Opinouns on a photographer

Hiya, honestly it just sounds like he is trying to build up his portfolio at the moment hence the lower price. Does he do it full time? Sometimes if only doing it part time the prices can be a bit lower as well as they have other income coming in.

The website all looks professional and lovely quality photos. If you haven't already I'd ask if they have an example of a full wedding they have shot. My photographer sent me a link to a full album so I could see the kind of photos taken throughout the day - rather than just the select few they like best.

Sounds like you've got a good deal!

Google reverse check his images to make sure they are his is another good tip, apart from that though he looks pretty well setup to me.

Maybe he is short pricing him self whilst he is newer but you have deffintly got a bargain, ours is costing us £1,250 and we found out she only started doing weddings in March!!!! so we are in a bit of a worry situation but we are just keeping an eye on her work , but at the moment we are short of impressed as nothing new has been posted since may now and she never was up front about it either, so the fact he has been honest with you is a very big plus sign in my eyes.

just make sure there is a contract, and if you have wedding insurance your kind of covered (i think)

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Yeah i am totally ok with that really, i kinda like the fact he is a bit new because he is so eager to do well and i like the idea of helping someone out in return, its like all he wants to do is make sure we get everything we want.

Its a breathe of fresh air though as we was willing to pay £2,000 for another photographer, but every email response is 2-3 days! and then having to chase and its drove us mad - (i hate the whole idea of having to beg to give someone money) we gave up on the last guy as its been 4 weeks since he said he would send us the paperwork and we are still waiting for it. makes us feel like he is not bothered so we just decided to not persue him any more.

yeah he has sent me a link to an album he recently did thats not viewable from his website yet,

www.fabiophotography.co.uk/emily-yaz-wedding-venue-bowers-mill-halifax-wedding-gallery/?aff=htc

he mentioned its a smaller selection of the full album just to add some content to his website, and can provide us the full a-z if we wish to see the lot.

So for the price though, even if he is new - is it a good price? or is it over priced? or under

My main concern isnt being ripped off - its more about him not turning up on the day more than anything, but i guess that could happen with any photographer.

Emma.... ring the venue he did photography at and see what they think of him and if he existed

I am sure they wont mind helping out a bride , if you have the date and name of the bride and if it was recent i am sure they will give you feedback as they likely still remember

Im a hobby photographer

His equipment list is extensive and worth about £10,000 so he is heavily invested in him self - Get a picture of his equipment, maybe just on the next video call just kind of be like, o"h can we see what cameras you have!"

personally thought i dont think you have anything to worry about

He isnt spending all that money on him self and his equipment to mess people around though, thats how i see it.

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Did not think of this!

I've just rang them and they just said possitive things, said 2 of the girls remembered him because they was stalking his fb as they fancied the pants off him and his name stands out so its easy to remember

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That's the best kind of person you want working on your wedding! you want to feel like they care about the work and want to make you happy.

I would say it's on the cheaper side, but saying that our photographer was just under £900 when we booked and their prices are now £1500! We also got quotes from others which went down to around £500

As suggested by Louise just make sure you have a contract and either insurance that covers a photographer or pay by credit card just to cover your back. But i'd suggest that with any supplier

A lot of photographers are getting greedy im sorry to say, soon as they start to feel they are getting busy there prices shoot up

But you want someone who you feel right with it, the most important decision is you feel comfortable with the photographer because if you dont, it willl show on your pictures

I really rate this guy so much so ive dropped him a message

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What put you off the people who where £500 out of interest? did you feel they was TOO cheap?

View quoted message Not that at all, I just preferred the style of the photos my chosen photographer does

He's obviously very new to the job, so that may be why his prices are low. I know a few wedding photographers who have started out very cheap to build their portfolios - it's only fair that those who take a little more risk using an unestablished photographer should get some payback in terms of a lower price!

