Wedding photographer lost images of wedding

[rick_m.]

<p>I can see where this is going and it appears someone is going to sue. I will say nothing about whether or not you ought to do that. I am no lawyer. It is my suspicion though that when all is said and done and you get a small check of some kind. Unless you go to big kid court you will get less than $5K and you won't get the free photo shoot. Big kid court and you have some serious legal bills. Then you have to try to collect. If she doesn't have insurance.......</p>

<p>What happened to you is a shame. Extending the agony with a court battle that could literally go on for years may not be worth it in either time, treasure or anxiety. I reject the notion that you would be teaching this photographer anything. She obviously has learned her lesson. </p>

<p>I had the opportunity to sue someone once and my lawyer said I would recover. He advised me as a friend not to do it. I'm glad I took his advice.</p>

<p>You have been married three years or more. You live in paradise. Your husband has a very good paying job with a great retirement. You have the opportunity to get a nice photo shoot in paradise. Why not make the best of it? When all is said and done, and you get a some money from small claims court, you are not going to feel better. You might feel worse. And you will have invested a whole lot of additional angst in the process. And you still won't have any wedding pictures other than the ones you can get from attendees and your videographer. </p>

<p>You seem like a very nice person. You have treated this photographer with a lot of class and she has been completely forthright with you and offered what she could offer by way of apology. That is a pretty nice place to be. </p>

[owen_omeara]

<p>I have said this in the past and I will say it again, this is another example of why I no longer shoot weddings.</p>

<p>This is a sad story indeed and I hope something good comes out of it.</p>

<p>-Cheers</p>

[jeni_deidre]

<p>I was already sad for myself and trying to power through but knowing other couples data was lost possibly even more couples makes me feel like I should do something more. Like I said, there was another bride involved and possibly more. </p>

[mccosh]

<p>Owen,</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>this is another example of why I no longer shoot weddings</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>No this is not a reason not to shoot weddings. It is a reason to make sure you backup your images to another drive or at least leave the images on the original memory card and put this away for safe keeping until you have finished editing the images and delivered them to the client, I do both. Any professional photographer will go to great lengths to protect and backup their images. This photographer didn't and was unprofessional. </p>

<p>It's a very sad story, and there is no way the photographer can put it right if indeed the images are gone from both the hard drive and memory cards. Paying for another photo shoot including all extra's, hair, flowers & Tux included is the very least she could offer you Jeni. I appreciate your family will not be in them and without photo shopping them into a few photos this isn't going to happen. I feel your pain and can't believe that their are people out their that shoot weddings and don't backup their images.</p>

[daverhaas]

<p>If I were the photographer and lost multiple couple's photos - I'd be going night and day trying to find a recovery service that could get them back. </p>

<p>While recovery does cost a lot, they are usually very good about being able to recover something off of a crashed drive. </p>

<p>Here's a link that you should provide the photographer with: <a href="http://www.krollontrack.com/data-recovery/data-recovery-services/hard-drive-recovery/">http://www.krollontrack.com/data-recovery/data-recovery-services/hard-drive-recovery/</a></p>

<p>If she's already tried them - great. If not - she should be busting her butt to get there. </p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

[nishnishant]

<p>This would have been one of those situations if a few guests with DSLRs had "gotten in the way" of the pro and taken some snaps. It'd have served as a fallback!</p>

[Marcus Ian]

<p>If you haven't done so already, <strong>do this NOW:</strong> call/email/text <em>every single guest</em>, tell them that your photog botched ALL your pictures, and ask them for every single image they took the whole weekend. tell them not to delete anything because you don't know what is important yet. Ask them to send you copies of every bad blurred and grainy picture (as well as any decent ones). This should have been done the moment you heard from the photog,<em> but if not yet done you need to do it ASAP. </em>regular folks regularly delete pictures, and waiting means more people will be like... full memory card? not anymore. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>I was already sad for myself and trying to power through but knowing other couples data was lost possibly even more couples makes me feel like I should do something more. Like I said, there was another bride involved and possibly more.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Ironically, that circumstance makes her story more believable. The timeframe is right. I would guess that this photographer either a) did not have any backup, or b) did not implement her regular backup routines. I would say that b) is more likely. Either, in my mind, is negligent behavior for a professional, but, especially in season, doing several weddings a week, such things sometimes get de-prioritized. Some professionals poorly design their backup plans, and since it requires more time (poorly designed - properly designed, it takes at most a few mouse clicks), and is rarely needed, it gets put on the back burner. <br>

