No Insurance!!!

pip66

pip66

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Hi, thought i would just share my best friends unfortunate experience with her wedding photos!!
To cut a long story short, the photos are dreadful, as an example there is not one shot of the cake or them cutting it. The DVD is not much better!! They are supposed to pick 40 photos for their album asyet they can only pick 11. They paid £1200 for this service and the company she dealt with has no indemnity insurance, this is on going at the moment but a solicitor has told them to go ahead and sue them not just for the £1200 but for them to have it re-staged for photos. The moral of this story must be surely know what your doing in the first place and have insurance!!!:shrug:
 
A quick look around suggests that £1200 for a set of wedding photos is quite cheap.

Peanuts and monkeys spring to mind.
 
The price doesn't really come into it. If you pay for a service, you expect that service to be of good quality.
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If I paid £1200 for a product that others charge £2000 for I would expect a lower quality result.

It is always worth doing your homework before choosing a photographer. Looking at their portfolio of work, to assess quality, and checking for insurance etc.
 
In the OP's area, on a quick search of Google, I found no less than four togs of the first ten charging less than £1200 for a wedding shoot, obviously they do have different packages, but their lowest package was equal to or less than £1200.

Some wedding togs charge £16,000. Does that mean that all wedding togs charging less than that are poor togs? No. It depends what market they're working in.

I agree with you on doing your homework though :)
 
Did they see a portfolio because what one person says is good another would say not.
 
I am sorry but they were offered a service, shown an end result of other work and whether it is thought to be cheap or not!!! The point i am making is that if you offer yourself out as a professional photographer and accept payment you should deliver ! They did not even know that photogrophers would have needed insurance.
Right now it is the photographers that are in deep doo dooo !! As they are going to be sued personally, as they traded with no insurance !!! Anyway I just posted it out of interest to others, and I for one feel very sorry that someones memories have been ruined.
 
In what way are the photo's 'dreadful' ???

Not shooting the cake is an omission true, but not having a photo of it isn't having dreadful photos

Just intrigued as to what went wrong really - technical faults? Artistically lacking?

:shrug:

DD
 
In the OP's area, on a quick search of Google, I found no less than four togs of the first ten charging less than £1200 for a wedding shoot, obviously they do have different packages, but their lowest package was equal to or less than £1200.
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Yes there are photographers offering a service for that sort of money, but it is certainly the cheaper end of the market. That isn't to say that a photographer with a cheaper price is less accomplished than one who charges more, though surely if they took super duper shots, they'd charge super duper money.

And from what I recall yesterday googling whilst helping a mate who's started doing weddings, a lot of photographers have policies on their websites stating what will happen in the event that a customer is not 100% satisfied.

As always buyer beware.
 
The photos are mostly of people with tops of their heads chopped off, arms and legs aswell. The photo that has been offered as the portrait of the Bride is one of her holding a baby and they have chopped half the child out.
As an album of candid shots there are about 27 good ones, there are 5 so called formal shots. The bride provided the photographers with a list of requested assorted photos they omitted 26 out of the 45 she asked for. Nearly every shot has people in the back ground, some chatting , some smoking, there was no direction from the photographers. So the quality is questionable ,as too is there artistic approach.
 
pip66 said:
The photos are mostly of people with tops of their heads chopped off, arms and legs aswell. The photo that has been offered as the portrait of the Bride is one of her holding a baby and they have chopped half the child out.
As an album of candid shots there are about 27 good ones, there are 5 so called formal shots. The bride provided the photographers with a list of requested assorted photos they omitted 26 out of the 45 she asked for. Nearly every shot has people in the back ground, some chatting , some smoking, there was no direction from the photographers. So the quality is questionable ,as too is there artistic approach.
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Thanks for that

Yep - sounds 'dreadful'

In the merest hint of a defence - they were perhaps trying to let things happen and record the flow of the day - something called 'Reportage', and hence little/no direction

However - if presented with a list of 'Please shoot these' to try to shoot Reportage is to provide the wrong sort of service anyway - so 'poor' at best and 'dreadful' may well sum it up nicely :(

DD
 
Just feel very sorry for them on such a big day. Thanks for all your comments, pip.
 