My main concern would be that I'm not seeing many photos on his website that are taken in difficult lighting situations - so very few nighttime/poor weather shots. If you have amazing weather and a venue with loads of natural light, you should be fine. But if you have torrential rain and a venue with a dark interior, that's going to be much trickier.

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I am not able to say anything about someone else's work.

But I can give general advice about everyone's work.

Look on photographers website and basically you can count the weddings featured, paying attention to the bride and grooms you will then recognise the bride as the same person that was also used as a sample of getting ready and so on.

So they may say how experienced they are ect in their blurb but there is only evidence of say 4 weddings on their website. (misrepresenting themselves is not a good trust starter for someone about to shoot your wedding )

Some may of actually never photographed a wedding on their own and only been a second shooter so they could say that have done 25 weddings but only as a second shooter which is totally different to handling a complete wedding solo. Again there is a trust issue here as they may talk about experience but the evidence is they have only been a second shooter.

So how do you tell.

Look at what you are being shown as a sample wedding - are there loads of other guest/details/close ups but then it comes to the main shots like walking down the isle - bride and groom shots ceremony shots look and you may see that they seem to be looking at someone else or the angles are slightly off or like the ceremony they don't seem to of been taken from a prime spot.

Next look at the photos -has the dress detail blown out to just white or where you can see the dress detail is the rest of the photo dark and muddy.

Look behind people is there a candle stick growing out of their head = evidence of not being able to edit photos.

And look out for a little trick which is to use a black and white image when they are struggling to remove a colour cast on an indoor photo, yes black and white can look good but are there loads in black and white of most of the indoor ones.

And that lot is only a starter !

https://photographybybillhaddon.co.uk/

Some photographers who aren't full time wedding photographers are usually slightly cheaper. My photographer is also £650, and he does alot of different types of photographery and only does a handful of weddings a year, hence the lower price. He is still an excellent photographer. It just seems that anyone that specifically calls themselves a wedding photographer charges alot higher price!

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That's great that your shooter is up front about it but many are not and will represent themselves as a professional photographer instead of someone doing it as a hobby to make a little extra cash.

Nothing wrong with that of course and some may even be better than so called pros but when you are booking such a main supplier for your wedding and it is already starting with deceit - that is the problem.

There are reasons that a professional may have to charge more, paying the tax man his share and the fact that this is their bread on the table and a roof over their head so if something goes badly wrong their income could be lost by the bad publicity. So some one doing a few weddings here and there whilst having a Monday to Friday job may be able to get away with cheaper cameras and no or less spares because if something went wrong then -- its not their main job.

Just the other week I saw a request put out on a emergency photographer site for some one to lend them a lens because theirs had gone faulty - they had no spare.

View quoted message This guy has 3 cameras and 5 lenses so he must be fully backed up with stuff right? Or is that still not enough?

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1) Listing cameras and lens doesn't mean he actually has them - they might be ones he has used in the past, or ones he can borrow from someone else

2) Even if he owns it all, it doesn't mean he knows how to use it.

Maybe I'm being suspcious for nothing, but I've never seen a photographer list all their kit before. It's usually 'I shoot with [Make] cameras and always have x backups with me.

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Again I can not comment directly about the person but you need spares of spares as best practice.

If you only have 1 spare backup and one lens malfunctions then you use the spare. But then you need to send off your dodgy lens for repair, so if you have not received it back in time for your next wedding then you will be shooting it without a spare.

Again its just another example why a pro will cost more than a part time shooter who is happy to risk not having spares - its not their livelihood at stake.

Which also brings us the the word wedding adding ££ - yes the word does add ££ - but it has too because If I were turning up to photograph your dog then I wouldn't need spares or spares of spares as if something broke then I would would just say sorry and we would do it next week.

I know some list their equipment but I don't see the point as people generally would not know what they are looking at.

We also wondered why our photographer was so cheap, similar price to what you’ve been quoted.

We exchanged emails, spoke on the phone, video called, and met at the venue prior to the wedding. We read the positive reviews on here, his website looked good, he told us what experience he had, I explained the type of photos we wanted, he said no problem etc etc.

There was an issue just before the wedding where his attitude wasn’t great towards me, regarding the venue saying it was too late to add a hot meal for him, but I managed to sort that out. (This is when I should of cancelled him I guess) but at this point we had already paid, and I was still confident in him delivering great photos of our wedding.

However, on the day, the only direction he gave was “look at each other and go in for a kiss” which he said over and over and over again, despite previously telling him we don’t like those types of photos. He had a bad attitude, not one of wedding photographer taking photos of a couples special day. He acted like he just couldn’t be bothered and rushed the photos. The venue staff who were all so lovely actually used the word prima donna to describe him.

But, we were really hopeful that he done a good job with the photos and had our fingers crossed!

When the photos arrived, we were so upset and disappointed, that after the initial first look at them, we didn’t look at them again or show our friends and family for over 10 months!

He cut the sides off of bridesmaids, took 1 photo of all of the guests, 1!, and I had my eyes closed in that 1 photo, the same happened in other important ones as he clearly wasn’t checking. He took very few decent photos of us with the bridesmaids, best man, etc, but loads of random photos of the guests. There were so many blurry photos, he clearly had not edited any and just sent every photo he took.

He didn’t take certain photos we specifically asked him too, the photos of us cutting the cake were awful, as were many other important ones, the list goes on and on. He obviously struggles to take photos in different lighting situations, and doesn’t know how and when to use the flash, and use correct angles.

It was very clear he is not an experienced photographer at all, and amongst 1100 photos he took, there are probably 10 that we can actually use and that look “professional”. Some of the guests were able to take much better photos on their mobile phones.

We now wished we had paid what the majority of what wedding photographers were charging at the time and not gone for the cheaper option. If it seems too good to be true it often is!

I’m not saying this photographer you are thinking of booking isn’t going to do a good job, but I just want to give you my experience of going with the cheaper option, despite doing everything I thought I needed to do before booking!

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So sorry this happened to you and so frustrating as a pro. Its so easy to sound loverly on a website using all the right words and only show very carefully chosen and very few samples to make you look better than you actually are.

One alarm bell is when they say they will deliver 1000+ photos usually is a good indicator that they do not edit them for shut eyes ect. For a full day I deliver 400-500 images which is plenty to capture the day but I take far more than that and my editing involves 1 image at a time and if eyes are shut I can replace them with open ones from another shot..

My advice to people looking is re - read my first long post and apply that to who you are thinking of using. Especially the bit about blown out dresses or generally dark images and using black and white inside.

Many new to wedding photography struggle with using flash and instead rely on "fast lenses" which reduces the need for flash but also means that only limited positions in a shot will be in focus. You focus on a bride taken from a slight angle and the groom standing next to her will be out of focus. Typical wedding ceremony where the photographer is to the side of the registrar.

How to balance it with ambient light and and correct use of flash is one of the last things a new starter learns. But when its used properly by some one who knows what they are doing you should not even tell its been used. Apart from some artistic nighttime shots.

Another thing to look out for is staged photo shoots made to look like weddings being used on their website.

Some venues make arrangements with new shooters to come and photograph staged weddings ( for free) in return for recommending them. They will get in dress suppliers, hair and MUA all on the free service basis. Those photos will then appear on the respective websites without always saying they are what is called a "styled shoot"

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I'm so sorry - that must have been hearbreaking for you. It would be worth putting out a call to guests to share their photos with you - hopefully, you'll have at least one or two keen hobby photographers who might have a few shots that are worth having a copy of.

I think these second-rate guys must stay in business because a lot of people aren't actually that bothered by the quality of their pictures as long as they get a 'proper wedding album'. I know someone who provides a whole day shoot for £300. (Everyone else in his area starts at £1,000 for a full day) I cringe when I see the photos he posts to his social media pages - blurry or grainy pictures and whited-out faces with red eyes. Even the clear ones tend to have telegraph poles sticking out of peoples' heads, or some used plates on a table in the background! I could do a load better with my entry-level DSLR, and I would be too embarrassed to post pictures like his if I'd taken them. Yet he's always fully booked and he gets rave reviews.

