wedding photographer fiasco...

marcus79_2

couple years ago me and wife got married, we hired a photographer to make us an album all profesional etc, we had 2 albums done, 1 for us and 1 for my parents.
but because the photos are all stuck into the pages they can not be taken out to copy or nothing, we phoned the photographer and asked if she still had the negatives of which she said yes and to buy them off of her she wants 300 quid.......
surely this cant be right....???

Softstuff

marcus79 wrote: »

couple years ago me and wife got married, we hired a photographer to make us an album all profesional etc, we had 2 albums done, 1 for us and 1 for my parents.
but because the photos are all stuck into the pages they can not be taken out to copy or nothing, we phoned the photographer and asked if she still had the negatives of which she said yes and to buy them off of her she wants 300 quid.......
surely this cant be right....???

It is very normal for this. Wedding photographers tend to have contracts where they retain ownership of all negatives and copyright of the pictures, so any copies have to be purchased through them. It's the only legal way to get them.

It tends to cost a heck of a lot to get the negatives/original digital images as part of a wedding photography package, since reprints are where wedding photographers make a lot of their money.

Morty_007

A photographer that we had some photos done with wants £700 for a disk of photos!!

claire21

It is common practice.

I would try and negotiate with her, a few years has passed since your wedding so she probably thought she would have no reprint business from your wedding and they are worth nothing if the photographer keeps them, so she may think something is better than nothing.

RustyFlange

My dad and step mum recently got married, they did it in gretna green due to both having previously been married before and as they only wanted a small family do .. however part of the package was a photographer he took a few photos, they had 25 in total which were all dark and horrible. Luckily enough my partner took his camera they now have wedding photos galore and all for free due to my other halfbeing so good with a camera.

I would reccommend anyone getting married to find someone who is good with a camera to do their wedding photos.

andysstuff_2

Photographers are professional people and are only earning a living, £300 sounds about right to me.

Vampgirl

Unfortunately its a pretty common problem and unless your photographer is prepared to negotiate over the price then I can't see that you have many options other than to order the copies through her or buy the negs :-(

When we got married a two years ago we chose our photographer because his digital package gave us copyright to the photos and a disc containing hi-res files of all the photos that were taken, in addition to around 25 prints (but no album). That meant that I could then use an online service to make our albums/photo books myself.

miss_pink

andysstuff wrote: »

Photographers are professional people and are only earning a living, £300 sounds about right to me.

I don't agree at all. They have already been paid for doing their job and I'm guessing they do not come cheap to begin with.

I think to turn around and ask someone to give you £300 for negatives is ridiculous. I think you should definitely negotiate with the photographer, sounds to me like she is just taking advantage of the situation to make a fast buck. What ever happened to just being nice and doing something good for someone.

kazwookie

Can you scan the photos whilst still in your book?

Or ask around the people who were at your wedding and see if any one has some on a digital camera.

When I got married years ago the photos from the pro were very very poor and 8 weeks in coming, I sent a SOS for photos or negs to all the guests, and they were wonderful, I had negs and re prints arriving, just made up my own book inthe end and refused to pay the so called pro.

Emms

Did you sign a contract saying the photographer owend the rights to the negatives, or did their terms and conditions say anything about it?

Personally I think its a rip off. My photographer was £270 in total with all pics on disc.

Emma

jak

You could try putting each page from yuor album onto a large scanner.
That's what we did and most turned out ok.
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