Photographer Doesn't Want Customer Picking from Proofs?

[Deleted User]

The company my photographer is through told us we would have a disk of all our wedding day pictures within 90 days with 150 that will be specially edited to print at our discretion. I really didn't think much about the edited pictures until friends of mine who were married asked if they showed us proofs to pick which ones I wanted edited. I wrote an email asking the company if we could pick the which pictures were edited as we may have differeing opinions on what photos are more "album worthy" than others, and this is the response I got:

" If you would prefer to pick the images yourself, you are certainly more than welcome to. Typically, we leave that to be the duty of the photographer. This is mainly because a photographer can easily take 800-1,000 the day of the wedding and will be able to be more accurate on selecting which images would be the best ones to work with. A normal eye may look at a raw image and decide this one should be edited, but a photographer may look at that image and decide it wouldn't edit well, that a similar, but different, image would edit a lot nicer in the longrun

Aside from that, picking only 150 images from a disc of a thousand is actually one of the more difficult and time consuming parts of the job. Those are the two reasons we typically do that in house, as asking you to do so would be like passing the duties on to you that you're paying us for.

Having said that, if you prefer to do it, you're certainly welcome to. The only thing to keep in mind is that we cannot guarantee that we'll be able to match your requests on every photo. Your selection wouldn't be a set list of "for sure's" - it would more serve as a push in the right direction as to what you want. Honestly, the key to receiving the best quality of work is to hire the right guy who you feel comfortable has listened to you and can judge what you would want accurately, then to let him do the job he knows how to do... But if you prefer to "take the helm" so to speak, you're certainly welcome to do so. Just let me know if you'd like to."

What I am getting from this email is they will let us pick our pictures if we insist, but they basically think we aren't able to pick which pictures are best for our album and that even if we do pick the pictures, they aren't promising we will get the exact ones we want. Is this normal for a company to not let people pick the pictures they want or tell them they won't get the specific ones they ask for?

I get the whole editing thing where some pictures will look better than others, because I am a graphics design major. But still... How do you tell a paying customer they might not get the exact pictures they want, but the pictures they "feel" are better?

atomicphoto

Did you hire an individual photographer or did you use a big "umbrella" company like Bella or The Pros?

raspberrytart

Here's what I do when I photograph:

As your photographer said, it's easy to get 1000+ images from the wedding.  However, about 50% will probably be bad (blinking, turned head, hand in the way, weird mouth, hair in face...you get the idea).  I immediately delete these and never let the client see them.  Why would I let them see my bad work?  I also delete duplicates (images that were taken within a second of each other).

So then I take the images that are left and do some small corrections on them.  Again, like your photographer said, RAW images are not pretty, so they do need a little work.  I may do a few more deletions.

After all this, I'll have a few hundred images.  I give these to my client and tell him/her to pick a certain number (generally specified beforehand) for in-depth editing (under-eye circles, zits, hair frizzies) and/or inclusion in an album.  Sometimes I point out my favorites just to help the client in the decisions.

Seems like your photographer is doing the "all or nothing" approach.  You don't need to see all 1000 images, and you don't need all 1000 edited in order to pick the 50 or so images for your album.  You should, however, have a say in what photos are included--I absolutely believe that.  Even though I recommend photos to the client, he/she does not always agree with my choices.

Maybe you just need to clarify a bit more...?

LauraChristin

I am a pro wedding photographer and bride as well. I'm a little bit confused as to what you get in your package. Are you only to receive 150 final edited images period? That seems like a very low amount of photos to me. It depends on how long you hired the photographer for and what you agreed to from the beginning of course.

My process is this:

-Shoot the wedding. Come back with ~2500 images. (Some of these are blinks, hair in someone's face from wind, test shots, duplicates to re-check focus etc.)

-Edit down to a minimum of 100 final edited images per hour of photography. So for a 7 hour wedding you get at least 700 photos. These are all good images. Color corrected, exposure balanced. Some are retouched for skin. They are not all meticulously retouched (would take for-ev-er)

-Client sees these images an chooses their favorite 70 for album.

-These images are meticulously retouched and designed for the album.

So I get it if the photographer wants to do the initial edit. And what I think they're trying to say about the - you might not get every selection you ask for - part is that not every image is "saveable". If you say I want #40 and it's slightly backfocused they're going to say no, but #41 is very similar and the focus is correct. Printing #40 for you will be a disservice to you. And sometimes you can't tell unless you're zoomed in very close for focus so a small proof won't do you much good. I just don't understand - are you only supposed to receive 150 images as proofs?

Anyway, with that said you should be able to choose your images for your album although there are some companies that do not allow it. You are hiring them for their artistry. And they should have educated you about their process from the beginning if that were the case but it sounds like they are being very friendly and wanting to work with you to make you happy.

I hope this is helpful.