Poor studio experience.

johnsy

johnsy

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Bit of a long one I'm afraid...

My wife won a free family Photoshoot and complimentary image on cd with a new studio that opened recently in a high street store. On arrival as they were running behind, I took the opportunity to browse the images they had displayed on the wall, one frame with 4 10x8 prints was £1,400 and the images looked like they had either been heavily cropped or poorly compressed.

Not a good first impression (although my wife couldn’t see what I was on about).

Into the studio we go, bearing in mind it’s only been open 3 weeks and the paper backdrops they were using were ripped and covered in dirty footprints from people’s shoes, when I commented on this they said don’t worry we can photoshop them out. Surely if they had a no shoes policy it would save them so much editing time?

Lighting was done by a softbox up front and a flash head at the rear with no diffuser and controlled using a wireless commander. The photographer didn’t seem to know how to manage the lighting and most of the images were either underexposed or overexposed which they said they would sort in photoshop. Surely the idea would be to get it right in camera?

Onto the camera, they were using a Nikon D70, a 6.1mp camera and shooting in .jpg not raw. As they rely on cropping these images, they are now down to 4-5mp size. Now I know why the prints looked bad! Images were then loaded onto the computer by popping out the card and into a card reader.

Out of the 130 images they took, only 12 were of satisfactory quality.

Needless to say we took their free image and as there was a nice family shot we paid to have a copy of the image on the cd. Both images were unedited and when shown that they could improve the exposure if we wanted prints, they used ‘auto levels’ in photoshop 7.0 and to remove the footprints in the background they used the ‘liquify tool’!!!

I think I could spend £300 in Jessops on lighting and do a far better job myself for a fraction of the price, and Im just an amateur.

I dont think they can call themselves a professional studio with the level of professionalism and equipment they presented to me.
 
So long as they produce what people are willing to buy, how they go about it is actually totally irrelevent.

That's business :)
 
Seems anyone can be a photographer these days....

Reminds me of some comical videos that a TP member once made...."Passion Studios Training"
 
BouncyMelons said:
So long as they produce what people are willing to buy, how they go about it is actually totally irrelevent.

That's business :)
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Indeed - and whilst the OP says "they are not professional", remember the term just means that they make their main source of income from that line of work - "pro" is not a quality statement, its a financial one.

Quite a lot of event type photography I see on my rounds is appalling too, but whilst looking at the nastyness of it I still see credit cards being waved and cash changing hands...

The photos only need to be good enough for one person - the one with the cash....
 
johnsy said:
...
I think I could spend £300 in Jessops on lighting and do a far better job myself for a fraction of the price, and Im just an amateur...
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But you didn't, and they did. ;)

It sounds poor, yes, but you can't be too precious about photography, it's a job just like any other. People will produce what other people will buy, everybody's happy. If you can see it up front and don't have to buy anything you don't want, no harm done.

Even with it being that bad, you still came away with a free print and an image you were willing to pay for. :)
 
Jayst84 said:
But you didn't, and they did. ;)

It sounds poor, yes, but you can't be too precious about photography, it's a job just like any other. People will produce what other people will buy, everybody's happy. If you can see it up front and don't have to buy anything you don't want, no harm done.

Even with it being that bad, you still came away with a free print and an image you were willing to pay for. :)
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Well said! We didn't get a print, just the images on cd. I didn't really want to buy the additional image as it's not the best quality but the reson for getting is as it had all of us in it, which doesn't happen very often so made the most of it. We did a bit of negotiating to get it at a price we wanted to pay.

It's almost as if they have overpriced the photos knowing people will try to get the price down and feel that they have nabbed a bargain, which I guess it's money for them and business it business after all.

The images would be ok for the general public, who just want some nice photos and are unable to take them themselves, for the people on here I think it would be a different matter. For example the image we paid for is only 4.6mp as the dead space had been cropped out so I won't be able to have a large print produced to my expectations, but it will be ok for an 8x6 print for the grandparents.
 
Making money out of photography is about a good marketing and sales technique. It helps if you can take good photographs, but it isn't a pre-requisite of setting up stall and offering your services.
 
My wife made me take her down to a studio owned by a friend of a friend. When we got there I realised that actually the friend of a friend was only there part time - the studio was owned and run by someone else. Anyway, we get in to the studio and the flashes are firing away. I had high hopes. By the way it was all done in a white room with two big softboxes and other lights hitting the walls and floor. It looked like a lot of light but it looked so pro i just assumed she knew what she was doing.