Sometimes, I've had people ask me if I think he's too cheap to be any good. And I find it really tricky, because I do think that, but at the same time, they've seen the same photos that I'm looking at, and if they're still considering booking him... I usually end up saying 'if you're happy with the photos he takes for that price, then go with it'.

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Wedding photography is an incredibly expensive activity to maintain, and often the higher prices are the most realistic for full-time photographers. The equipment investment, the insurance, the petrol... Just the hard drives alone so save the tens of thousands of high res pictures cost an absolute bomb. Most weddings require 20+ hours of editing post event. It's very hard indeed to make a living as a wedding photographer.

That's why many people who do it are

a) wealthy to start with and the initial investment was not an obstacle

and or

b) doing it part time with a day job to finance their passion.

That's how prices don't necessarily reflect the quality of the photographer.

Our photographer cost 750 pounds for 6 hours and fit within our budget. I'm very picky with photography and while I could see the limitations of his work he was very professional and took some lovely shots.

The photographer you posted must have external resources to pay for all that gear. (btw the gear is certainly not the mark of a good photographer although there are basics you do need). He does seem like a genuine photographer with good skills though and there's no reason to doubt him.

If you're worried, the best option is to book a pre-wedding shoot ahead of time. It's pretty standard in the industry and hopefully all your fears will be quashed.

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Whilst i agree with most things - a typical wedding can be editted in under 3-4 hours if your work flow is set out fast enough

I can usually cull over 6,000 raws down to 1,000 usable ones, and edit them in under 3-4 hours for a full album. I think 20 hours is excessive - 2 weddings in an 8 hour stint is about the norm for me x plus 1 hour for some light amends from the client after if any.

For backup storage - i have 2 x 10TB nas drives, they mirror each other - if only fails the other one keeps working, this was £400 - one off cost, on average i can store around 400 weddings (thats about 8-10 years of weddings on all that - i only keep my raws for 3-4 years as my contract says i dont keep them for longer than a year to the client - and i typically upload all my images to pixie set anyway)

Im only saying all this because if a wedding photographer has told you all this in an effort to sell them selves and why they cost more i feel like they have kind of blagged you a bit x not trying to be rude or anything i just think what they have told you is wrong x

Also on equipment, your very right, the best equipment in the world doesnt make you a good photographer - but the fact he has 3 cameras and all them lenses is more of a showcase of his dedication to actually doing a good job

It looks to me like he basically wants no restrictions on the day, cheap camera gear can reduce your pictures - for example the confetti shot, a cheap camera can do 4 frames per second, a fast one can do 20! so it gives the photographer so many more chances when editing to pick the better shot

Just a thought, OP - I've reread your original post and saw that you say he has done 15 weddings. There is nothing like 15 weddings on his website...

Maybe he has done a few where the couple requested no photos be published - but that would be very unusual, especially for someone who is just starting out. Are you sure he has as much experience as he is claiming?

I am not talking about the chap in question here.

With my tips I suggested earlier it should be easy to count how many weddings someone has on their website. Its not often that people ask me not to use any of their wedding on my website -they are usually thrilled that I have. Usually because the photos have already been delivered and they have seen them all. Posting on social media before they have seen them though is a different story.

If someone tells you they have shot - lets say 20 weddings then I would expect to see more than - lets say 5 weddings on their website or going back in time on their social media output.

It could be they pay some one else to do a website and at the time they had only shot 5 weddings but if so then I would expect to see at least some of the others on social media.

One reason for someone saying they have shot more weddings than they have evidence for on their website could be that they are counting working for someone else as a second shooter and the main photographer has not allowed them to use the images for themselves. Working as a second shooter is not photographing a wedding and if people are counting that as shooting a wedding then IMO you are being mislead.