Local Vender Warning for the state of Missouri - Springfield area.
This photographer travels, and claims to go out of state too...
Tim Miller with Red Vine Studios.
The general issues:
1. Images in gallery were not touched-up as discussed
2. Images in gallery were not color-corrected as agreed upon
3. MANY engagement session photos had un-necessary shadows (my fiancé’s nose would leave a shadow on his face, for example) that could have been prevented with properly adjusted lighting
4. The photographer agreed to send a DVD disk of all images up until the point of the contract cancellation …. Except it’s been over 10 business days and I have not received anything. I e-mailed him recently, and he said he would put it in the mail today….SUNDAY…hmm.
The red flag that I missed was at the initial meeting….he talked to us for 2 hours, except 30 minutes was relevant while the rest was a waste of time. He talked about his kids, his wife, and way more than just a short personal biography to get to know him. He tried to create a friend-relationship rather than a professional one. This left the photographer room to make excuses, and he did. Many times – when we went to schedule appointments, when our photos were late, when he took over a week to respond to phone calls or e-mails….
The details:
I disliked the amount of time Tim spent during our engagement-session talking to my uncle Dan while I was paying to have photos of my fiancé and I taken. My Aunt and Uncle both communicated to me that they thought it was not very professional… My aunt/uncle live in a beautifully remodeled downtown loft and Tim was clearly trying to network and was much more interested in talking with them than getting some good photos.
I was intending on paying $1,900 for his skills and services, not to have a friend. I'm not anti-social… my point is business should be business when we're talking about a couple of full paychecks going to ONE person. While I'm human and have feelings, I don't feel a professional relationship was maintained when I'm told about events in his personal life.
When scheduling the engagement session, Tim informed me he was unavailable all week days before 4:30 pm - and said something like, "remember, I told you I was a full-time dad" - EXCEPT – that he never said anything about this during the meeting, in any conversation, or the contract.
General Conduct - I was put-off by the fact that he posted images on facebook that were not touched up. I would think that the photographer would want everything and everyone looking their best, but our ideas obviously differed here. I’m not all worried about people seeing a blemish or something, the entire thing just stuck me as odd.
He is contradictive. in his e-mail he once said "I service many clients per week, and at times can be in and out of touch" which I can understand, except that he later went on to say this is the slower part of the year. My wedding is in JUNE - wedding prime-time. If I cannot get desired communication during the slower part, how will it be satisfactory in June?