Photographer lost my wedding pics. What do I do?

I contracted a photographer to record my wedding last month. I received a

special offer through the facility where my reception took place. The package

included the reception and a (highly recommended) photographer to come to

reception. We signed the contract and paid for it full. The photographer was

great took plenty of pictures and we were greatly satisfied. He asked to give

him a call in about 2 weeks to go look at the photos in his studio. We did as

asked and were told that pictures were ready for viewing but we needed a

appointment to go see them, the appointment was set and we are suppose to go

see them tommorow when we recieve a call today late in the afternoon that the

photos are gone! His computer apparently crashed and all of pictures were

erased. I asked him how we were going to resolve this issue and he easily

responded by saying that he'll just retake all of the photos. My problem with

this is that many of my family members,and bridal party arn't able to travel

again, this is including my father and 86 year old grandmother; these are

people that are important to us and this day wouldn't have been the same

without them and we are not going to be satisfied without them in our wedding

album. These photos meant so much to us and now we have nothing because of

someones irresponsible non professional actions. We have contacted our

attorney and he has recommeded to try to come to an agreement with

photographer, but photographer is not willing to pay for everyone tux/dress

rental, hair and makeup so at the end we are losing again!! We arn't sure if

we should settle this in court or take the photographers offer and loose alot!

Please help advise needed!!

If you have a contract, what does that offer you in terms of resolution?

 

I have liability insurance that would (God forbid this ever happened) cover the re-shoot. He/she ought to have the same.

 

What can you share of your contract with us?

BTW, if I or most any professional here did this, they would be only too happy to make it 'right' (i.e. pay for it/provide the insurance companies name/number).

Meylen,

 

It sounds as if your photograher did not follow the common proceedure of backing up his files. As a standard proceedure,when I walk through my front door after a wedding shoot, before I even unload the equipment from the van I take all of my CF cards and down load them onto my desktop and burn 2 - sets of CD's as backup's. Call the photogrpher back as quickly as you possibly can and see if he has your images still on his camera memory cards? I'm sorry that happened to you. One of the biggest names in wedding photography is Monte Zucker he had sent the film from 2 or more weddings off to the the lab when He got a phone call from the lab to inform him his camera had been malfunctioning and he had no images from these weddings. He went to the expense of flying reltives back into the area and renting tuxedos and more.

 

Good luck Meylen

 

Merle

if it doesnt work for you, get your money back. call all relatives, and get all snapshots sent too you for copy and edit, ect...

The photographer could be able to salvage some or all photos from the crashed computer. He should immediately contact a professional service that does data recovery. This can be expensive, but surely not as expensive as flying everyone over and re-doing the reception.

 

See for example www.ibas.com or www.ontrack.com.

 

Of course it's possible that the photographer screwed up the shoot really bad and the crashed computer is just a cover-up. Hopefully this is not the case.

As always, find a better lawyer. The 'place' that provided the 'service' that included the 'so-called' great photographer may have to ante up a lot of money to restage the wedding to you and your husband's satisfaction.

 

 

 

If you go to a hospital and a surgeon is highly recommended and he/she does something totally wrong, you get to sue two parties: the hospital and the doctor.

 

 

 

 

Good luck!

My contract says "If the Photographer cannot perform this Contract due to fire or other casualty, strike, act of God, or other cause beyond the control of the parties, or due to Photographerﾒs illness or emergency, then the Photographer shall return the deposit to the Client but shall have no further liability with respect to the Contract. This limitation on liability shall also apply in the event that photographic materials are damaged in processing, lost through camera malfunction, lost in the mail, or otherwise lost or damaged without fault on the part of the Photographer. In the event the Photographer fails to perform for any other reason, the Photographer shall not be liable for any amount in excess of the retail value of the Clientﾒs order." It's taken directly from the PPA sample contract.

 

Wouldn't this mean that, because restaging the wedding is more costly than just returning all of the cost of the photography, the photographer wouldn't be entitled to pay it? I think all she can ask for is her money back - that is, if this photographer's contract contained the same clause.

Meylen

 

Ok let's look at practicallities. Ask your photographer to have the data recovered. It's no longer rocket science any more - software programs of under 300 US$ will do this - what you need is a computer, running time for the recover to take place. Assuming that its not a full scale crash more like a serious FAT error.