We went back for the viewing and was I disappointed or what. She had zero compositional skills. Out of 175 pictures taken only 12 or so were usable imho! The rest were saying nothing at all compositionally. Even the ones that did look good from a composition point of view were mostly MADE to look that way by adding extra white bits to turn them in to a panorama or by heavily cropping (i saw the originals).

Worse still - the photo's were all totally blown out with a milky dull look to them. I am a beginner but I can only imagine that the light was bouncing too much off the back wall? She claims it is normal and will look much better after she has photoshopped them :(

Anyway - here's the real bummer. When someone who kinda looks like they know what they might be doing takes a bunch of pictures of your little ones there is a massive amount of emotion involved. Cut a long story short I ended up spending 500 quid on photo's I don't even want just to keep my wife happy.

I was so angry that this weekend I got off my butt and snapped some pictures of my kids. I think they were at least as good as the ones taken in the 'studio'.

To be honest I wish Zozo lived closer to me - i would have got infinitely better pictures had i gone to her.

Dub

ps. I should thank the photographer who took my kids pictures really as they inspired me to use my camera to better effect and invest in a small strobist set up with a view to moving to a studio light setup in the future.
 
Not being rude, but isn't this type of photography fairly scripted? I mean its not like your light levels will be different or your models in funny positions or dodgy low sun backlit etc.

Don't you just work it out, write a script and bang away the same for everyone that walks through the door? Positions marked with tape on the floor, lights already dialled in?

Should be fairly easy to work out provided you have an idea of what the end result is supposed to look like and have spent a little time experimenting to get the exposure right.

Or am I completely barking (up the wrong tree)? I have never even tried it, but thats my guess.
 
desantnik said:
Not being rude, but isn't this type of photography fairly scripted? I mean its not like your light levels will be different or your models in funny positions or dodgy low sun backlit etc.

Don't you just work it out, write a script and bang away the same for everyone that walks through the door? Positions marked with tape on the floor, lights already dialled in?
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Fair point, there was only 1 wall on which to shoot at so lighting would be the same I guess. They did seem to have a view towards shoot now and try and fix any problems in photoshop later, rather than getting it right first time.
 
I think a lot of people miss the point on this, ZoZo is right, it's a business.

You could do better (i'll take it as read that technically you perhaps can), but you didn't, they did.

That's how you make money in business - you take the chance, you might not like it but ordinary punters still think this type of photography is the in thing to do - and if the pro says you fix it in photoshop why would they disagree?
 
Commercially, I would work out whether its more cost effective to muck around during the shoot, or fix it afterwards. Its a bit of a conveyor...

On the other hand, if like I said just now that you work it all out as a standard, how wrong could it be each time?
 
I used to moonlight in one of those studios when I was at college - it's real P&S stuff...lol
So much so that when my ex-wife's daughter 'won' a makeover voucher, I warned my wife in no uncertain terms that if she bought any photographs, it'd end in divorce...

Happily I'm now single again.
 
Problem is that it's a very 'personal' business loaded with emotion on the buyers part. I have no issue with that but I would not be able to live with myself unless I had knew had the skills to pull it off and do it justice.

Let's face it - it's not HARD to get it right since that style of photography is such a 'formula'. I could have lived with the photographers lack of compositional skills but I don't see any excuse for the overexposed and generally poorly lit pictures.
 
I think what is being said about the business side of things is 100% correct, if they are getting people through the door and they are parting with their cash then they will be successfull as a business.

The majority of people know nothing of lighting techniques and will not analyse a photo as a photographer would, and if it's a photo of their kids, the chances are they are going to like it, unless there are major problems with it.
 
dubcat said:
Let's face it - it's not HARD to get it right since that style of photography is such a 'formula'. I could have lived with the photographers lack of compositional skills but I don't see any excuse for the overexposed and generally poorly lit pictures.
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It's hard to do it well...like anything...people who are good at it make it look easy, so other people think 'I can do that, it's easy...' and then find out it's not quite as simple as they first imagined. :)

CarlukeDave said:
The majority of people know nothing of lighting techniques and will not analyse a photo as a photographer would, and if it's a photo of their kids, the chances are they are going to like it, unless there are major problems with it.
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This is sadly true. I'm regularly amazed at what people don't see when they are looking at the same image as me - I know they're not togs but they do have eyes!
 
