On a wedding or bridal forum there are bound to have people happy with them and recommends them. They might see values in other areas, like the gowns and ease of service; ie photog and makeup artist all tied together. But I thought on a photography forum, people might have a better and more informed idea?
My idea and impression on bridal studio photography has always been bad, if anyone if you had patronised their services or shot for them lately, and thus know better, please update me if things had changed.
In a nutshell; they hard sell, they show clients portfolio of photog A but sends photog B in reality, the person selling is someone with good talking skills, and not the person shooting, who even then may not have good shooting skills. Their photogrs are instructed not to stray from the norm or be too creative, but instead to stick to the predesigned SOP poses and locations, so that its easier to replace staff if suddenly the good photogr stops working. No one is indispensible when things are standardised. Every couple gets more or less the same thing. The person shooting is not the person editing. They hire digital imaging 'artists' or retouchers to do the post process, whom often have poor understanding of photography and are more like amatuers playing with photoshop. The common thing they like to do is to over photoshop till the human skin look like plastic or rubber, very often the couples don't look like themselves after the photoshopping. They underpay photogrs, they may charge a client $800, but pay the photogr only $200. They often pay photogrs late. Some even require photogrs to shoot 4 free ones for then before getting paid. If there are complaints, they say they will retouch pics to pacify the client, but in reality just leave the photos untouched for 2 weeks and then return. Bad capture means bad capture, we all know photoshop cannot save bad photography.
Please share info you know and tell me if the above are still happening? I think there good ones around, partnered with good photographers who work fully independently from them.
My idea and impression on bridal studio photography has always been bad, if anyone if you had patronised their services or shot for them lately, and thus know better, please update me if things had changed.
In a nutshell; they hard sell, they show clients portfolio of photog A but sends photog B in reality, the person selling is someone with good talking skills, and not the person shooting, who even then may not have good shooting skills. Their photogrs are instructed not to stray from the norm or be too creative, but instead to stick to the predesigned SOP poses and locations, so that its easier to replace staff if suddenly the good photogr stops working. No one is indispensible when things are standardised. Every couple gets more or less the same thing. The person shooting is not the person editing. They hire digital imaging 'artists' or retouchers to do the post process, whom often have poor understanding of photography and are more like amatuers playing with photoshop. The common thing they like to do is to over photoshop till the human skin look like plastic or rubber, very often the couples don't look like themselves after the photoshopping. They underpay photogrs, they may charge a client $800, but pay the photogr only $200. They often pay photogrs late. Some even require photogrs to shoot 4 free ones for then before getting paid. If there are complaints, they say they will retouch pics to pacify the client, but in reality just leave the photos untouched for 2 weeks and then return. Bad capture means bad capture, we all know photoshop cannot save bad photography.
Please share info you know and tell me if the above are still happening? I think there good ones around, partnered with good photographers who work fully independently from them.
Last edited: