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

[BrightSparkles]

Background - we were given a voucher for a photo session by a friend as she was unable to use it in the given time. Great. Booked a time (had to wait about 3 months as they were booked out). The voucher was for a free photo sitting and $350 to spend on photos.

So we went on Friday to have the photos done. The guy was a total nutcase but I think that's more him, I thought DH was going to punch him and I was getting pretty agitated as well.
So it comes then to spending the $350 and this is where somethings not sitting right.
His photos START AT $270 for a single image and he will ONLY do it on canvas. But we weren't told this until AFTER the photos were taken. Of all the photos that were taken we will only get to see 20 (the shoot went for about an hour once his stopped his constant nonsense jabber). No where in any of the paperwork does it give a price range (first mistake there, though I did ask and was told that we can spend it on whatever we wanted so I assumed we could do normal prints also).

He appears to have HEAPS of work around so people must like him.
I would love to just have even 3 prints put onto a disk for the $350 so that I can blow them up if/when I see fit and also make copies for family. I can't do this if they ONLY put things on canvas.
I get that this is what his business is, however, I should have been told this first right? That they only do things on canvas - no prints. If that was the case, I wouldn't have had it done.

I've had a number of photo sessions done over the years, one where I got to pick an album the other i had prints done that I could copy.

Whats everyone elses thoughts? Am I being the crazy one?

[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.

[MummyDuck]

This practice is super common now!! We were looking at a maternity shoot and even with the girl I went to the first time who did a lovely album of all the pics and a disk this time it's prints and extra $100 for each photo on disk!!!

Photography is getting stupid now!!! I've ended up going with a girl from my old school who is just starting up and keeping my fingers crossed some come out nice. We just can afford maternity plus newborn for what is being charged now!!

[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!

[Frangipani Lou]

Sounds to me like he's a bit of a nutcase! Photography is expensive. But you get what you pay for. We could have paid $70 and got 30 pics on disc but we went with Iris Creations instead. Iris creations was way more costly but there is no substitute for real talent and warmth.
I'd say take the canvas print and go and do a session with a photographer (like Gemma from iris creations if your in Melbourne) who will do right by you and give the nutty photographer some clear feedback about his practices!

[k4t]

I think the canvas only thing is weird but pricing otherwise seems pretty normal for a popular photographer. I paid a similar amount for our baby photos and her cheapest prints were over $100, had to spend over $1300 to get digital negatives etc.

I guess if you'd been paying out of pocket you would have researched his practice a but more but there's probably no point getting annoyed about it now. I would always expect to see the price list for prints before you book in future.

[Rosey]

Totally normal practice for photographers these days. It's rare to get your photos on a disc. They want to sell a product now. It's also common for prices not to be shown until after, once you've fallen in love with the photos.

[BrightSparkles]

I know photos are expensive and look, what i saw of his work was good. And yes, I would have checked more if I was paying. Its not normally something I'd get done anyway.
I have never heard of people doing canvas only pics before - so thought maybe I was weird lol

We have got some REALLY nice photos that we have done on our own in a garden or at the local river.


Live and learn I guess, just wondered if it was just me who thought this was a little strange. He doesn't even advertise his business - everything is through word of mouth and I had to really search for a website.
Oh well.

[helle]

Just quietly... Taking copies of prints you have purchased from a photog is a huge no no

[Heaven]

He appears to have HEAPS of work around so people must like him.

He doesn't even advertise his business - everything is through word of mouth and I had to really search for a website.

He is obviously good, he has people who value his work and are willing to pay a lot for it, and he is booked out. He doesn't even need to advertise. So as long has he has people who are will to pay he can charge what he wants. Unfortunate for you, but it was free and you get a free canvas out of it, that's pretty great. $270 for a canvas print is reasonable. Lots of photographers don't give out digital images and if they do they are expensive because if they give you that then they will never make anymore money from that image, you could print a thousand of them for next to nothing. And also you will get them printed at a normal print lab, not a professional one, which won't make them look as good and then hang them on your wall and tell people who took it, you know? Not great for the photographer.

There seems to be lots of people thinking that photographers prices are unreasonable these days but you are not just paying them to snap a pic and put it on a disc. They need to set their prices to pay for their business expenses, insurance, time, travel, gear, etc etc. You really get what you pay for.

Anyway, I'm sorry you had a bad experience but you know for next time to check prices before. I really hope you find someone who has a package that suits and you can get some great photos you love in the future.

[Livinthedream]

He prob only does canvas so that you can't scan it.
I guess you have look at it like art, would you pay $500 for a painting that you loved? I would and then some.
At the end of the day, you get a free canvas and he has spent the time $ and effort ( a lot longer than the hour session by the time he sorts through the pics) AND he has to pay for the canvas. He will end up quite a bit out of pocket.
I don't really see a problem with it, sounds like a good deal to me.

[BrightSparkles]

I guess the way that I was looking at it was that if I have $350 (or any other amount) to spend on photos, then I would like to get it printed the way I want print/frame/book/canvas etc.
I was also a little disappointed that at no stage during the intial contact and booking was I told that pics were only printed on canvas - to me, that would have swayed me a little. Like I said, all the other pics I've had done, I could get prints of and then if I wanted canvas/book/etc I could have paid extra.
Yep - my fault for not asking further and assuming.

In regards to price, yep - i totally get that whole "you get what you pay for". It just doesn't sit right with me to not be upfront about pricing structures before the photos are taken and then waiting for you to like the photos before you say anything. Again - my fault for assuming.

At the end of the day, yes, there will (hopefully) be some nice photos, but I will only be getting the one. We cannot afford to pay anything else to get other photos printed. Figured the whole thing was free so if I don't like them, no harm done.

thanks for the opinions

[Heaven]

Oh sorry you also said about only seeing 20 images? Just wanted to let you know that that is normal too. The photographer is only going to show you his absolute best work. Editing photos takes a lot of time and he is not going to edit them all when you're not going to buy that many anyway iykwim, you're only going to buy the best

[BrightSparkles]

Oh sorry you also said about only seeing 20 images? Just wanted to let you know that that is normal too. The photographer is only going to show you his absolute best work. Editing photos takes a lot of time and he is not going to edit them all when you're not going to buy that many anyway iykwim, you're only going to buy the best

Yeah I can appreciate that. I guess at the same time, some of the other photos that he might think look crap to him I might love beacuse I may see something different in it that he doesn't. That happened with both lots of other photos we had done. The photographer didn't like them for whatever reason and DH and I both loved them because we saw something different and unique in them.
I just like to be given a choice and in control

[Heaven]

Yeah, I understand what you mean. Though for him, if he thinks it's not his best work he doesn't want it out there because people will see it and ask you who took it.

Anyways, at the end if the day you were disappointed and I'm sorry about that xx

[Trillian]

Sunshine, just looking at this from a different angle, but what if that was always the deal and the person who gave you the voucher was under the wrong impression? I don't think there is anything dodgy going on (well apart from charging way too much LOL), but the avoid confusion he should have been up front with you from the start and made it clear that's what his deal was.