photographer holding engagement photos--is this standard practice?

nfarella · July 2012

Ladies-
A coworker of mine who is getting married in the spring just came into my office in tears. She is using a very well known NJ photographer and paying ALOT of money for her. However, she got her engagement shoot done and the photographer is telling her that she can not have access to the high res files so she can use them for her save the date. The photog actually told her that she can do the save the date (for a fee) or that she will have to pay $75 per image for the high res files.

The language in the contract does state that she will get all of the images on a cd along with her wedding images (which makes zero sense to me, who cares about your engagement pics AFTER you get married?) However, has anyone had a similar experience with this?

My photographer had no problems giving us access to our engagement images so I am just trying to find some advice for her!

Thanks!

agu101 · July 2012

I'm sorry to hear that. In our initial meetina and before we signed anything with our photographer, we made sure we could get the rights to all our engagement pics and that we could use them as we pleased, including STDs. Out photographer was totally cool with that and delivered. These are things that need to be discussed and made sure everyone is clear on before contracts or signed, or it should be negotiated up front to make sure you will get what you want/need from your photographer.

I think it's very crappy the photographer is holding the photos hostage until after the wedding and basically forcing your friend to use her to do STDs. How much is she going to charge to do the STDs? Maybe if your friend costs the photographer's STD out versus another company, like Magnet Street, she can compare and negotiate with the photographer to see if she will come down in price.

Would you mind PMing me the photographer your friend used?

Giaspo · July 2012

This happened to us with our Thank Yous. Our photographer will give us the CD after our album is done (it's in progress). I asked if I could order the TYs through him and he said yes, but after the album. I eventually ordered through weddingpaperdivas.com and used other photos. Everything is negotiable... If the price is comparable maybe it would work out? Or, can she order one print and then scan and use the image? Might be cheaper than $75.

bereasonable2 · July 2012

What was agreed upon when you signed the contract? What does the contract say?

mrsR12 · July 2012

We also made sure that we would have all rights to the photos as well when we met with our photographer.

I would say use another pic if she doesnt want to fight that battle with the photog since she'll need him/her for the wedding.

GolfChick78 · July 2012

I've heard a lot of stories that are very similar so to answer your question, no, I guess it's not uncommon. You do need to very specifically ask if you will get full rights to the high resolution images and when/under what circumstances that will happen. Talk just vaguely about your disc of images and it could mean that they're low resolution or watermarked.

rlavach · July 2012

Well, if it's in the contract, then there isn't much to be done. That's something to discuss prior to signing. We received about 25 images from our e-shoot via Facebook. We will receive the rest on CD along with our wedding photos (still don't have them). I asked him to send me a hi-res copy of a few of my fav e-pics so I could print them and it was no problem. He did it right away. There was no stipulation in our contract regarding that.

For TY cards, we held up a TY sign during our photos. About 1mo after our wedding, I asked our photog to send us a hi-res copy of that one photo so we can use it to print cards. A few days later, I had it & used Vistaprint.

photographer holding engagement photos--is this standard practice?

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