Lazy, annoying bitch of a wedding photographer...

The BBQ Pit
41

[QUOTE=Hampshire]
I wonder if this isn’t a case of “you get what you pay for”.
You say this photographer was a gift form a friend?
Well, that must be one helluva friend. Do you know how much professional wedding photographers and photos go for these days? It usually runs over $1000 and goes into the thousands.
I can’t see getting anything quality for a $200-$400 photographer.
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$200-$400 is really, really, unbelievably cheap. In my area, anything under $1500 would be suspect. I’m on the lower-to-average end of the good photographers and I charge basically two grand. There’s wedding photographers who charge up to twenty grand out there.

42

Which probably explains why my sis-in-law was disappointed in her “official” wedding photographs. (I don’t know how much was actually paid, but I bet it was more like $500 than a couple grand.) Hers aren’t horrible–they just aren’t much of an improvment over the snapshots taken by my uncle and my sis-in-law’s good friend, both of whom are good amateur photographers with decent cameras-who took lots of pictures. They also developed their pictures and got them to my sis-in-law faster than the professional did.

The best thing that hiring someone did accomplish, was that it put someone in charge of organizing folk for photo opportunities. Then several people took each shot.

43

Does the photographer have a website? I am thinking she sounds like a 'weekend warrior" type photographer more than s fulltime professional photographer.

It may be one of those things to allow another person to pick put for you, even if they are paying.

44

I’m not a professional wedding photographer, nor do I play one on TV. However, I took photos and a video at my wife’s friends’ wedding earlier this year. It was a low key wedding party for two starving grad students, so they didn’t have money for a photographer.

My wife and I were just starting to get together, and I didn’t know all of their friends well, so I ASKED who was who and who she wanted more pictures of. I was taking enough video and pics that other people were telling me to slow down and eat. I would expect that a professional would do more.

I wouldn’t be surprised if your friend “asked her” to photograph the wedding at a discount, and you got a half-assed job because it wasn’t a “full paying” job for her. That doesn’t excuse her, of course, but I still wouldn’t be surprised.

45

[QUOTE=Indygrrl]
Well, my friend is very generous. It wouldn’t surprise me if she paid a large sum for this photographer. That’s part of the reason I don’t want to complain about the work. I feel like she gave me a very big gift in hiring the photographer for me and I don’t want to seem ungrateful.
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That’s precisely why you should say something to your friend.

She probably paid a lot of money to get you a very generous gift. If i were in her place, i’d be mortified to find out that my extravagant gift had turned out to be a lemon, and i would be on the phone to that photographer giving her a piece of my mind.

46

[QUOTE=mhendo]
That’s precisely why you should say something to your friend.

She probably paid a lot of money to get you a very generous gift. If i were in her place, i’d be mortified to find out that my extravagant gift had turned out to be a lemon, and i would be on the phone to that photographer giving her a piece of my mind.
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Agreed completely. Well said.

47

[QUOTE=mhendo]
That’s precisely why you should say something to your friend.

She probably paid a lot of money to get you a very generous gift. If i were in her place, i’d be mortified to find out that my extravagant gift had turned out to be a lemon, and i would be on the phone to that photographer giving her a piece of my mind.
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That’s true, to a point. But some people would still take it amiss. After all, it’s the thought that counts, right? Right? Your friend might very well think–being human–“Well excuse me! It was a gift! It’s rude to criticize a gift, because it’s the thought that counts!”

I’d say it depends on the friend, but I think that with most people you’d risk damaging your friendship if you give negative feedback on a generous gift.

Bottom line, suck it up to experience: NEVER hand over control of your wedding photographer, even in exchange for a generous gift. NEVER.

I’m sorry to say, Indygrrl, but you are entirely at fault here. Entirely. Since it WAS a gift, you were timid, or whatever, about being clear with the photographer. It’s almost like you were thinking that you were being given the gift of the PHOTOS, the final product, and you’d just keep your mouth shut until you got them. When, in fact, you were being given the gift of the SERVICES of the photographer, and you should have seized control of those services and gotten your value out of them.

There is absolutely nothing you can do now about this that will not make things worth. Ask around for more photos from other attendees, but if you friend finds out about it, you’ll have to tell her that you just wanted MORE, not better.

