wedding photos misery

[ms s stuart]

Hi

 

Can anyone help, I recently married the man of my dreams on a perfect day with all the people I love there to see it, I had spent months looking for a photographer and thought I had found the perfect one after looking at her portfolio and meeting her.

So you can imagine my disapointment when my DVD of photos arrive and they are less than perfect,( 149 photos & only 1 of my new inlaws the rest are of a few random guests and only very few of my attendants )

 

We had to pay up front so can anyone advise me on how to go about dealing with this.

[Butterbean]

Just a few things to ask first.

 

a) is she an experienced wedding photographer - i.e. has lots of bookings and how long has she been in the business?

b) did you have a contract agreed with her? with provision for compensation in the event of the job not being fulfilled as per the contract?

c) what arrangements did you have in your pre-wedding talks i.e. did you go through what your expectations of the images would be and how she would work on the day? What style of photography did you want - formal? arty? relaxed and laid-back?

d) does she have insurance?

e) is she a member of a professional organisation such as the Master Photographers' Association?

f) how long was she there for (pre-wedding, wedding and reception / wedding and reception / wedding only?) and how much did she charge?

g) you say you got a DVD of all the images. Is this for you to choose from to fill the wedding album? (is she also arranging the wedding album, prints etc?) And is this the total number of images she took or have they already been filtered to drop the less than perfectly exposed ones? When you say they were less than perfect were they poor images - poorly exposed / badly composed / blurry, or is it the range of subjects in the images that was disappointing?

 

Sorry to ask so many questions straight off! But knowing what the agreed arrangements were and details of what you got will help to work out what to do, how to deal with it, and how to resolve it in as amicable a way as possible

 

Congratulations on your exciting day! Hopefully we can all come up with some feedback and suggestions.

[mechs]

My wife was so sorry to read of your disappointment and sadness of your special day, and said that if you wanted to pm me about sending some of your photographs to her then she would be happy to create a 10" wedding plate free of charge for you. If you or your family have taken photographs then those too could be incorporated.

 

Around the inner rim would be the names of the bride & groom, the venue, date of the wedding.

 

The above is her own design and you will not find another like it, so perhaps out of misery a unique memory of your special day may be given?

[michaeludell]

i am sorry to hear about your wedding photographic disaster.

 

i have some experience of wedding photography and the only thing i can think of is 150 photos is a lot, obviously she has gone for quantity over quality.

 

a normal wedding package you would expect to receive between 40 - 80 pictures. if you dispose of 70 pictures are you left with 80 good ones??

[PhiltheBear]

i am sorry to hear about your wedding photographic disaster.

 

i have some experience of wedding photography and the only thing i can think of is 150 photos is a lot, obviously she has gone for quantity over quality.

 

a normal wedding package you would expect to receive between 40 - 80 pictures. if you dispose of 70 pictures are you left with 80 good ones??

 

I don't know where you get that from.

 

When I photograph a wedding I'll supply 200-300 images for the couple to choose from. During the day we'll probably have taken between 700 and 1000 shots. What we do is pretty normal - if someone is only supplying 40-80 pictures then he's probably an amateur who is trying to get business.

 

Check out the websites of people like Damien and Julie Lovegrove (possibly the best known of the UK's wedding photographers) and you'll see what I mean.

 

As for quality - there are 2 yardsticks, content and technical. Sounds like this complainant doesn't like the content. That may be her fault. We ask the couple for a list of shots they specifically want, as well as all the others we take. If she didn't make this clear and hired the photographer on the basis of just liking previous work then, I'm afraid, it's her problem. One photo of the in-laws sounds about right to me. Most couples want the photographer to concentrate on them.

 

My experience of wedding photography - about 30 years behind the camera.

 

Phil

[StormWarrior]

between 700 and 1000 shots.

 

The curse of digital

[ScarletPimpernel]

Wedding photography is a case of caveat emptor to some extent. Certainly one would expect the bride & groom to have discussed their requirements in detail before the wedding, and to have looked at some previous examples of the photographer's work.

 

However, as a keen photographer (who doesn't do weddings), and someone currently working on wedding plans, I have found it much more complicated that it was the first time around. Today some photographers don't attend themselves, but send staff, many of whom seem to be freelance semi-professionals; there is a trend towards having a second photographer to take candid shots at the reception; some offer all sorts of Photoshopped effects, and so on. It seems that much of the money these days is in web-based print sales to guests. I have found it quite difficult to find a photographer who will just do a traditional wedding shoot.

 

During the day we'll probably have taken between 700 and 1000 shots.

 

 

The 'African Unload' version of camera use, perhaps? Assuming you're shooting RAW, that must take up quite a few memory cards, and take a long time to process digitally later, if only to identify the good shots.

 

 

The curse of digital :grin:

 

I like digital, especially my Fuji DSLR with film emulation - better than my Nikon. S5 Pro when I get my bank charges back!

[PhiltheBear]

...

The 'African Unload' version of camera use, perhaps? Assuming you're shooting RAW, that must take up quite a few memory cards, and take a long time to process digitally later, if only to identify the good shots.

 

Yes, we (2 photographers) do shoot RAW - and it gives us about 80-100 shots per memory card and we carry at least 12 cards.

 

It takes us 2 weeks to go through, correct, process, weed-out and generally deal with the photos. We then put the best on a DVD for the couple. They can choose what they want in an album or any extra prints.

 

We use 2 photographers to get a broad variety of shots - for example one of us can shoot the exchange of rings while the other is catching the emotion on the faces of the bride's parents. You can't do that with one photographer only. From 700-1000 shots I know I'll have 500 'good' ones and around 200 very, very good ones. I may, for example, take 4 shots of the same scene in rapid-fire mode which may look the same but in at least one someone will have their eyes closed. By taking 4 I ensure that I've got the shot where everyone is wide eyed!

 

But we do let the couple buy what they want. In effect we'll charge for our time on the day and for the processing up to the DVD. It's then up to them what album they want (if any) or what prints. We do give them a website and they can buy prints from it but mainly that's there for friends and relatives to look at - although most print orders from the website tend to come from relatives.

 

And we have a pre-wedding session so that the bride and groom can see what our photos of them are like - if they want to back out then they can. (They don't!) This all costs money - but we do deliver results that couples seem to be thrilled with.

 

Phil