I reckon I delete perhaps as many as five percent of the photos I took at a wedding almost immediately. Delete — forever. Some of those were test exposures, some of those were accidents (like a photo of my feet because I pressed the shutter while carrying the camera in my hand) and some of them are grossly inopportune captures. Those are photos I myself never want to see again. I keep everything else, at least until I've gone through all the photos carefully enough to confirm that this one mediocre photo of the bride's grandmother isn't the only shot I've got of that VIP.<br>

<br>

Facebook ratings are worthless. Personally, I think Facebook itself is worthless, but that's another topic. There's an amusing commercial for Adobe being shown here in the U.S. in which a businessman is shown out on some shady-looking street late at night buying clicks and likes from a very shady-looking character. It's like he's buying drugs. I think it's hilarious — and it's too true. Don't count on other people's endorsement, especially the endorsement of other people you don't know. Good reviews are too easy to get (or manufacture). And a single, completely unfair bad review from somebody can wreck an otherwise very good vendor's rating. <br>

<br>

As I said, you can't sue him for better or different photos. If you feel that what he gave you fails to satisfy the terms of the contract, perhaps you can sue for a reimbursement of some or all of the fee. In Texas, you might be able to go to "small claims court" and do this on your own. But, while I am sure you were on a tight budget, in an absolute sense, £400 (little over US $600) sounds inexpensive. It's also the case that you might get a judgment against the photographer that you can't enforce, in other words, you go through a lot of trouble and you accomplish nothing. <br>

<br>

Think it through and decide for yourself. But it might be the case that your best option is to be grateful for the few good photos, and forget about the rest. I've mentioned this here at photo.net before: When my wife and I were married, we were on such a tight budget that we asked family members to do as much as possible for us. My wife's sisters-in-law "catered" the reception and did a lovely job. My brother-in-law was the photographer. He wasn't a pro by any means and to make matters worse, multiple rolls of film were loss at the processing service. We treasure the handful of photos that survived — and we'll celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary this December.<br>

. <br>

I'm sorry you had this experience. But even if nothing else comes of it, it's a good thing that you vented here. There actually <em>are</em> good photographers out there working for cheap, but nobody should assume that they're easy to find. <em>Caveat emptor:</em> buyer beware.<br>

<br>

Will</p>

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<p>Sigh.<br /> My advice? Do what you can with the images you got, and move on. At least you got something (besides getting married, I mean). Some folks get nothing. Ask your wedding guests to send you any shots they took which they particularly like. Perhaps those will fill in some of the gaps. $600 is ridiculously low, in my opinion. My son is interviewing photographers for his wedding in March and they are coming in between $3500 and $6000.<br /> <br />Forget about the photographer. If there's a Yelp entry for him, state the facts, and that you weren't satisfied with his work. Not very much else you can do to warn others.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, your's is a story too often repeated.</p>

<p>The title should be … <em>"Bad Photographer Hired On The Cheap"</em>.</p>

<p>You paid a pittance, and expected that by some miracle the "Frog Photographer" was actually a "Prince" … and he was quite willing to puff himself up and take your money based on your "Princely" expectations.</p>

<p>Basic economics 101 … you get what you pay for. Buy a Frog, get a Frog … warts and all.</p>

<p>The only "Horror Story" here is expecting … sales contact and discussion, pre-planning, a days shooting from getting ready through the reception, done with proper equipment and insurance, everything professionally captured, nicely edited and delivered … for close to minimum wage.</p>

<p>Really?</p>

<p> </p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Frankly, I think Peter's advice is the best. Take what you've got, and move on. You can't go back in time, and, unless you want to restage the ceremony, the pictures you've got are the only you'll ever have. I would solicit EVERY guest for pictures they may have taken. Hopefully you can put together a reasonable album, and it might not be that bad in the end...<br>

...but you need to do it NOW. your guests probably won't keep the pictures if they don't think it's necessary, and, if they don't know about the problem, they won't know to save the 18 pictures they took of that gorgeous bouquet... (or whatever). And a good cellphone pic is worth a whole lot more than a blurry cleavage shot (rolling eyes... really?.. really?!?). </p>

<p>I would probably go on FB today, and make a post about how bad it was, how little he got (who he is), maybe even what he got and a few samples (which meet the standards) - since your 'contract' obviously allows posting of images on social media. I would solicit all your guests to save any images they've got, and (hopefully) provide them for you... I would add that there may be things in pictures that you would love to have - but the guest might not recognize as important... and mention that at this point you just are hoping to recover something usable.</p>

<p>If I was feeling vindictive, I'd send copies of the disk to local media, and ask them if they are interested in doing a story about it, and his operation.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>I'd send copies of the disk to local media, and ask them if they are interested in doing a story about it, and his operation.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I agree with Marc. Caveat emptor. At this price what did you expect? Would you have taken a wedding for that amount of money? You have learnt the hard way. You <em>might</em> have been lucky, but I'm afraid it is not surprising. You are going to have to make do with what you have. Of course you can give him a bad review - but he probably will moderate it away.</p>

Robin Smith
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Well the photographer surely crossed the the line regarding the legs. A sick freak. I have no idea if you have a

case with the police. Perhaps he already has record on file. I'm sorry you had to go through this. I too like Marc's

last line about the local media.

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