You owe your friend thanks, not crititicism: it’s not her fault that you did not take full advantage of the gift by keeping your mouth shut till it was too late.

48

[QUOTE=lissener]
There is absolutely nothing you can do now about this that will not make things worth.
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Thorry: worse.

49

Yeah, what lissener said; and if your friend ever asks to see the wedding photos, you have to tell her that you accidentally destroyed most of them, and the photographer had given you the negatives, and you lost them too, clumsy you.

:dubious:

Or not.

50

I found out the hard way that you have to explicitly tell your wedding photographer everyone and everything you want photos of. We got absolutely fantastic photos, but none of my mom or either of my grandmothers. We just assumed the photographer would be proactive and figure out who those people were, but we were wrong. Ultimately, nobody cares. We’re sick to death of looking at our own pictures, and my mom doesn’t care to see pictures of herself. Life is too short to worry about shit like this.

51

The photographer is the one mostly at fault here. Any person claiming to be a wedding photographer should request a meeting with the bride and groom ahead of time and go over what photos are desired - make a list and cross it off. I am assuming of course that such a meeting did not take place. If the photographer did request such a meeting, and no time was available, then I will cut her some slack, but from what I’ve read so far she (the photographer) has shown very poor customer service. I could forgive not getting pictures of the tables or the location, but missing the bride’s mother?

52

Clearly this was a failure of communication. Of course, communication works both ways, but a professional really should have found out what Indygrrl wanted – by repeated questions, if ncessary, after being given vague instructions at the start.

I’ve recently been through a wedding as the father of the bride, and we had a friend who s starting of as a professional photographer do the work. She was very good in her advance preparation, taking the time to talk to the couple in advance about what they wanted, and what she could do.

On the day she took more than 500 photos, of the preparations in each family, of the ceremony, the posed group pictures afterwards, and the wedding dinner – and she gave us a DVD with the pictures a few dys later.

However, there were at least 10 other people taking pictures or videos, including the father of the groom and myself. The father of the groom took a lot of videos, especially during the dinner and afterwards, and I took about 250 photos – which I was able to put onto a CD to give to the couple when we met for breakfast the next morning, before they went of on their honeymoon.

So I feel some compassion for Indygrrl’s problem – but, as others have said, perhaps some of the gaps can be filled in by friends who took photos at the wedding.

53

[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
Correct, but 100% beside the point. :confused:
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Just a comment on how things change. We now consider a wedding “ruined” unless every moment was immortalized on film and worry about forgetting our special day without dozens of shots of every guest and decoration.* Our great-great-grandmothers would have been thrilled to get everyone to go afterwards to the photographer’s studio for a single group shot of the wedding party.

  • No, I’m not directing this at the OP, who, I feel had every right to be pissed at a job haphazardly done.
54

[QUOTE=Lissa]
Just a comment on how things change. We now consider a wedding “ruined” unless every moment was immortalized on film and worry about forgetting our special day without dozens of shots of every guest and decoration.* Our great-great-grandmothers would have been thrilled to get everyone to go afterwards to the photographer’s studio for a single group shot of the wedding party.
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I recently acquired, from an aunt who had just died, a collection of photographs going back to about 1910, including some studio pictures of that era, and some snapshots taken in the 1920s and 1930s. The studio pictures were in very good condition, and in spite of being rather formal, were very good pictures. The snap shots generally were not: compared with the pictures that the average person can get today with a cheaper digital camera, by just pointing an shooting, they tended to be out-of-focus and poorly exposed, as well as deteriorating physically. (And I’m rather sad, because among those poor quality pictures were the earliest pictures of me, as an unrecognisable baby).

I don’t have any pictures of my parents’ wedding, but my wife has one of her parents’, which is a good picture of all the guests standing on the steps outside the church.

55

[QUOTE=kung fu lola]
On second thought, in my post I put too much of the onus on you. The photographer should have sought out what you wanted - a truly good photographer would have. I think she was just coasting and trying to use the smallest amount of effort she could get away with.

