I recently needed some photos for my clothing brand. I hired this dude who I wouldnt say he’s a friend but definitely an acquaintance who’s close with a lot of my close friends. Whenever I brought up the idea for the shoot to him he seemed really excited about it and out of trust and all the good things i’ve heard about him, I booked the shoot with the entire payment up front. Fast forward month and a half now and I still haven’t received those photos. We only shot for 40 mins to an hour and he probably took close to 50-80 photos. I’ve already hit him up asking for the photos and he tells me he’s still working on them. I don’t want to keep asking him like some crazy ex to deliver the photos that I already paid for but at this point idk what to do.
I’m not a photographer so i don’t know, but am I being too impatient or is a month and a half too long for him to edit some photos? I’m considering whether I should keep bothering him or if I should just consider this a lost cause and hire a different photographer
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I think they fucked it up and don’t know how to tell you.
Give them an ultimatum that the images by this date or you’ll “investigate legal options”, and if they don’t budge then take them to small claims court or whatever the equivalent is. It’s business. Protect your investment and your own money.
It might take time indeed, specially if he’s not experienced as you said.
How much did he charge you?
You paid upfront. That was your mistake
At this point he’s probably costing you money because you wanted to use the images for a promotion, right? Let him know that. That’s probably your best bet at this point, trying to make it clear that he is the road block in your business right now.
And next time make it clear why and when you want the photos (I need them by Nov 15th because I want to use them in Black Friday advertising, etc). And make sure to get a contract with a delivery date.
Paying up front is normal. That’s a long time to wait for photos.
What does your contract say? You did sign a contract, yeah?
To me this sounds like he wiped his SD Cards and the photos are gone. He is hoping you leave this alone and he never has to deal with the problem. This isn’t an issue of lead time or process. If you have a relationship he is probably scared to tell you.
I don’t know why people normalize photography as something where fraud is acceptable or it’s your fault as client if you didn’t have a contract. If you made a purchase and he doesn’t deliver anything in return, even based off your verbal discussions, that is fraudulent in any business setting.
Kindly ask for you money back if you can and go your separate ways.
on digital my turn around would be maximum one week usually between 3 or 5 day for small session like this … i shoot on film now my turnover is 14 working days only because i have to send the film abroad for processing to an external lab but one month i would be worried … when this kind of problem arise between client and photographer i always ask “what does your contract says or what are the rules and regulation of the shooting/photographer”
Faster pay, faster delivery. Slow pay, slow delivery. That’s how I work. It’s like expedited shipping. Should not be more than a weeks worth of edit and delivery. OP be patient and never work with this photogs ever again lol.
sounds like you’ve been more than patient. 6 weeks is a long time for just 50-80 photos. i’d consider looking for a different photographer.
I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t be able to give you an estimated date of delivery or at least a couple of quick edits before completeing the rest.
That’s slow af. I used to tell people a week and then they were pumped when it was only a day or two.
Or I was too busy and it actually took a week. And they don’t care.
Ask when you will receive your files. He owes you that answer.
There’s something definitely wrong on his end.
For context yesterday I delivered 665 edited photos to the customer two days after the shoot. And I had two other gigs over the weekend. Everyone’s busy but he’s in trouble somehow.
He could have incredibly bad time management, or uber procrastionation, or computer failure or something in his world has really gone wrong. Hopefully its not anything with your photos.
Give him a deadline and your money back if he doesnt deliver…today. Friends are friends, but six weeks is out of whack.
Yeah you’re being played. Forget about the pics, I would start asking his friends about him and why. At this point you have the upper hand because bad reputation is really hard to overcome, especially among acquaintances. If you maturely communicate to others in your circle the situation they will likely always hesitate to recommend him. Forget about the money and your pics, you got played. Just make sure to leave a rep stinkbomb in his way so he can never do this again to others.
People bite off more than they can chew all the time when they don’t know. They think it’s easy. Has he done any professional photography ever at all?
How much did you pay? At this point you can treat it as wasted money, a cost for the lesson on how not to hire photographers. You can choose to not chase him.
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