In a repressed area like Cornwall £1200 would give you a choice of most of the good togs.
I shoot reportage, but I ensure that I have a very clear remit of what both the bride & groom expect before starting. Its then worth speaking to the parents aswell !!
Some venues its not possible to avoid people in the background, but if this is the case, thats what dof is for !!!
A lot of the money charged is for the type of album the tog chooses or the couple want, its easy to shave 4 to 500 pounds off a quote for an album by photobox instead of a Jorgensen or gf smith etc, so you cant always judge by the price alone ,,
 
Hi, The work they showed us was great, had artistic flare and tech know how. If you saw these photos you would ask yourself if what they showed us was there work!!!! They have not even attempted to do any quality editing work.
 
Don't suppose there are any examples you could scan and post here????
 
TBH I doubt they will get anywhere with sueing them



pip66 said:
Hi, thought i would just share my best friends unfortunate experience with her wedding photos!!
To cut a long story short, the photos are dreadful, as an example there is not one shot of the cake or them cutting it. The DVD is not much better!! They are supposed to pick 40 photos for their album asyet they can only pick 11. They paid £1200 for this service and the company she dealt with has no indemnity insurance, this is on going at the moment but a solicitor has told them to go ahead and sue them not just for the £1200 but for them to have it re-staged for photos. The moral of this story must be surely know what your doing in the first place and have insurance!!!:shrug:
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Solicitor has said every case so far that he knows of has been successful. The one he told thm about recently won £16000. So we will have to see.
 
Like everything else, it depends what was in the contract.
 
Luckily I have professional insurance for this kind of thing, even though I don't class myself as a complete 'pro' - it's better to be safe(ish), even if I only do three weddings a year.

Although not sure advertising the fact you have insurance is a good idea, may lead to all sorts of attempted claims
 
Who do you use for your insurance JPS?

I have all my kit covered and public liability too but not professional indemnity.

I'd be interested if you would not mind sharing :)
 
nfulcher said:
Don't suppose there are any examples you could scan and post here????
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That'd be a breach of copyright, plus it wouldn't be fair on the tog, since he/she aren't here to defend themselves.

POAH said:
TBH I doubt they will get anywhere with sueing them
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I've read of something exactly the same before, the couple won and the 'tog had to pay for a restaged wedding shoot. This guy had insurance though, so they paid out. I'll see if I can dig up a linky, but it was a long time ago :)
 
pip66 said:
Solicitor has said every case so far that he knows of has been successful. The one he told thm about recently won £16000. So we will have to see.
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Is he working on a no win no fee basis then?
 
mattyh said:
That'd be a breach of copyright, plus it wouldn't be fair on the tog, since he/she aren't here to defend themselves.



I've read of something exactly the same before, the couple won and the 'tog had to pay for a restaged wedding shoot. This guy had insurance though, so they paid out. I'll see if I can dig up a linky, but it was a long time ago :)
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I think it only fair to let this play out in court, apart from what is happening to my friend, I really just wanted to share "that when you do business get the right insurance".
 
AliB said:
Who do you use for your insurance JPS?

I have all my kit covered and public liability too but not professional indemnity.

I'd be interested if you would not mind sharing :)
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I use aaduki, after they were reviewed in What Digital Camera magazine a few months ago.

(no doubt now I've mentioned this I'll hear loads of disaster stories of other customers of theirs.....) Always happens.

It has public liability and indemnity and the usual new for old etc etc. Public liability to £3million
 
I think any professional tog doing things like events or weddings would be foolish not to have insurance. Given the choice between paying a small premium per month OR possibly loosing my house due to court costs / compensation then I think its a small sum to pay.
 
hopefull this will mean one less cowboy...
 
ranarama said:
So could you sue the solicitor if he didn't win as you paid for a service they didn't provide? :thinking:
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We will see if it is proven that they did not deliver the service ie: Album of formal and candid shots taken by two professional photographers, as it will be decided by others!!!:bang:
 
richpips said:
If I paid £1200 for a product that others charge £2000 for I would expect a lower quality result.

It is always worth doing your homework before choosing a photographer. Looking at their portfolio of work, to assess quality, and checking for insurance etc.
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That's not always the case though. My friend paid £4k for her wedding photo's last year from a photographer who had won awards with wedding magazines and their website had some stunning photos (which, in hind site I think were mostly staged and not taken at actual weddings), plus they got two photographers for the day.

The photo's were awful, the kit they used was consumer level (call me stupid but fast primes/zooms/good high ISO bodies should be a must for pro wedding photogs?!) and the book they produced at the end, although high quality physically, was very poorly laid out and of course filled with pretty poor photos!

I've seen MANY wedding photo's on forums that blitz my friends, in fact I was a guest with camera and most of her family wanted copies of my pics and not the official ones.

