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Wedding Photographer Nightmare Stories

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Greg Henry

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I just spent the better part of 2 days fixing a series of wedding photos for a coworker. She had hired someone locally who came "recommended" and who had a halfway decent website touting their skills. It was a discounted package at around $500.00 which supposedly just included a series of photos being taken at the wedding and the reception, put on DVD, and given to the family.

She brought the DVD to work to ask me for my opinion. Around 150 or so photos were taken, and nearly every one of them were from 3-5 degrees off, leaning to the left (she said the photographer kept leaning her entire upper torso area left to take vert shots, but wound up tilting the photos too much). Many of the shots were too dark given the conditions, and the camera was set on a higher compression JPG instead of RAW, as well has having the color saturation bumped up to more of a landscape setting rather than portrait setting.

The photographer used a Nikon D5000 with kit 55-200 lens. Lots of blown out areas in the Bride's dress and flower arrangement, artifacts due to the compression, etc. The photographer told my coworker that she "edited" a good number of the photos in the set, but most were just one-click "convert to black and white", or adding a cheap vignette effect to some, etc. Most were shot very tight - so much so you can only really get 4x6 prints out of it, and 8x10 crops cut out a number of guests in the photo. She had no assistant, etc with her, so angles sometimes included background clutter - even in some of the Bride/Groom shots, port-a-pots behind them. :-/

And the best one - the photographer forgot the correct settings when trying to blur the Bride's parents behind her, so, she faked some bokeh by doing THIS...



Wow.

So since they're out of money, I took some time and picked out about 20 or so pics that I thought were the most important shots, and corrected them as much as I could (straightening, recovering highlights as much as possible, etc). She was extremely grateful.

I do stock work and I know people do weddings. I know it's incredibly hard work not only physically, but also a drain on you emotionally as well if you get the bridezilla set and have other problems. But I also know for every good wedding photographer out there, there are bad ones, too. I just wanted to vent a bit over this one. Gets recommended, has a believable web site, and then - yikes. Feel free to share your own stories or brag about one you had that was better than you thought, etc. Just want to be able to tell the coworker about some people who got one that was even worse than hers. LOL
 
.....Kind of like being shocked that the 2011 Lexus you paid $6500 isn't quite as good as you thought....LOL.
 
OMG!!!

I'm astonished! I'd be very very upset if this was my wedding too. The posted picture speaks volumes about the photographer (or shall I say picture taker?).

--
May you be "framed" :)

Love,
KarachiKid
 
No serious photographer will do a wedding for 500 Bucks.
Like another poster stated: You get what you pay for..
Greg Henry said:
I just spent the better part of 2 days fixing a series of wedding photos for a coworker. She had hired someone locally who came "recommended" and who had a halfway decent website touting their skills. It was a discounted package at around $500.00 which supposedly just included a series of photos being taken at the wedding and the reception, put on DVD, and given to the family.

She brought the DVD to work to ask me for my opinion. Around 150 or so photos were taken, and nearly every one of them were from 3-5 degrees off, leaning to the left (she said the photographer kept leaning her entire upper torso area left to take vert shots, but wound up tilting the photos too much). Many of the shots were too dark given the conditions, and the camera was set on a higher compression JPG instead of RAW, as well has having the color saturation bumped up to more of a landscape setting rather than portrait setting.

The photographer used a Nikon D5000 with kit 55-200 lens. Lots of blown out areas in the Bride's dress and flower arrangement, artifacts due to the compression, etc. The photographer told my coworker that she "edited" a good number of the photos in the set, but most were just one-click "convert to black and white", or adding a cheap vignette effect to some, etc. Most were shot very tight - so much so you can only really get 4x6 prints out of it, and 8x10 crops cut out a number of guests in the photo. She had no assistant, etc with her, so angles sometimes included background clutter - even in some of the Bride/Groom shots, port-a-pots behind them. :-/

And the best one - the photographer forgot the correct settings when trying to blur the Bride's parents behind her, so, she faked some bokeh by doing THIS...



Wow.

So since they're out of money, I took some time and picked out about 20 or so pics that I thought were the most important shots, and corrected them as much as I could (straightening, recovering highlights as much as possible, etc). She was extremely grateful.