 

Worse case offer to split the cost of the software with the photog but get him to run it. Even if you can recover 80% of what was shot - it is still a lot better than nothing (now).

Just on the legal point, I doubt whether in English law the exclusion clause given by Jen would actually be effective. I think there is a high risk that it would be deemed unfair and the B & G would be entitled to substantial damages. This would probably be measured by the cost of retaking including all the people who were in the original shoot. As has been said, insurance is available and should be used. In any case, who wants to be known as the wedding photographer who may get you your pics, or then again, may not?

If you opt for the "fly everybody back for a reshoot" insist that he uses film, and then you take the rolls to a one-hour lab, like at your local drug store. Their machine, at the very worst, can only destroy one roll at a time. Get a disc scanned from the negatives so he can get the rest of your order and album done, but you keep the negatives in your posession. You should probably insist that the guy hang out at the drugstore with you while the film is being processed. He doesn't shoot film? Let him hire somebody who does.

Next time (as if there would be a next time) hire a real photographer.

If we assume that the problem was that a computer crashed, then the data is still likely to be there and it's possible to recover it. But I can think of several other possible explanations for the loss. Bummer..........It's a wedding, no 2nd chances and no excuses.

 

With standard contracts, about the best you can hope for is a full refund. Reminds me of the policy that several labs have....if they screw up your film processing, they're only obligated to pay the cost of the film and "opt out" of assuming any responsibility for the "real world" value of the exposed images.

BTW, since the reception facility had a hand in getting this photographer for you, they may also share some legalethical liability for damages (whatever those might be). Beyond any actual legal liability, they may be willing and able to contribute substantially in an effort to avoid the bad worth of mouth generated by their recommendations to this photo studio.

If they were erased, they can be unerased.. worst case, like I just did, he can shell out the $$$ and send the drives to ESS or DriveSavers to get hte data recovered. It cost me $870 to get a 200gb drive recovered, and I found out that being a PPA member, that a chunk of that will be reimbursed to me, so I'm not totally out the full $870.

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Ask him exactly what happened to the PC, did it crash? Did someone erase the images? Was the drive reformatted? Ask him why he didn't back up the images as soon as he loaded them onto the PC? And then suggest he talk to ESS or DriveSavers to recover the info.

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Redo's are nice, but you've lost the moment at that point.

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Bob

If he didn't have a backup copy of the fotos on another hard disk he is negligent. This isn't an act of god, it's pure carelessness.

 

Start by thinking in terms of him and the wedding venue flying all of your wedding party back and re-staging the event at their expense. If he was part of a package deal from the venue then the venue is also liable.

 

I have multiple copies of every digital file from my first day in business (1989, DOS not Windows, when a large hard disk was 20 Megabytes). This is in spite of hard disk crashes, changes in operating system, obsolescence of hardware - doesn't matter.

 

if he was a professional he needs to have backup - no excuses. If he was a relative doing the shots as a favour different rules would apply.

Meylen,

 

The fact is that even though everyone here has been happy to give you plenty of advice, no one here knows what really happened. The suggestion that $300 worth of software will easily recover his data, for expample, is highly questionable. The idea that data recovery from a service will cost only $800 may, or may not, be accurate as well. Two years ago a virus caused enough damage to my hard drive that it had to be disassembled and the platter installed in another drive to repair it. The cost . . . $2000. Still cheaper than restaging a wedding, but there are problems that even this would not have prevented.

 

The best solution is to read your contract and do your best to work things out with your photographer. Make sure that all avenues have been pursued and then take the best course of action based on what you find out.

 

The reception site should have deeper pockets than the photographer and may have more to offer you. If the photography was included in their package, they are certainly on the hook. If they only recommended the photographer and you "selected" and sighed with him yourself, they are not liable for anything. However, you should discuss this problem with them and see to it that he does not have their recommendation in the future.

 

Do come back here and let us know how you made out. I am always wary of new posters at this site. Many come in with one post and then are never seen again. I hope that this is not the case here.

 

Best of luck,

 

Ed

Years ago my computer crashed and I was amazed how simply our LAN guy retrived data from what was seen as a fried HD.

 

PS: I've fried 3 more computers since then. Fortunately I shoot film.

