I often hear horror stories from friends of their wedding photographer causing all sorts of problems before, on and after the wedding day. Some of the most common complaints I hear:
- It’s been six months and I haven’t even seen my photos yet! (it’s scary how often I hear this)
- The photographers I met with weren’t the people who showed up on the day – and I wasn’t told this was going to happen
- They said they do not give away or sell their high resolution files / negatives under any circumstances, but after 1 year they sent me a letter offering to sell the negatives to me for $500
- They forced groups to pose together that didn’t make sense to us – for example they made my parents pose in a photo but they’ve been separated for years and wouldn’t necessarily want that photo taken
- The quality of the final photos was nowhere near as good as what they showed me when I went to see them
- They were late to the wedding
- It started raining so there were no nice photos of the two of us
- It’s been less than a year and our album is already falling apart
- I got hit with all sorts of charges after the wedding that I wasn’t told about (travel costs, extra album pages, album design/retouching, extra hours etc.)
Of course it upsets me when I hear these kinds of complaints because the last thing we wedding photographers want is the industry to be regarded as “dodgy” or unethical. In light of these issues I’ve compiled a list of questions that you as a couple should ask when meeting with potential wedding photographers.
- Is the actual photographer you met going to cover your events, or will they send one of their staff?
- Is there one photographer or two?
- What kind of guarantees do they offer on albums and prints?
- How do they handle bad weather conditions? (Ask to see examples of their rainy day work)
- What do their albums look like? Do they do any artistic work on the photos that go into the album or are they “straight out of the camera”?
- Are there any other costs, e.g. travel, special effects on albums, extra album pages, editing for the album, night shots?
- Is the photographer recognised by any industry associations? (In Australia your photographer should be a member of the AIPP which ensures a level of ethical, professional service)
You should walk away feeling confident that your photographer has answered all these questions to your satisfaction.
What wedding horror stories have you heard?
4 Comments
Join the conversation and post a comment.
Interesting. One point I will make is about ‘hidden extras’ – provided that individuals are aware of the costs in advance I don’t think it should be an issue. Unlimited sized albums are not something any photographer can feasibly offer and still be making a profit on, for example.
I guess I take issue with the articulation here in that it implies that charging for extra efforts or services is a ‘hidden’ extra costs and therefore unethical. I think provided you educate your client about what the extra costs result in (e.g. SOOC vs. fine art edits or 20 page album versus 10 page) then it isn’t a ‘hidden’ extra.
A travel fee, provided it is articulated from the beginning, isn’t a hidden extra either. If limits weren’t placed on how far one will travel then you could be called four hours away and expected to charge the same price as if you were shooting within a metropolitan area.
When I launch I won’t be offering digital negatives as a part of any package – I will offer them separately and they will be priced to reflect their value.
I agree with a lot of your points, I am just concerned that some of this gives the wrong idea to clients that there should be a flat fee for everything despite the intricacies involved in each shoot you do.
Hannah, you’ve made some fair points. I completely agree that as long as the photographer makes their costs clear up front then there is no problem. I’m in no way suggesting that photographers necessarily give away or even sell their negatives – there are cases for and against both. I have updated the wording in the “questions” section to read “are there any -other- charges” because you’re right, that does have a negative connotation. Thanks for pointing that out.
Hannah’s comments around the digital negatives interest me.
As someone who has recently gone through selecting a wedding photographer, the question of both RAW and full-resolution JPG availability was key to us.
The thing that fascinates me about it is that we, the customer, are engaging you, the photographer, to take and process photographs for us. For this service we will pay several thousand dollars for several hours of on-the-day photography and an unknown, but assumedly in the low tens-of-hours, amount of processing time. That’s a fairly good hourly rate.
From a customer point-of-view, the suggestion that the photographer retains rights of the images and also will further charge us for access to the originals is offensive. It adds very little additional workload to the photographer (it doesn’t take that long to copy files to a few DVD’s) and yet requires a premium.
Best of luck with your launch, Hannah, but I can tell you that anyone who took your stance was immediately discounted in our selection process.
Matt, thanks for your response. It’s good to hear a client’s point of view. While it is true that our package prices are in the thousands, there are other costs to consider besides just the shoot and the editing/album design time and album production and printing costs. Additionally there are all the associated costs in running a business – insurance, accountant’s fees, studio rent, training, transportation, advertising, promotion and staff wages to name a few. Add to that the hours we spend meeting with our clients and helping them plan their album and wedding day. Indeed I’ve met some well respected Aussie wedding photographers who were shocked to realise that after all these expenses they were only making $12 per hour!
Some wedding photographers choose not to “give away” their RAW or JPG files, not out of greed, but to protect their good name. I’ve seen some of my clients take their files to Harvey Norman and hang their poorly-printed, fading-prone, miscoloured prints on the wall. This obviously could reflect badly on me if their friends saw the prints on the wall and asked the couple who their photographer was.
I give away my negatives to the client because I show them the value in ordering prints through me (i.e. they are professionally printed on archival paper so will look fantastic on their wall and are guaranteed for over 100 years, plus I will replace them at no charge for their lifetime if they get damaged) and I let them make the decision.
I don’t mean this to negate your points Matt – I’m just hoping to give you, as a client, an insight into what’s involved in running a photography studio.