It could have been prevented if you had made your wishes known, but that doesn’t mean it was your fault.
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I agree here. A good photographer will be working up a sweat and be nearly ‘in the way’ most of the time, without actually getting in the way. It’s possible the OP assumed too much or overlooked the photographer during the ceremony, but there should have been more intervention on the part of the paid professional here.
Heck, it ain’t like she couldn’t have took a thousand pictures these days with digital storage being what it is. I bet she misplaced a storage card with some of your pics on it, maybe? Did she have two cameras? How many actual photos did you get back and does it seem like there is a large (timeline) gap in the photos somewhere?
It also seems like this gal wasn’t really a wedding photographer. Did she have an assistant?

56

[QUOTE=Indygrrl]
Well, my friend is very generous. It wouldn’t surprise me if she paid a large sum for this photographer. That’s part of the reason I don’t want to complain about the work. I feel like she gave me a very big gift in hiring the photographer for me and I don’t want to seem ungrateful.

I do know that the woman was hired to be there for three hours. There is probably an hour’s worth of photos on these cds.
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You don’t have to say anything. Just ask her if she’d like to select her favourite of the pictures taken…

57

[QUOTE=lissener]
That’s true, to a point. But some people would still take it amiss. After all, it’s the thought that counts, right? Right? Your friend might very well think–being human–“Well excuse me! It was a gift! It’s rude to criticize a gift, because it’s the thought that counts!”

I’d say it depends on the friend, but I think that with most people you’d risk damaging your friendship if you give negative feedback on a generous gift.

Bottom line, suck it up to experience: NEVER hand over control of your wedding photographer, even in exchange for a generous gift. NEVER.
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Your final point there is sound but by not saying anything she’s forcing other people to learn by their own expeirence when they could learn from her experience.

Although there’s nothing much you can do about the pictures now you can stop someone else having the same tramua because they either know not to use that photographer or they know to plan things in advance.

Hopefully you’ll get some decent shots from the other guests.

SD

58

I’m really starting to wonder about the friend who gave you this fabulous gift.

It’s been 2 months and she never made any follow up inquiries? “Have you received the pics yet? How did they come out? Isn’t (incompetent photographer) great!!?”

This really isn’t bath towels she’s giving here, it’s a pretty big deal. Based on what you’re saying it doesn’t sound like the friend has said anything to you in the form of followup, she just assumes everything came out hunky-dory.

I would think all you’d need to do to tell your friend you were not happy with the photos is to invite her over to look at them…then when she starts realizing half of the people that were at the wedding aren’t in any of the pics you won’t have to say anything!

59

[QUOTE=Lissa]
Just a comment on how things change. We now consider a wedding “ruined” unless every moment was immortalized on film and worry about forgetting our special day without dozens of shots of every guest and decoration.* Our great-great-grandmothers would have been thrilled to get everyone to go afterwards to the photographer’s studio for a single group shot of the wedding party.
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Not to mention that in the days of the asexual organisms like amoebae no wedding ceremony would be needed at all.

60

Now that I have experienced my own wedding and seen many other photographers at work, I would immediately be suspicious of one who didn’t sit down with you beforehand and ask who the important people were and what you wanted. I have never heard of one who did not hand out a pre-printed list with the most requested shots on it to check off, plus room for special requests. But, I can see how you wouldn’t know this if you didn’t shop around since you were getting a gift. I would probably have thought, great, someone took care of that for me, one less thing to think about. It’s easy to look back now and say, yes, I should have realized something was wrong when this didn’t happen, but as a bride planning 100 things it’s easy to overlook something like that.

If this woman is really a pro and not just a hobby photographer then she has no excuse. I can understand missing a few friends or relatives, but come on…she missed the parents? How bright to you have to be to realize who the mother of the bride is and that she wants a photo with her! Most of the people that were missed are no-brainers, it’s not like she left out one cousin or something. Even if they asked not to do posed photos, any photographer should realize that doesn’t mean only pictures of the bride and groom.

The only thing I can think of is that she got instructions from your friend? Had you seen sample books she had done of other weddings, and were they more complete? Either that or she did do it at a discount and was just completely half-assed. I don’t blame you for being ticked off, she did not fulfill her duty as a professional photographer.