TOG looses our photos :(

Latest update and I am now seriously cross! We have been informed that after the drive was sent to a specialist (seen the report he says it's NG) our TOG has destroyed the drive?! There was a problem with the backup and to really rub salt into the wounds we find out it is only us that has been affected if we were one week either side we would of been ok as they got their beautiful images. NOW I am fuming!

This sounds really bizarre. Why on earth she destroyed the disk? Did you ask for more details?

Destroyed the drive, why? there is something fishy about this, no photographer would destroy a drive if they were in a situation like this.

I think and maybe wrong but I think when you asked for the drive they really don't want you to have it and if I am honest I wouldn't give a client one of my hard drives either but instead I would do every thing I could to get those images off of the hard disk even if it cost me, that's why we pay so high a insurance premium for.

I also don't understand why a seasoned £1400 photographer isn't backing up clients photos is in the first place, this is just not acceptable, this will give photographers a bad name, we are not all like this, some of us care about what we do and this person clearly does not care one bit.

I am sure the other photographers will echo what I have said but I am completely lost for words on how you have been treated.☹️

Bruce

ps so did she destroy her memory cards as well then, ask her if she destroyed those as well because this is your only hope of getting them back.

I'm sorry but I think there's something fishy going on here.

I'm so sorry this has happened

I don't think she's telling the truth to be honest.

Hello guys, really appreciate your feedback on this as the only glimmer of hope that we had was that we may be able to conduct the recovery ourselves. Now that has been taken away from us I am beyond destraught! This is her response regarding the hard drive
"Regarding you having the hard drive for further tests, this cannot be done as the drive has been destroyed and the computer fixed as it was needed this last weekend."
Your advise welcome x

I really do think she is saying its destroyed but really she doesn't want you to have it, like I said above I wouldn't give a client my hard disk, you could then get all sorts of sensitive info off of it about my clients.

I don't know what to suggest really because she has already said its destroyed which I am 99% certain it isn't but she is not going to give it to you, I think you need a face to face talk with her.

Oh my god. How you didn't have a melt down and just scream at her for hours is beyond me. I would be telling her I want the hard drive no matter what has been done to it, you want all her memory cards, and her insurance details, and that if she isn't co-operative then you'll post reviews everywhere you can find. Have you already told her how disgusting it is that she only saves photos to one location? God, i'm so angry on your behalf :-(

I am trying to make some sense out of this.......does she mean "Physically destroyed" which I dont believe for one minute. They are built like brick *** houses and would take a hammer to destroy. Even if the case was damaged, the platter can still have recoverable images on it....

My thinking is that possibly she has had a system crash and had the drive reloaded with its Operating System.....this though would still have the files in the windows old folder(if she looks)

I would ask exactly what she means by it being destroyed.....it sounds like a very tall story.......

Peter

There's something wrong here. I think you need to write and state that you are not satisfied and would like to nominate another photographer to deal with her on your behalf. Someone needs to speak to her and ask the difficult questions.

If this had happened to me, I'd have no problem with giving you the drive because my plug in drives only contain photographs, there is no confidential info on them. I've got three large drives and the photos are stored here on multiple drives, as well as sent to Backblaze in the USA. Her working practices are not in line with the industry standard, that's why the photographers here are getting suspicious!

If she had been burgled and lost a computer and a couple of drives we'd be much more sympathetic.

Well by the sound of it it sounds like its her main hard disk that's gone and that will have confidential client information on not to think of what else it could have on it to do with her business which is why she wont give that hard disk to you. You need a face to face with her and pass on your concerns, by all means tell her you know why she made up the story of the hard disk has been destroyed.

I and I hope any other photographer treats there clients info and photos confidential, strictly private, I for one would not like my photos given to someone I don't know, they are private, I know we are not doctors? but we are/should be professional.

I think the trail ends here now.

The only way is to go in heavy and threaten to sue due to negligence. They'll have insurance and you'll have a contract.

Unless the terms of the contract state you'll receive a full refund then you can take things further....but whether you want to go down that path is another thing.

If you'd like to forward me the original contract to ******@*********************.*** I'll look it over to see if you have any leverage.