I'm awfully sorry this happened to you, but I don't see any reason to hope for a resolution which gets you back your images. I doubt a HDD data recovery service is going to be able to recover much (how much depends upon a) type of HDD, b) type of failure (and physical damage), and c) amateur recovery efforts), and given the time of year, the memory cards are going to be <em>more</em> unrecoverable (unlike a traditional HDD, they store data on flash memory in which once the data is overwritten, for all practical purposes it is unrecoverable). </p>

<p>Yes, she should have had a backup plan, yes, she should have implemented one properly. But clearly she did not, and, as much as it isn't your fault, you still have to deal. The first thing I'd do is reach out to the guests. It may very well be too late. In my mind, the photog has made things<em> worse</em> by not informing you of the failure<em> the day after it happened.</em> Time is of the essence, since 'normal people' only keep a few pictures and delete the rest. I can only hope you get lucky!</p>

<p> </p>

[Marcus Ian]

<p>Nish, good call! I was writing my post when you posted yours, but you are the first out of 50+ responses (that I read) to recognize that there still <em>might</em> be other pictures out there!</p>

[rick_m.]

<blockquote>

<p>I was already sad for myself and trying to power through but knowing other couples data was lost possibly even more couples makes me feel like I should do something more. Like I said, there was another bride involved and possibly more.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is what I meant. You are not the police. You will not teach this photographer anything she has not already learned through the loss of her photos and probably her income for a couple of months and more. You are angry and you are working up your courage to try and sue her. Before you do, consult a lawyer. Take a copy of the contract with you. If you plan to sue in small claims court you might get as much as $5K in Virginia. I am certainly no lawyer but you also might have to pay to travel from Hawaii to Virginia to try. That is why you might want to talk to a lawyer.</p>

<p>As a service family you might be able to speak to a JAG lawyer for free. They won't represent you but they might give you some advice. </p>

[john_deerfield]

<p>OK, I am chiming back in but this is just a little off topic. This thread produced another thread in the Digital Darkroom forum with at least part of the discussion being that hard drive failure can be avoided simply by using a mirror RAID of some sort. Now, lets for a moment say that the photographer in this case bought into that line of thinking: "I need to protect my images, so by using a mirror RAID, I do that". Only that isn't what a mirror RAID does. Oops. A mirror RAID protects you from ONE thing and ONE thing only: a single (depending on the RAID implementation) hard drive failing. That's it. Nothing else. It is NOT any type of back up by any means. But is often sold and touted as one. If the data on drive one is in any way corrupted, deleted, moved off of, has a directory issue or any other host of issues... it will be the <em>same</em> on the 2nd drive. Period. The 2nd drive is an exact copy (deleted, corrupted. whatever) of the 1st drive. I am not saying that is what happened here. I am just maintaining we don't know exactly what happened.</p>

[jeni_deidre]

 

 

<blockquote>

<p>This is what I meant. You are not the police. You will not teach this photographer anything she has not already learned through the loss of her photos and probably her income for a couple of months and more. You are angry and you are working up your courage to try and sue her.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You have me misunderstood there. My fault. I should have clarified. I meant something more as in write a review or whatever else is possible. Not just legal. I'm not trying to work up my courage to sue. I need to know my options with that for sure BUT I am willing to talk with her first. I sent her a very heartfelt email but I haven't got a response yet. <br>

However, I am trying to decide for potential clients if I should warn them? This is a bad situation for everyone involved. This has been so horrible that I really feel sick for her and myself. </p>

 

 

 

 

[daverhaas]

<p>Reviews are the bread and butter of the on-line photographer. If you get a bad review, it sticks with you for a long, long time. In this case (from what we have been told) you are justified in writing the facts in a review of the photographer. Not that you need our permission to do that. </p>

<p>The problem with reviews or anything that you write on-line, is that if you decide to sue (small claims or otherwise), it becomes evidence which is admissible in court, either for or against you and the photographer. </p>

<p>So, if you write a review that says she's unprofessional because she lost all of your images, unresponsive, etc... be prepared for that to be brought up in a court, should you go that direction. </p>

