That One Phone Call You Never Want To Get

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Just heard from my nephew. I have refrained from talking much about what I witnessed at his wedding (I may have shared one or two anecdotes), but let's just say that I wasn't very impressed with the family friend with a photography business they hired to do the shooting. My brother in-law asked if I wouldn't mind tagging along and taking pictures before and after the ceremony, and for the most part I was able to shoot a bunch of stuff for them as well, but missed all the group shots that were done when I stopped paying attention (I was told they Bride & Groom were changing, but they spent 30 minutes shooting group shots lakeside). I did my best to get as many shots as I could as she didn't inspire much confidence. First, all of her shots were taken with the camera held to her face with one hand while the other hand held an Infrared Remote trigger in front, used to actually take the pictures. REALLY!!! The other thing was that I was the one to ask her if she really wanted to set up the Bridesmaids for photos in an area that had electrical cords running through it, and wouldn't it be better if she at least moved the extension cords out of the way before shooting?

OK, enough about the photographer. So, as I said, I heard from my nephew today, 3 months after the wedding. It seems he just heard (3rd hand, from his mom) that the photographer is "having trouble accessing the photos from some of the SD cards and only really has photos from before the wedding, and just some film stuff she shot during the ceremony and afterword." This was sort of troubling to me because I'd already seen plenty of photos from her on Facebook soon after the wedding - quick edits for the family, so I'm thinking either she never backed them up, had a hard drive failure, or something else. Regardless, not having them backed up from the cards onto an external drive immediately after the wedding seems unconscionable for a "professional" wedding photographer. Tack onto that the 3 month lag time before hearing anything and I feel bad for the kid, I really do. He says she's sent the cards to a couple companies and "already paid, like, $50-60 a pop to try and recover something", and is now looking to send them one more place for "like, $500 cost to her" to try and recover something from the cards, but it seems like a whole lot of dropping the ball for it to have reached this point.

Thankfully, I've got about 4GB of shots for him, and I promised to send him the RAW stuff under the condition that he be the only one to work on them (in other words, don't give my shots to your photographer). I suppose you get what you pay for. I never would have done the job for him, paid or otherwise, but knowing his Mom's penchant for "hiring church friends" I had a feeling it was the right thing to do to tag along.

These are the kind of "professionals" that take jobs away from real working photographers weekend after weekend. It's a shame.
 

RocketCowboy

Senior Member
Ugh, what a nightmare.

I sometimes questions whether I'm just overly paranoid for having at least 3-4 backups of everything, but after having lost a drive before and now not having any personal photos from before 2007, these kinds of stories have me thinking otherwise.
 

Steve B

Senior Member
Unfortunately this is way too common. My stepson had some family pictures taken by a "professional photographer" that his wife knew that used to work for one of the department store portrait studios. They had me edit some of the shots for them. One had my stepson positioned so it looked like he had a metal rod sticking out of the side of his head, one of the pictures of the younger boy had a very distracting white downspout down the left side of the photo, and some of them were take from so far away I thought they were landscape photos. The failure to have backups created is inexcusable. At the very least I would ask for ALL of my money back.
 

rocketman122

Senior Member
How much did he pay for the photog? women photog? she was using a remote to fire the camera she was hand holding? wth for? just hold it and fire. maybe were missing something here. regarding electrical cords, I had a bar mitzvah I shot last week and I had no place I could shoot the family except on a background that had extension cords gaffered to the floor and knew I will have to PS that out later. if you had another place, then you should have convinced her to go somewhere else.

which "some of the photos" are missing? film stuff? like stills emulsion film? this is a weird photog. no backup or failed HDD or cards. what gear did she use? one slotted camera?
first thing after an event is move the images from cards to 3 HDD so I can format and shoot another wedding.

shame all this happened and I hope that she is able to get those lost images AND if they are crappy are able to be edited. dont know what level she is but I didnt take a private wedding till I shot about 50 wedding with other pros. people take the responsibility of shooting someones wedding and ruining their memories from a once in a lifetime (hopefully) event when they arent qualified. being a good photographer is fine, being a wedding photographer is different. a lot of things to do besides just photographing in a wedding.

Btw did you RMA that card?
 

Pretzel

Senior Member
Definitely a horrid story, with a horrid result... hopefully not money out the window, as I'm hoping there was a contract involved? I'd hate to think she's gonna keep all that money, or even try to charge them for her "supposed attempts" to recover the pictures. Glad you were there to capture some memories for them!!!