I do stock work and I know people do weddings. I know it's incredibly hard work not only physically, but also a drain on you emotionally as well if you get the bridezilla set and have other problems. But I also know for every good wedding photographer out there, there are bad ones, too. I just wanted to vent a bit over this one. Gets recommended, has a believable web site, and then - yikes. Feel free to share your own stories or brag about one you had that was better than you thought, etc. Just want to be able to tell the coworker about some people who got one that was even worse than hers. LOL
Click to expand...
 
klauspauk said:
No serious photographer will do a wedding for 500 Bucks.
Like another poster stated: You get what you pay for..
Click to expand...
Yup... I have told people before that you take a big risk trusting your very important day to a bargain basement photographer. Sad that this couple learned a hard lesson, but they are lucky Greg took pity and at least made some of the photos presentable.

There are a lot of people in this economy looking to have a low budget wedding and that's fine. I've been to weddings where there was no professional photographer and the couple just asked guests to email any good photos they took (there were also some disposable cameras on the tables). I'm sure they got some good snapshots, which was all they were expecting. The thing that gets me are people who are spending $10,000 or more but only want to spend $500 on the photographer... and they expect the same results as a much more expensive photographer. If you can spend over $1,000 on the dress wouldn't you want to spend over $1,000 to make sure the photographs from your wedding (which will matter much more than the dress in 30 years) will be as good as they can be?
 
I guess she/they thought that since the agreement made with the photographer was just to "take a series of photos and give you the DVD" and that was it, that the $500 price range was ok to them. Serious photogs charge a lot more, but they also DO a lot more, too.

With the economy the way it is, people are cutting back across the board, and I have seen some good photographers do certain jobs for less money - and do less detailed work for it, in order to meet a customer's budget. I guess they just assumed (based on referrals), that this woman was cutting out all of the extra fluff many photographers will do for weddings and giving them "the basics", but still at least know what she was doing in regards to actually taking the photos. Answer - she didn't. I could come up with a list of at least a dozen basic things you NEVER do on wedding shots, and she broke about every rule - and repeating, I don't even do weddings, normally.

But then, it happens everywhere in every occupation I guess. You have people who say they are mechanics who will mess up your car more than when you brought it in. People who build homes who aren't fully trained, etc etc... photographers are no exception.
 
Greg Henry said:
And the best one - the photographer forgot the correct settings when trying to blur the Bride's parents behind her, so, she faked some bokeh by doing THIS...
Click to expand...
Left delibratly the photo out.

I'm not a wedding photographer. But might geuss just maybe it is a bit strange idea that the bride should look as adorable as possible on the photo?

Now the bride already made a mistake with choice of dress. But the photographer from hell choose instead of gracefully covering her mistake - to put it in the spotlight.

So sad because I see a smilling but stressed bride -a person probably with great character and looks- who is framed as bridezilla.

I understand the frustration and anger of after editing such rubbish. But I think the last thing she needs it to be is to be shown on internet.
 
No one needs to be angry at anyone but the customers. They brought it 100% upon themselves. These types of photographers would have no power if they didn't have people willing to pay. Part of the price paid is the insurance factor. It's like blaming people who cross the borders for work. If the work wasn't available, then they would not come here.
Christakis said:
Exactly! I get angry with people like this... One too many amateurs are willing to ruin people's wedding days for a small amount of money.
Faintandfuzzy said:
.....Kind of like being shocked that the 2011 Lexus you paid $6500 isn't quite as good as you thought....LOL.
Click to expand...
--
Christakis

http://blog.christakisphoto.com/
(Updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday)
Click to expand...
 
It's a fair argument but you can't blame the customers alone on this one. One of the main reasons for this problem is miss-representation. Things that seem obvious to you and me, are not that clear to people who have no idea about photography.
snake_b said:
No one needs to be angry at anyone but the customers. They brought it 100% upon themselves. These types of photographers would have no power if they didn't have people willing to pay. Part of the price paid is the insurance factor. It's like blaming people who cross the borders for work. If the work wasn't available, then they would not come here.
Christakis said:
Exactly! I get angry with people like this... One too many amateurs are willing to ruin people's wedding days for a small amount of money.
Faintandfuzzy said:
.....Kind of like being shocked that the 2011 Lexus you paid $6500 isn't quite as good as you thought....LOL.
Click to expand...
--
Christakis

http://blog.christakisphoto.com/
(Updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday)
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Christakis

http://blog.christakisphoto.com/
(Updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday)
 
I am willing to bet that if they skrimped on the photographer to such a degree, they did so in many areas of the wedding and I'm sure a lot of that affected the compositions.