<p>My advice for the review: Stick to the facts. Write it offline. Walk away from it for a day or two, then open it up again and re-edit it. If you feel she did a good job at some parts of the day - mention that. Let people know that her failing was in post-production. As long as you're telling the truth you have nothing to fear. </p>

<p>Dave</p>

<p> </p>

[jeni_deidre]

<p>Thanks, David H.! I'm still trying to figure things out. </p>

<p>I talked to the other couple today and they said they had asked her for the hard drive. She said she didn't have it anymore. I think she just left it with the company that said the drive had 0% recovery... So we can't get those back. <br>

As far as the memory cards, she ran a program that enabled her to get the images she gave us back. </p>

<p>The other couple had got images from the second shooter (her husband) but none from her - the second shooter was at no additional costs. <br>

Also, she had admitted to them that aside from both of us missing our images there is another couple. 3 weddings in total gone. <br>

I asked her about insurance and she said she had none but on a review site it said she did have liability insurance. Could that only include equipment? She opened her business in 2007. Would she not have better coverage? Her reply was that she didn't have insurance and I would have to deal with her directly. Is that true? </p>

[sera]

<p>First off, I'm very sorry. I completely understand about the family photos & how hard that would be to not have. I really hope your videographer is able to help you out with some of this!<br>

Although the other couple told you they already asked for the hard drive, I would still ask her about it. She won't be able to give it to you. However, I would ask her what company she used. She may have just said she didn't have it because she panicked & didn't know how to refuse that other couple the hard drive. <br>

If she does have the memory cards & hard drive, I'd ask her to send them to one of the places others on this forum have suggested - the ones that the FBI, etc use. Even if it costs her $5k for all that, it is going to be much cheaper than to have anyone sue her. I'd even tell her that! Also, if she "ran a program" on her memory cards, she's not trying hard enough. She needs to send those out to a truly professional (yes expensive) service & that's all on her to pay. Maybe she did spend a lot already, but she may have just picked one... they are not all the same.<br /><br />Since she doesn't have insurance, than suing her will likely not get you very far. Insurance is there for when unfortunate things happen, so you're covered. Without insurance she likely has no money. Even if you did sue her & you won a lot of money, she likely wouldn't be able to pay it. Especially if either of the other 2 brides sue her.<br>

I would also contact the venue & tell them what happened. You said they have a contract with her so I'd want to warn them. I wouldn't say anything to the venue if it was just some photographer you found on your own, however since they're recommending her I'd let them know.<br>

Did you sign a contract with the photographer? You said you paid her, but do you have a contract? Or do you have a contract regarding photography with the venue?<br>

Again, I'm sorry you have to deal with this.</p>

[Marcus Ian]

<blockquote>

<p>Could that only include equipment?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, it depends upon the policy she purchased. Most smaller photogs are primarily concerned with a loss of equipment, not 'other' things, so when on a shoestring budget...</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>... Would she not have better coverage? Her reply was that she didn't have insurance and I would have to deal with her directly. Is that true?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>One would hope she'd have better coverage, but I doubt that a policy would cover her negligence regardless, though it depends on the policy. In essence though, yes, dealing with her directly is your only practical avenue, unless you are ready to file. If you think you are ready to file, you need to be reading through every single line of your contract prior to doing so.</p>

[john_deerfield]

<blockquote>

<p>Could that only include equipment? She opened her business in 2007. Would she not have better coverage? Her reply was that she didn't have insurance and I would have to deal with her directly. Is that true?<br>

</p>

</blockquote>

<p>For what it's worth, most everyone in the world is underinsured in some way. If the photographer was a member of PPA (Professional Photographers of America), then the photographer has <em>some </em>errors & omissions coverage (PPA indemnification trust) that the photographer may not even be aware of. <br>

<br>

As to whether you have to deal directly with her, I guess it's either with her or your attorney. I will say that the minute attorneys are involved that that is all you will be dealing with, no more dealing with the photographer directly as the attorney won't allow it. <br /></p>

[lindsay_dobson]

<p>No insurance .... no backups ... this is symptomatic of cheaper semi-casual wedding photographers. I'm not sure how much choice you had Jeni, but I wonder if you hired this person mostly on price. Unfortunately a low budget will usually mean that compromises are made somewhere, and many cheap photographers can't afford (or don't care about) proper insurance or investing in backup systems. In fact it's a stipulation of one of the bodies I belong to, the BIPP (British Institute of Professional Photography) that we are vetted and audited, and we must submit our insurance certification. So at this stage I am going to ask you if you yourself are insured? Some of the more thorough wedding insurance policies may cover losses such as this.</p>