I do portraits on the side, folks love 'em, and I get asked quite often, "Hey, will you shoot our wedding?" My answer... "NO! But let me get you the contact info for a couple of people I know and trust!" Of course, they're always put off by the price of a professional wedding photographer, and always come back asking if I can just help out as a favor. And I say... "NO!" Like you, I'll go into "snapshot" mode for friends and loved ones, to help add to the memories, but "no thanks" for being the main, and if there is NO main? I don't "snapshot", either, because I know it's a way to wheedle me into being the main.

Cold? Heartless? Downright mean? Nope... I just don't want to be the cause of tears in a new bride's eyes should something like this occur. (exception: if it's a family that really has NO WAY to afford the cost of a photographer in any way, shape or form, I've been known to shoot, regardless) I *HAVE* worked as a 2nd shooter a couple of times, and I've seen the stress the main wedding photog's go through too. Not worth it, especially when it's not my career.

I've also been known to be VERY ADAMANT in my encouragement to avoid "budget friendly" wedding photog's for all of the reasons you listed in the above tale. I even told one family to spend the $400.00 they were going to offer a "friend of a friend" on disposable cameras instead, and let all their close friends and family be the photographers. I told 'em they'd probably get better pics, sooner, and taken with more feeling than some guy who wants to see if he can pull this off.

Yada, yada... I ramble.

Tell your nephew I'm so sorry for all the troubles he's gone through. I can't even begin to imagine how his bride must be reacting...
 

Krs_2007

Senior Member
Thats horrible, hate to hear that Jake. It actually sounds like she reformatted the cards before copying to her pc. I have never dealt with a card issue, but can't you download software on the internet that can recover files from memory cards. At least I have read that in multiple places.
 

rocketman122

Senior Member
Thats horrible, hate to hear that Jake. It actually sounds like she reformatted the cards before copying to her pc. I have never dealt with a card issue, but can't you download software on the internet that can recover files from memory cards. At least I have read that in multiple places.

almost every MFR offers their propriety recovery software to download. even if reformatted, its very temporary as the card still has the images. its just marking the storage on the card to be refilled with new images. so if she never shot on the card, to recover is peanuts and little effort to get them but there is an issue of either corrupt card, no backup/s, never backed up or maybe even lost card. who the hell knows.
it is good to have a camera with two slots in the camera but that wont save you if you format them, shoot over them and never backed up.

we are jumping the gun a bit and hearing one side. I hope for BDH fmily the photog gets their **** together. very sad these situations. I almost had a mess up.
 

fotojack

Senior Member
I gave up doing wedding about 5 years ago. Just too much pressure to deal with, and besides...I'm too old for that crap anymore! :) I'll stick to portraits and landscapes. More fun. :)
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
A friend of mine, a professional, was purchasing a camera that had only one card slot. I tried in vain to get him to step up a higher level in full frame to dual slots. There is such a peace of mind when you have one card backing up the first.

I hope it all works out in the end.
 

Browncoat

Senior Member
This is precisely why I price my weddings on the high end. If the customer isn't serious about wedding photography, they won't take a second look at my prices. Every once in awhile, I'll still have someone back out and say they're going to have a friend/family member shoot the wedding instead. I ALWAYS get an email afterwards expressing regret in their decision.

Wish your nephew the best, BDH...but I think we both know how this one will end up.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
I remember back when you first mentioned the episode with the electrical cord running through the scene. Sheesh, I'm sorry to hear this is getting worse! At least they will have photos taken by you, but with a big chunk of photo ops missing, that is really a shame. :(

One of my friends loves shooting weddings and has asked me several times to go along as a second shooter. No thanks! Weddings aren't my thing. For some people, shooting a wedding means a reasonable amount of money in a short amount of time (I'm referring to inexperienced photogs) which is one reason why they want to do it. Yet I wonder how many of these newbies have insurance for when this type of disaster strikes. :confused:

It will be interesting to hear how this plays out. I certainly hope the photos will be accessible!
 

SkvLTD

Senior Member
Finally having attended a proper, big, non-Chinese wedding, being the main and even 2nd is SOOO much work. Feel I'd personally rather learn and lean towards commercial photography than deal with 3-4000 shots from 1 weekend.
 