I'd be asking who the specialist was that they sent the drive to and would be calling them to confirm the drive was even sent in.

I'm so sorry this has happened to you. Have you been offered a refund? Has she offered to re-shoot some of the photos? Is it worth pushing for her to pay for the ancillary costs (make-up, suits etc)?

You could ask her to pay for another photographer to do that if you'd rather not deal with her any more? She has messed up so you would have thought that she'd volunteer some form of compensation.

To be very clear, this photographer should be extremely worried and at the same time grateful to you for not saying who they are. This detail could severely harm their business. This fact is also a major bargaining chip.

Peter

What Peter said above, please do not mention who it is, it could ruin her business even though its clearly negligence on her part I wouldn't wish that to happen to my worse enemy, I suppose its all part of taking on more weddings than she can handle and being too busy. Good luck and I am sorry this has happened ☹️

This has made my face curl up a bit... really sorry to read all of this. Does sounds supremely odd as everyone has said... Did you have any joy with potentially trying to recover something from the CF cards? Good luck

As much as I hate to say it but I think you've been more than fair and understanding. Your next move really should be to contact a solicitor to sue for negligence. Their professional indemnity insurance should cover them and at the very minimum I'd be looking for compensation not just for the photos but for someone else to reshoot the portraits. Obviously the guests shots are never going to happen again.

There's definitely something fishy going on and you're not being told the whole story. If there was a hard disk failure you don't destroy the disk and get the PC up and running again the same week. Especially not if you knew you had photos on there that you didn't have backed up elsewhere. If the disk was "destroyed" it couldn't be used again. The tog is either lying or...no actually they're lying.

If I may use an analogy. Your tog has just told you they crashed the car on the way home and the airbag didn't go off. The passenger is now dead. When you ask to see the passenger for yourself you're told that you can't now because they fixed the car since they needed to drive it. Does that sound even remotely plausible?

If this were me as the photographer....and I would not have gotten in the same position......one option would be to ask the couple to gather all images taken by the guests and then I would have created a photobook from all the images that do exist....Free of Charge.......

That would be one of my ways of starting to deal with this.......(although as said, I would have had back ups to avoid this in the first place)

Peter

My OH works in IT network management and security, and has a sideline fixing/replacing damaged hard drives for friends to make a bit of extra cash for the wedding. Most recently, he recovered my sister's hard drive, and replaced the corrupted hard drive in my laptop. He says it can be done within a couple of hours. Whether a professional company, with a high number of machines to fix and associated waiting times, would get it done within a couple of hours is more questionable, but it's not impossible.

The fact that the photographer has had the hard drive destroyed seems odd, though, especially given it contained such irreplaceable photos. Surely you'd keep hold of it and get a few more opinions about whether any of the data is recoverable before completely destroying it?

I am 99% sure the hard drive hasn't been destroyed, lets be honest would you hand over your main hard drive to a stranger only for them to get it repaired and see all your personnel and business details.

Some photographers are so laid back about back up until some thing like this happens, its clear she thought the automatic backup worked but she never checked, I back up manually so I can see I have the 4 back ups on different drives, seen this far too often that its made me paranoid? would hate to be ever in this position.

She probably panicked and didn't expect the client to ask for the hard drive and said the first thing that came to mind, I mean if this happened to you god forbid would you have asked for the hard drive from the photographer after she has told you it has been to a specialist already if you hadn't of seen this thread. I would have asked her to get a second opinion at least.

I would love to know the outcome to this if any, might be good to know what further process has gone on if only for other couples to know "just in case". Hope no one ever has to go through this.☹️

This is a complete tog nightmare. It's part of the reason we charge so much as it is a stressful thing taking on this responsibility. I really feel for the whole situation....

Errr -- No the reason we charge "so much" is partly to cover all the extra costs that applying best practice adds to a wedding that all gos to mitigating problems like these in the first place, buying the very best equipment not trying to cram as many weddings in as you can, having back up of back up -- and then back that up, any stress you feel is our problem and not the Bride and grooms problem to be paid for.

What Bill said above ^^^^^^^