[darrell_hancock]

<p>This just doesn't make sense to me, there are even shareware programs that can scan a memory card and find images taken two or three weddings back, why isn't someone checking these cards?<br>

I have a strange suspicion that this photog wasn't that experienced and the photos are so badly under/over exposed and out of focus she is covering her tracks by saying her hard drive crashed! The fact that the videographer was hired from craigslist tells me a lot. Just curious what you paid for the photographer because something just isn't ringing true to me here.</p>

[daverhaas]

<p>Just to chime in on the insurance issue: <br>

1) Yes, she could have equipment only insurance<br>

or <br>

2) She could have liability insurance - which covers her in instances where someone gets physically hurt as a result of her actions or equipment (ie Someone trips over one of her light stands) and not have errors and omissions insurance - which covers her in case she takes all images out of focus or loses all the images.<br>

It's not uncommon for agents to neglect to mention the E/O part when talking with pros, since that is far more likely to spawn claims than the base liability. </p>

<p>Now to the next topic - the hard drive. Yes, when the company said it was unrecoverable, she probably did tell them to keep it - which unfortunately means it has already been recycled. Highly doubtful that they would keep it around, unless they turned it over to their development team to let them try to improve their techniques / software. I would ask her for the company name, address, phone, her order #, etc... and deal with the company. Contact them to find out if they still have it and if they will release it to you. </p>

<p>Memory cards: The base / free programs go after only the most recent images on the cards. There are other options from 3rd party vendors - such as File Scavenger that go after any and all files on the card. If the file is there it will find it. If she hasn't done that she needs to ASAP. </p>

<p>The lesson learned here for photographers is backup your files ASAP. If you don't have a dual drive backup - get a 2nd drive NOW. (and a RAID isn't a backup - sorry marketing folks) Hard Drives are under $150.00 for 3 TB. That's less than a couple of meals out with the family or 1 triple latte a day for 30 days. Much cheaper than getting yourself into the situation that the photographer in this story is in. </p>

<p>Finally - I'd suggest contacting the other two couples and getting a lawyer together. Then go after the photographer for all she's got. Chances are she's set up as a sole proprietorship, which means that you can go after her personal property and damages / losses aren't limited to business assets. </p>

<p>Dave</p>

<p> </p>

[lindsay_dobson]

<p>David Haas said: <br>

<strong>"The lesson learned here for photographers is backup your files ASAP. </strong><br>

<strong>Finally - I'd suggest contacting the other two couples and getting a lawyer together. Then go after the photographer for all she's got. Chances are she's set up as a sole proprietorship, which means that you can go after her personal property and damages / losses aren't limited to business assets."</strong></p>

<p>Perhaps a better lesson is to avoid cost-cutting when choosing your photographer, since generally you will get what you pay for. Somewhere along the way the client needs to take some responsibility for situations like this. Still, why worry about that when you can simply sue them for everything they're worth if it all goes pear shaped ...... and I will say that this advice is shaky at best. There is already a paper trail where the photographer has willingly offered compensation in the form of a full refund and an additional photo shoot and generally speaking that would be the limit of liability in a situation like this. So I think pursuing court action might not be the cleverest move.</p>

[stevenseelig]

<p>Legal action against the photographer is not going to get your pictures back and the little bit of money you might make will go to legal fees. Plus there is the heartburn and bad karma.<br>

Personally, I would chalk this one up to a lesson learned: You get what you pay for. I would use her refunded money to create a special project. <br>

Special Project: I suspect that there are lots of pictures of your family that each of you have and some may go back a long way. I would have each of your family members either send you those pictures (or a hi res scan of them), scan them and then create a book/album that consists of the very best of those pictures plus a few 'retakes' of you and your husband. Such an album would be a priceless heirloom for the whole family, as you are scattered around the world.</p>

[jeni_deidre]