 

Film Rules!

If the photographer was dumb enough to have his sole computer "crash" on him he is too dumb to know how or when to use data recovery software. This idi*t had two weeks to backup his computer data. There is absolutely no excuse for this. None. I highly doubt he's telling you the truth anyway.

 

Who and Why was this joker recommended? I feel so sorry for you.

I'm film so I have been lucky not to have to deal with that

yet..but most of us carry liability coverage through WPPI

and as I recall they pay to re-stage the event.

Flowers,Limo everything.

I'm sorry for your loss and what a nightmare.

Today we went to the photographer's studio. He is willing to upgrade package,fly everyone in, rent tux/dresses, make up, hair the works! I have also taken alot of your advise as in carefully reading "THE CONTRACT", asking if theres insurance, asking him to make sure he has a hard copy, etc. This has been a total nightmare for both of us! Even though I've gone through a real dissapointment with him (photographer) and his company. I still believe we are human and humans sometimes make real big mistakes. Thanks for all of your advise and wish me luck on the next photoshoot...

Meylen,

 

What a sweetheart you are, with the kind attitude you have just displayed that photographer is a lucky person. More lucky than the photographer is your new husband. Meylen I wish you the very best and God's blessings on your household. Please keep us posted as to the outcome of this problem.

 

Merle

I agree with everyone in that you should tell him to pay for data recovery.

 

Of course he will refuse and then you can demand for the hard drive so that he doesn't throw it or do any permanent damage to it. At least tell him that you are involving a lawyer and that he has to stop doing whatever with that hard drive.

 

I've always been paranoid with backups. Especially since my hard drive failed a couple of months back. Nothing major in there but it was still frustrating.

 

Now when i get home i upload it onto the computer. Then back it up on a second hard drive and then burn another copy on a DVD. So if 1 hard drive fails...i still have the other drive...

 

If the computer gets stolen or whatever i still have the DVD's...

 

Now that i've got a smugmug account i've gone into archiving high resolution JPEGS of the whole wedding on there.

This is your wedding. What do you want?

 

The photographer's contract only goes so far as to protect him under these circumstances. Not having a backup of the images is not a simple mistake...it is plain and simple incompetence. The little clause in the PPA sample contract does not help when a judge says, "It's your fault...pay up!"

 

My suggestion is to get an agreement with your new spouse on how important this is to you and then figure out what you want out of this. After doing that, contact the photographer and tell him what you want. If they say, "No" then go see an attorney. If your photographer is a member of the Professional Photographers of America, they will back him up. The PPA attorneys are good, but they also understand that this is your wedding. They want you to get what you want just as much as anyone.

 

Now, if your photographer is not a member of the PPA, personally, I hope you sue them out of business! It just isn't right for someone who puts themselves out as a 'professional' who doesn't provide the basic service that a true professional does. Chances are you will pay more for a photographer who is a member of the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) but what is the cost associated with not having any pictures from your wedding?

 

<a href="http://www.markleonardphotography.com/">Mark</a>

Meylen - Without knowing the photographer's side of the story (even though it doesn't sound like they have much of a leg to stand on) this is very strange. I am sitting at my computer desk looking at 10 drives around me - all having duplicate files of all my weddings. I'm VERY skeptical that the photographs are really gone - I wonder if they are just too cheap to pay for a recovery service.

 

Ask the photographer what they plan on doing to recover the images. Suggest that they pay a recovery service. Make sure that they know that you will broadcast the unfortunate news hither and thither if the images really are GONE.

 

Check out your contract per above suggestions.

 

Tell the facility that the photographer should not be shooting gigs anymore. A facility has a reputation to worry about - I would dump a photographer immediately if this sort of thing happened and the photographer's response was "hey, I'll give you a free session to shoot them again".

 

To those people who say that the photographer really shouldn't be expected to pay thousands of dollars in recovery fees - I HAVE had crashed drives, but I didn't shrug my shoulders and say 'sorry'. The clients still got the images - and the recovery procedure cost me $2000 on a friend's wedding I shot for $200. That's $10 to the company for every $1 that I made shooting that day!

 

Who was the photographer? Okay, maybe I shouldn't ask that in case there are some legal things going on here. What area of the country was this in?