Also, the customer is responsible for shopping around and educating themselves about why things cost what they do. If they did, then, at best, they went with the dollar savings in the face of judgement.

The ultimate responsibility was with the people who put the wedding together. If they did their homework, this person would never have been employed.
Christakis said:
It's a fair argument but you can't blame the customers alone on this one. One of the main reasons for this problem is miss-representation. Things that seem obvious to you and me, are not that clear to people who have no idea about photography.
snake_b said:
No one needs to be angry at anyone but the customers. They brought it 100% upon themselves. These types of photographers would have no power if they didn't have people willing to pay. Part of the price paid is the insurance factor. It's like blaming people who cross the borders for work. If the work wasn't available, then they would not come here.
Christakis said:
Exactly! I get angry with people like this... One too many amateurs are willing to ruin people's wedding days for a small amount of money.
Faintandfuzzy said:
.....Kind of like being shocked that the 2011 Lexus you paid $6500 isn't quite as good as you thought....LOL.
Click to expand...
--
Christakis

http://blog.christakisphoto.com/
(Updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday)
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Christakis

http://blog.christakisphoto.com/
(Updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday)
Click to expand...
 
snake_b said:
I am willing to bet that if they skrimped on the photographer to such a degree, they did so in many areas of the wedding and I'm sure a lot of that affected the compositions.

Also, the customer is responsible for shopping around and educating themselves about why things cost what they do. If they did, then, at best, they went with the dollar savings in the face of judgement.

The ultimate responsibility was with the people who put the wedding together. If they did their homework, this person would never have been employed.
Click to expand...
Yup, now we're on the same page.

--
Christakis

http://blog.christakisphoto.com/
(Updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday)
 
I think you should "name and shame" the "photographer". Put the link for their website on here.
 
klauspauk said:
No serious photographer will do a wedding for 500 Bucks.
Like another poster stated: You get what you pay for..
Click to expand...
"serious photographers" charge $10k, and a "serious" wedding must cost $10m... just like Prince Willaim's. If you aint spendin' a royal amount, on horses, security, limos, buses for lesser royals, large funny hats, etc. u aint gots a wedding.

BTW, even the royal shots werent great.
 
That's because they're all mongoloids. The royal family ain't turning heads based on their looks.
romphotog said:
klauspauk said:
No serious photographer will do a wedding for 500 Bucks.
Like another poster stated: You get what you pay for..
Click to expand...
"serious photographers" charge $10k, and a "serious" wedding must cost $10m... just like Prince Willaim's. If you aint spendin' a royal amount, on horses, security, limos, buses for lesser royals, large funny hats, etc. u aint gots a wedding.

BTW, even the royal shots werent great.
Click to expand...
 
No, I'm not naming them - that would just open a can of worms (and possible lawsuits) that aren't needed. This person operates in the extreme suburban areas of Atlanta however, and these folks who used them are definitely going to recommend people not use them. It's one thing to be a customer and say, "we were not happy with their work" (no legal issues). It's another to post the URL and name of the photographer online and open problems, so I'm not doing that.

And they're certainly not alone, either. There are plenty of them as bad as this one (and fortunately, some who are excellent, too).
 
daMatrix said:
daMatrix said:
And the best one - the photographer forgot the correct settings when trying to blur the Bride's parents behind her, so, she faked some bokeh by doing THIS...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
daMatrix said:
Now the bride already made a mistake with choice of dress. But the photographer from hell choose instead of gracefully covering her mistake - to put it in the spotlight.

So sad because I see a smilling but stressed bride -a person probably with great character and looks- who is framed as bridezilla.

I understand the frustration and anger of after editing such rubbish. But I think the last thing she needs it to be is to be shown on internet.
Click to expand...
I posted this with the family's permission.

Regarding the dress: The Bride chose it - not the photographer. So if it's not the most flattering, that's on her and we can't blame the photographer for that. The bride also has several tattoos on her body (not visible in that photo but are on others) which I personally think ruins ANY Bride shot, but again, that was her choice to get them so you can only blame the person and not the photographer for that as well. In one photo I fixed, I purposely removed a tattoo - the parents were thrilled, the Bride "not", but the parents got that copy, so... fixed.