<blockquote>

<p>Perhaps a better lesson is to avoid cost-cutting when choosing your photographer, since generally you will get what you pay for. Somewhere along the way the client needs to take some responsibility for situations like this.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This photographer is professional. I'm not interested in outing them for slander or anything so I will not disclose her name. She is professional though. I found the videographer on Craigslist because I didn't want to pay a lot just to have our first dance filmed. I ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for with him. Thank god. However, I have been taking a few days to figure out what I am going to do. Lawyers are the hungry sort and I really feel bad for her. </p>

[lindsay_dobson]

<p>Jeni, have you ever taken somebody to Court before? I have, and I can tell you that it is one of the most exhausting and stressful processes you will ever go through, irrespective of the outcome. There is a naive notion here that suing somebody is quick and easy and painless, and you get a lovely windfall at the end of it. That is absolute nonesense. Nor is there any guarantee that you will see any of the money which may (or may not) be awarded to you, nor can you count on your chances of being able to recoup your legal fees from the other side. As I have said, this photographer has offered a full refund and an additional photo shoot, in Court that will stand in her favour and in any case it is likely to be the limit of liability to you anyway. So it makes little sense to spend a small fortune only to hear a Judge say that.</p>

<p>Second, even if the Judge were to award damages/compensation you have the next hurdle of finding a way to collect it - people are rarely in the habit of willingly paying up - more realistically the photographer may have very few assets (photographers earn very little on average) and you could end up spending another fortune on collection fees, again with no hope of recouping the money you're spending. And for what? For a sum amounting to a few hundred dollars? If you are prepared to expend thousands of dollars paying lawyers in your attempt to gain some kind of restitution then I think you are very unwise to even contemplate it.</p>

<p>This entire conversation is going in circles now and I'm quite sure that the most painless solution for you is to accept her offer and get on with your life. We hear endless stories on this forum from disgruntled brides complaining about poor or lost wedding photos which are supposedly highly important to them, yet those same brides have usually allocated an unrealistically low budget to their wedding photography - yet they expect all of the trappings and security of a much more expensive service. That is not a criticism, weddings are expensive and not everybody can afford a well established photographer, it is just that the low end of the market (if that is where your photographer lies, as I suspect) is usually low end for a reason - the photographer will be cutting a lot of corners and will often take a very casual approach to security and insurance. "Professional" simply means that they earn the bulk of their income from photography, it is not a badge of competence.</p>

[William Michael]

<p>Irrespective of how much you paid for this Photographer’s services and irrespective if this Photographer is telling you pork-pies about what actually did happen, I concur with the advice given above:</p>

<p><strong><em>This entire conversation is going in circles now and I'm quite sure that the most painless solution for you is to accept her offer [of a full refund and an additional photo shoot] and get on with your life.</em></strong><br /><br />WW</p>

[jeff_sudduth]

<p>Not sure if anyone still wants to discuss this but I have had multiple hard drives fail over the years. I don't usually back things up. I am not a professional. My experience though is unless it is an external drive that you drop I have never had a drive suddenly fail on me. Usually there are some warning signs. That's when I move everything critical off the drive. One drive I did a low level format on in preparation to send it back to the manufacturer. It was clicking and had trouble reading. After the wipe it worked perfectly. Needless to say though no critical datawas stored on that drive going forward. Anyway once a drive starts to act funny. I move everything off ASAP. Once a drive starts going downhill I've found you only have a limited number of times you can access it before it comes to a screeching halt.</p>

<p>The story of the lady attempting to fix it herself is not good. I would get it to a true expert ASAP. Just makig a flaky drive grind away for weeks is insane. Honestly though I can't understand not doing a simple on site back up. Particularly for current projects. If she started in 2007 she could have gotten terabytes of HD space for less than $100 preflood prices.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>That is not a criticism, weddings are expensive and not everybody can afford a well established photographer, it is just that the low end of the market (if that is where your photographer lies, as I suspect) is usually low end for a reason - the photographer will be cutting a lot of corners and will often take a very casual approach to security and insurance.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Pretty much. People charging $2K for a wedding have a reputation to protect. They aren't going to let little technical glitches ruin 3+ weddings.</p>

<p>Also if someone is running such a rinky dink operation what is the point of suing them? All a civil court will do if you win is say you are right. It is up to you to collect any moneys you are awarded. You can't get blood from a stone. If the person has no money or assets? Suing someone takes time and money and is unpredictable. I would say the net present value of that business venture is close to zero or may in fact be negative after you total up all your legal fees.</p>