Most "milky" or "overexposed" shots done on white backgrounds are caused by internal ghosting/flaring in the lens.
Most people, sadly, seem to assume that because the 50mm at f8 is sharp outside, it'll work the same against a white background. My own experiments have proven this not to be the case, rather dramatically.
Only a minority of lenses handled it well.
 
Denyerec said:
Most "milky" or "overexposed" shots done on white backgrounds are caused by internal ghosting/flaring in the lens.
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I'd hazard a guess that's it's more to do poor technique than widespread lens fault :)
 
dubcat said:
Let's face it - it's not HARD to get it right since that style of photography is such a 'formula'. I could have lived with the photographers lack of compositional skills but I don't see any excuse for the overexposed and generally poorly lit pictures.
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It's EXTREMELY difficult, especially when coupled with space limitations. My hardest photographic hurdle to date, by a country mile.

Gary.
 
Ok let me get this straight. These guys have had their studio set up for quite some time, they have a big white room with flashes all fixed in position, and they are shooting family after family in there day after day. To get my session i had to wait some time as they had a lot of bookings lined up.

Now - it may be extremely hard to get the lighting right but surely they should have got it nailed by now?! I mean at this point i would expect that they should be able to just turn up and fire away!
 
dubcat said:
Ok let me get this straight. These guys have had their studio set up for quite some time, they have a big white room with flashes all fixed in position, and they are shooting family after family in there day after day. To get my session i had to wait some time as they had a lot of bookings lined up.

Now - it may be extremely hard to get the lighting right but surely they should have got it nailed by now?! I mean at this point i would expect that they should be able to just turn up and fire away!
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See my other thread....I genuinly think they can't nail it and give up. They cba processing in the end...
 
Maybe they thought they would rough up the competition as yours a photographer! Really though, from what you have said its a wonder how they get business.
 
desantnik said:
Don't you just work it out, write a script and bang away the same for everyone that walks through the door? Positions marked with tape on the floor, lights already dialled in?

Should be fairly easy to work out provided you have an idea of what the end result is supposed to look like and have spent a little time experimenting to get the exposure right.

Or am I completely barking (up the wrong tree)? I have never even tried it, but thats my guess.
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Well said that man.:rules:
 
dubcat said:
To be honest I wish Zozo lived closer to me - i would have got infinitely better pictures had i gone to her.

Dub
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I'll let you know when I'm down your way then, hey ;)

Thank you for your kind words :love:
 
ZoZo said:
I'll let you know when I'm down your way then, hey ;)

Thank you for your kind words :love:
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No worries Zozo :) I looked at your site and really like your work. In fact I took my twins, sat them right next to my big patio windows, and achieved some of my best photo's of them ever after reading your comments about natural light :)
 
I think it's easy to forget that while for everyone on here, photography is a hobby, passion even....for many people it is just a job, that pays the bills. If customers are coming in the doors and handing over money then job done.

Same as any other job. Personally I strive to improve myself and do the best work I can....other people just come in at 9, occupy a desk, then go home, and don't really care about what they do.
 
lol, it helps when the company actually advertises for a photographer. I've been for two interviews in the past week where they were worried that I'd be bored as I actually had photography skills - they just want to show someone how to take one style of photograph and let that be the end of it - but I'm not saying everywhere is like that :)
 
Isn't that true with every job though? If your hobby is tuning up cars, fitting tyres might bore you... or if you are a radio nut, being a radio operator for the police would be tiresome...

The difference between playing with something and using it as a tool for a job...

Only more so probably with photography as your own work is "creative" whereas taking passport photos is something a machine can do.
 
We went to a local studio before Christmas as my wife said she wanted professional photo's done, rather than ones by me. I think she knew she could get me into them then. Standard white background stuff.

The guy had a decent setup, two lights on the background, two softboxes for the subjects.

My wife picked up the photo's, the backgrounds were greyish and the family had been 'cutout' very roughly, loss of detail around the hair, clothing etc.

So not very happy we went back but he wouldn't offer us anything else. Poor service!
 
Sounds like EdinburghGary needs to setup some more branches :D
 
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