No idea what went wrong on the day but clearly paying over the odds and looking at a nice website doesn't always mean your gonna get better photo's than somewhere else that's cheaper.
 
it does not matter if the photos are "good" or "bad" (this is subjective) the key point here is that the customer was not happy. did the photographer supply a service that was in line with the customer's expectations?

Is the photographer aware of the customers dissatisfaction? what are they doing to correct this?

whilst the customer is not always right, it is very often beneficial to ensure that they feel they are...
 
sportysnaps said:
it does not matter if the photos are "good" or "bad" (this is subjective) the key point here is that the customer was not happy. did the photographer supply a service that was in line with the customer's expectations?

Is the photographer aware of the customers dissatisfaction? what are they doing to correct this?

whilst the customer is not always right, it is very often beneficial to ensure that they feel they are...
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Nicely put - at the end of the day it comes down to Customer Satisfaction...

you could argue over semantics about who the customer is, but at the end of the day if the customer is happy.

After all it has been shown in america during studies of doctors that the rate of litigation (being sued) is more closely related to the way the doctor acts round the patient (i.e how friendly they are) than their actual skills as a medical practioner.
 
I have this line in my Terms Of Business:

"Unless a rejection fee has been agreed in advance, there is no right to reject on the basis of style or composition."

Never had to use it, but it has never been questioned by a client either. Handy to have it there if ever a client was to say to me "I don't like your photos" (which they never have, becasue my photos are brill :D )
 
In order for litigation to succeed in this case the plaintiff would have to show that the defendant had held themselves to be a professional in their field, and that as such a premium was paid for their time. This should be straightforward.

They would also have to show that this person had not acted in a manner consistent with a professional in that field. Now this would have to be a provable and objective decision. This would be a civil case, so the burden of proof is not as onerous as a criminal case (in a civil case, it has to be 'on the balance of probabilities'), but it would have to be shown on quantifiable references. So shots clearly out of focus, not obtaining pre-agreed shots, etc.

'The photos are not very good' is rather subjective.....
 
what defines professional?

I clearly state that im not a pro and i do it for the love would this "get me out of jail" not that it bothers me because i know my photography is good and to be honest if anyone complained it would be me first if i thought the shots where no good.

Maybe its just a picky client been looking at to many high fashion mag wedding shots:shrug:
 
It depends on the situation. If you hired a professional, you expect professional results. If you hire someone that clearly says "I'm not a pro, my shots might not be any good but I'll not charge you, apart from for prints."

The difference is clearly defined for the buyer then.
 
Would be interesting to see this work really. I think we are in a society where people will sue for just about anything now! For all we know these pictures could be fine but its just not what the couple expected. If the shots are really bad then fair enough but i very much doubt it as im sure the bride and groom would of seen previous work from this tog.

average wedding costs 10k, sue the tog and get 16k back... hmmmm
 
justinframe said:
Would be interesting to see this work really. I think we are in a society where people will sue for just about anything now! For all we know these pictures could be fine but its just not what the couple expected. If the shots are really bad then fair enough but i very much doubt it as im sure the bride and groom would of seen previous work from this tog.

average wedding costs 10k, sue the tog and get 16k back... hmmmm
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Not sure what year you refer to weddings on average costing 10k!!!! and what i actually said is "the solicitor had told them about another couple who recieved 16k", i have made no mention of what the wedding in question cost or what they hope to recover !!! Yes they did see previous work and it is questionable as to whether what they were shown was produced by these photographers. But as I have stated I did not start the thread for individuals to question the picture quality, I started the thread as a story and warning to anyone with no insurance and its done that because one individual who is about to do a wedding is now going to get insurance. So lets see what happens in court!!!:rules:
 
i feel very sorry for your friend.
for a supposedly pro company, not having indemnity insurance is ridiculous.
were covered for an awfull lot , and the cost of a reshoot, if the worst happened and we had total equipment failure.
and our packages start at a dam site less than £1200.
as for "reportage"
we tend to do a mix of formal and candid.(whats popular round here. were from notts too.)
on the few occasions we have had requests for a more laid back aprroach, we find a fair amount of direction is still needed.
people still expect certain shots regardless of the style of coverage they want.and some of them just cannot be had without some direction from the tog or assistant.
and i hate shots of people with FEET chopped off , never mind heads.
my mrs would NOT use shoots with heads chopped.
was it in the notts area?

mark
 
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