Professional photos - somethings not sitting right. Yes or no??

[Kazzo]

I think it seems a bit odd that he only does Canvas and that it was not mentioned, verbally or written anywhere.

I would just be thankful that it never cost you anything but some wasted time and either take whatever you get or just forget about it. Sounds like more hassle thn it would be worth to me.

[Phteven]

I'd just take a single canvas and chalk ip up to experience.

[briggsy's girl]

it's actually pretty normal with big name photographers - we had a similar deal at work - pay $40 (which went to a charity) get free sitting and $400 to spend on prints. he didn't expect you to use canvas (thankfully) but his cheapest print was over $300, cheapest package over $1000! and even if you did get digital prints, they were lo-res, so you couldn't print anything bigger than a 6x4 print! and if you bought JUST the disc it was $650 from memory...

realistically, this is how they make their money. if they were to hand over digital images to everyone, they'd not be making much money at all. there is more to it than just the sitting kwim? a lot of post photo-shoot work goes into it. twenty images from an hour shoot isn't unusual either. i know when i'm taking pics of DD, i can take photos flat out for an hour, and maybe be happy enough with 20 of them to share them. maybe not even that. the photographer would have gone through, picked x number that he is happy with, and put in all his effort to perfect them for you.

you have a choice - you can choose to take the one print at $270 (or maybe a bigger one for as near to the $350 as you can) and chalk it up to experience, or you can set a budget above that, which you are prepared to spend. given it sounds like he has a good reputation, i'm guessing the quality of his photos is going to be pretty high. maybe see if you can find out whether he does a package that you can afford. i know we ended up talking to the photographer (who was an arrogant turd - but he was approachable about budgets and things) and paid off the package we got. it cost us about $700 out of pocket, but it gave us every image he was happy with in terms of quality, both digitally and in print (and the bonus of print images is that you can scan them at high res to re-print...) - most of it was in a photo book (the most exxy photo book i've ever paid for) - but in the end, with the quality of the images, i didn't, and don't, regret having paid out the money.

don't be afraid to ask why he only does canvas prints, why he can't do a package with ordinary prints etc - if you tell him you're on a strict budget, like his work, but don't have room for canvases all over the place, he might come to the party with another option (i know the photo book wasn't suggested until i directly asked about it)

if you determine before you go in that you will ONLY be spending the voucher amount, take someone with you that is very strong and can talk you out of changing your mind. DH and my mum were useless at that bit! we all fell in love with way too many pics!