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
Whilst a sorry state of affairs and a serious issue i must say i felt a sense of relief on reading your post,with a heading like that and the health issues we have had lately just relieved to know you are still fighting fit.
The picture situation has been with us since the beginning of the time a good camera makes you a wedding photographer and i cant see it changing.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
How much did he pay for the photog? women photog? she was using a remote to fire the camera she was hand holding? wth for? just hold it and fire. maybe were missing something here. regarding electrical cords, I had a bar mitzvah I shot last week and I had no place I could shoot the family except on a background that had extension cords gaffered to the floor and knew I will have to PS that out later. if you had another place, then you should have convinced her to go somewhere else.

which "some of the photos" are missing? film stuff? like stills emulsion film? this is a weird photog. no backup or failed HDD or cards. what gear did she use? one slotted camera?
first thing after an event is move the images from cards to 3 HDD so I can format and shoot another wedding.

shame all this happened and I hope that she is able to get those lost images AND if they are crappy are able to be edited. dont know what level she is but I didnt take a private wedding till I shot about 50 wedding with other pros. people take the responsibility of shooting someones wedding and ruining their memories from a once in a lifetime (hopefully) event when they arent qualified. being a good photographer is fine, being a wedding photographer is different. a lot of things to do besides just photographing in a wedding.

Btw did you RMA that card?

Last things first, yes I did RMA the card. They have it and I'm just waiting for them to verify that it's a failed card and not "abused".

I was getting all the information from my nephew on a bad cell connection, and he was getting it from his Mom (my sister in-law). From what I understand she's tried basic recovery software and also paid "local techs" (not sure what that means) to try and recover the contents. Final step seems to be that she may try one of those places that will recover data from frozen disk drives (which now has me wondering if it's her computer that failed, and her first step was to try and recover photos from the SD cards. I may reach out to the mom to get a better understanding of what's up. When I know the full story I'll follow up.

As for the location, they got married on my brother in-law's property. He lives on a lake in FL and the backyard was well suited for the wedding and photographs. Here's a shot before I said something about the cord (faces blocked to protect the innocent - but please, don't share this anywhere)...

D62_4621.jpg


As you can see, cramped quarters were not a concern.

My understanding is that all film shots are fine and available. Digital from before the wedding is there, but shots from the ceremony and reception (and what I would have to assume are all the group shots with both bride and groom that I did not double up on) are somehow inaccessible on the card. Whether they ever were, and if so, whether they were ever transferred somewhere else that also failed, I do not know. Thankfully, I've got 130 decent shots from throughout the day that I've sent, with the only thing lacking being shots of the bride and groom with the wedding party. Most were LR-only edits, so I've told them that if there are any that they want for printing to let me know and I'll do further clean-up.

As for the remote thing, I have no idea why she does it. I know that I personally have a tendency to accidentally rotate the camera slightly when depressing the shutter button. I've managed to correct this with practice, and perhaps she decided that the remote method was the best way to keep the camera level while shooting? I have no clue. It's as bizarre a thing as I've ever witnessed.
 
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BackdoorArts

Senior Member
As for shooting weddings, all I can say is that I've learned from my brother. He has shot in every type of stressful situation there is, and goes back for more. He's shot one wedding. Just one. It was my cousin's and done as a favor to my Uncle Bob, who is the only brother or sister of either of our parents we ever really knew (my Dad lost 4 siblings before he was born in Russia during the Stalin era, my mom has a brother that married whack-job from VA, moved to UT and disappeared until I was in my 40's). At the end of the day, he walked up to him, gave him a big kiss and said, "This is how much I love you, because I swore I'd never do it, but I did. You've got 4 other daughters - don't ask me again." LOL

For all the craziness, I did enjoy shooting the party, if only because it's something I don't normally do. But I could/would never do this normally. I'm just glad I'm able to get them some things. Unfortunately, when you're shooting in parallel with the "pro" the people aren't always looking at you - though that does make for some nice looks at times.
 

FastGlass

Senior Member
So often I read a new thread asking for advice on shooting a wedding. I withhold my comments because I don't shoot weddings and could offer little advice. Taking photographs of family, friends, is so much different than doing a high pressure wedding. I shake my head to think how it's going to go for them. The most important advice to give anyone attempting to venture out for this kind of service is to know your gear. Not only your camera settings but lighting, posing, timeline.etc... I don't do weddings but I do small school events and never walk into it all calm and collected. Can't imagine doing a wedding. So sorry to here it went the way it did Backdoorhippie.
 
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