Photographer has lost our wedding pictures, photographer advice appreciated on options

Oh well. I am so sorry to hear this. I would sue the photographer and ask him to provide the original memory cards he used.
I would ask few questions on this:
How Many Camera was he using to photograph your day?

Did she/he had a second photographer?

How many memory cards did he use during the day?

How many got corrupted?

As the cards got corrupted, he/she couldn`t use them again, whilst he/she didn`t use them again, provide them to you?

As the files are got corrupted and the memory card is not recognised, he won`t be able to format it, so again, provide me?

If he cannot provide the answer, then he/she is lying.

I would definitely sue him/her. May I ask how much did you pay for the photography? If the lighting conditions were bad, unfortunately there is not much you can edit on them. If someone had a dslr camera and shoot in RAW those can be edited very well, it really depends on many things.

There is a company called retouchup. Might worth to send those photos there. £1 per image, they might do a great job for you. I hope it helps

Oh no, how awful for you. If you'd like to speak to me on the phone my number is on my website.

It would be interesting to discover exactly what has gone wrong, cases like this usually involve supplier negligence at some level. The photographer should have used a body with dual slots or used two cameras - either of these options spreads the risk of data loss across two cards. The fact that ALL your images are lost suggests the matter needs looking into further.

If you post some photos here we will be able to say what can be done for them. Iphone shots outside can be OK. Inside they are not usually so good, but I'm sure something can be done to improve the colours.

I can't offer any recovery advice but just wanted to say I really hope you get them back! How awful!

Is this an established professional photographer?

Lost, what exactly happened, were the memory cards corrupt or did they lose the backup on the computer.

We need to know more details of exactly what has happen and I know you think all is lost and just want the iphone pics edited which can be edited to a degree but need more info.

Ah countdown, how awful

This thread may have some tips for how to talk to your Tog and get to the bottom of what happened:

https://www.hitched.co.uk/chat/forums/p/470885/3662690.aspx#3662690

I hope you manage to retrieve your pics.

View quoted message

? https://www.hitched.co.uk/chat/forums/p/470885/3662690.aspx#3662690

How awful. Hope you get something sorted xxx

View quoted message

Around last November we had a similar story on here. I have been "advising" the bride. In her instance, it was a case of negligence from the pro tog in backing up the original files and was totally avoidable.

Regarding the files not being recoverable.........that it extremely unlikely, as almost any data is recoverable IF you use the right company. I would ask again and ask for more details....

Regarding the use of guests images....well anything is simply better than nothing and there may be some usable shots of the day.

Peter

Please feel free to email me for advice....I would be interested to know if this is the same photographer.......

Peter

View quoted message

Lightening doesn't strike twice or so they say but it would be interesting to find out privately who it is.

I can understand one card corrupting and losing a section of the day but for them to lose the whole wedding is an avoidable mistake brought on by negligence. Every photographer should know to shoot on two cards all the time and to change cards across different parts of the day so you never have a whole wedding day on one card. At the very least you should have the whole day on two cards or split parts of the day on multiple cards. Also cards are often partially recoverable so I am surprised absolutely nothing was recovered and where was the back ups? I have an unedited wedding on 3 hard drives at a time.

for those reasons i hope you got a full refund

Many thanks for your responses.

Yes, it was an established professional photographer, who came highly recommended by our wedding planner, had a large portfolio of weddings & has a studio in

the town where we got married.

We paid £1,500 for a ten hour day with an album containing 45 pictures & a disc with high resolution images (400 if I remember correctly). he worked on his own & had two cameras. We have received a full refund but don't want to pursue for anything further. It's been a long drawn out stressful & upsetting process.

The whole thing is strange. We have got some pictures that he had that didn't get lost, around 30 which are ok quality but mostly post wedding, there's only one really that you'd put in an album or frame. We also have around 300 thumb nail images ( I'm not sure if they're supposed to be thumbnails) but they're all low resolution & too small to view or do anything with. The minute you try to enlarge them bigger than say two inches they go blurry, We think these might be the images that he deleted & didn't intend to use , as some are a bit dodgy. We don't know why he had these or why they are so small. It the pictures that were going to go into the album & on the disc that he has lost, all the high res ones.

Even though they're thumbnails we've kept them as you never know how technology may advance over the years ( do you think this is possible? ).

I do without doubt think he's been negligent somewhere. He said he has an automatic three way back up of his hard drive but that his hard drive failed & so did the back ups. I think because the hard drive got corrupt the back up itself never automatically happened & he didn't realise until it was too late. The couple who got married the week before us at the same hotel used him too & their pictures are lost too. The hard drive was sent to on track and they retrieved some of the files but not ours. There were other data recovery companies used before on track but their attemps were unsuccessfull.

We know he is devastated by the whole situation, my husband spoke to him on the phone a few times and said he was a man on the edge. Our wedding planner got involved too & she also said he sounded terrible & has been devastated by the whole thing. I believe he has tried everything, just to protect his own reputation more than anything, especially with our wedding planner as she does lots of weddings all over & he's on her supplier list.

I don't want to name him, but it's not the same photographer as the other thread as that was a female photographer.

we're just waiting for our insurance to let us know if we can choose our own photographer & how it works.

I'll try & post a guest picture on here.

thanks very much

How strange. I still don't understand how they were finished but not on the online gallery? Can't the photographer edit your guest photos? I would have thought he would be ideal - and free under the circumstances.

I don't think they were finished, we never actually got to see them, he just told us that it was the high res images that were gone.

Although we've had a refund he never offered a single thing to try and make amends so we're not going to ask him for anything further.

thanks

I'm so sorry, dear. I really hope you get them back.

On some cameras, the main files is saved along with a .THM file, which effectively is a thumbnail.

What I just do not get, is WHY a tog would use memory cards on another wedding before confirming multiple back ups........You simply do not take a risk. At worse, use a different memory card if you have several weddings back to back. In the scheme of things these days, they are not a great cost...certainly worth the investment before your reputation gets trashed.

Peter

View quoted message

"He said he has an automatic three way back up of his hard drive but that his hard drive failed & so did the back ups. I think because the hard drive got corrupt the back up itself never automatically happened & he didn't realise until it was too late."

3 way backup? by the sound of it he is talking about a Raid backup. when will photographers realise a raid backup is not a true backup, this sounds like he was using a raid backup system where if one drive goes down then all you have to do is put another drive in and in theory your data is still on the other two disks but from experience you have very little chance of it working 1oo% see this link if any one is interested so don't take my word for it https://www.petemarovichimages.com/never-use-a-raid-as-your-backup-system/

So another question to ask your photographer is how do you backup the images.

Really sorry for your loss and if there is any thing we can do then please let us know, I can only imagine how this photographer is feeling at the moment and hope he changes his backup system so no other couple will go through this.☹️

Raid systems are like giving your car keys to a new friend who you've only known for a few days.

View quoted message

Precisely put.......

My back up systems are independent of each other and individually checked.

Peter

Going back to the OP. Have you collated all the guests images yet??

Has your tog also tried recovering images from the camera memory cards themselves. Often some files can be recovered even after formatting......

Peter

Absolute disaster - unfortunately it’s very unlikely that professional editing of guest photos would be any good.


What about scheduling a shoot now with another photographer? Get the wedding dress back on etc?
www.therealus.co.uk