The stress factor: We again can't blame the photographer for the stress. They chose to have this wedding in the town square of a local suburban city, on a weekend day, the day before a large festival was to be held there. So on top of numerous regular visitors to the square just mingling about, there were workers preparing the area for a festival, etc. I guess they thought it would be "romantic", but later they realized the reality is, if you want a romantic outdoor wedding, use a friend's house or a private facility with a nice garden area/grounds for it.

So believe me.... if I had been a wedding planner, there are A LOT of choices the family made that I would have done my best to steer them away from, toward something else. The photographer isn't being blamed for "ruining" the wedding because in the end, the couple is still happy overall because they're married and starting a life, etc etc yadda yadda. But I will agree that even for the cheap pricing, the photographer COULD have shown just a little more "skill".
 
Greg Henry said:
No, I'm not naming them - that would just open a can of worms (and possible lawsuits) that aren't needed.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I didn't realise it was illegal to post links for a website or to be critical of a persons work. And if you did open a can of worms, the only worm would be the photographer in question, someone for whom I don't have a scrap of sympathy.
Greg Henry said:
This person operates in the extreme suburban areas of Atlanta however, and these folks who used them are definitely going to recommend people not use them.
Click to expand...
Too right, that as well.
Greg Henry said:
It's one thing to be a customer and say, "we were not happy with their work" (no legal issues).
Click to expand...
There's more than one way to say that. You can say it privately to each person you meet, or you can tell the world. Neither are illegal. And just like it's not illegal for the customer to say they are not happy with the work, it's also not illegal for anyone else who see's the work to criticise it. If it is, then this thread is full of criminals, including yourself.
Greg Henry said:
It's another to post the URL and name of the photographer online and open problems, so I'm not doing that.
Click to expand...
What about the problems that potential customers of theirs won't have because they were warned of the quality or lack thereof? Products and services are critiqued/reviewed on the net all the time. That's a really good thing about the net. But of course you're free to disagree ;)
 
Greg Henry said:
I posted this with the family's permission.

Regarding the dress: The Bride chose it - not the photographer. So if it's not the most flattering, that's on her and we can't blame the photographer for that. The bride also has several tattoos on her body (not visible in that photo but are on others) which I personally think ruins ANY Bride shot, but again, that was her choice to get them so you can only blame the person and not the photographer for that as well. In one photo I fixed, I purposely removed a tattoo - the parents were thrilled, the Bride "not", but the parents got that copy, so... fixed.
Click to expand...
From the one photo in the original post, I don't think the dress is bad at all. The tan lines are unfortunate, but more unfortunate is the facial expression like she's squinting into the sun. As for tattoos, as you know those can be removed from photos... for a price of course ;-) But that would go way above and beyond your rescue operation, which was already above and beyond.
Greg Henry said:
The stress factor: We again can't blame the photographer for the stress. They chose to have this wedding in the town square of a local suburban city, on a weekend day, the day before a large festival was to be held there. So on top of numerous regular visitors to the square just mingling about, there were workers preparing the area for a festival, etc. I guess they thought it would be "romantic", but later they realized the reality is, if you want a romantic outdoor wedding, use a friend's house or a private facility with a nice garden area/grounds for it.
Click to expand...
Not everyone can afford, or even wants, a dream location... but it sounds like they wanted to have it in a lively festive urban setting...which is cool, but not the easiest for a photographer to get great shots in I imagine. We had our wedding in a beautiful park on the coast, and our wedding photographer warned us, "Just so you know... this is a very popular park and there will be a path in the distance behind where you are taking your vows. I will try to avoid getting rollerbladers and bicyclists in the shots whenever possible, but it won't always be possible. You might even get photo bombed during the kiss, so I'll shoot tight for that one." But of course it was where we wanted to get married, and it saved us a bundle so we could spend more on food and photography... so we accepted the risk. The photos turned out beautifully, but of course we hired a fantastic photographer who worked well with a setting that was above average but far from ideal.

I once shot a wedding for a friend of a friend. They were getting married in a living room. A beige living room with beige walls and beige carpet. The bride was looking through my photos and said, "I like these shots... can you get some like these?" They were shots I had taken of friends and family on a beach in beautiful golden hour light. They were not taken in a beige living room. I tried to point that out in the nicest way. They were happy with the photos. I was actually happy with them too, considering the venue. The bride and groom were an attractive couple, so it was a shame I didn't get to shoot them in a better location. I just shot tight and concentrated on capturing moments rather than wide shots of the event (though I had to take a few of those...at least they decorated the room).
 
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