It’s not uncommon to hear stories of wedding photographers getting sued by unsatisfied clients, but one lawsuit currently underway in New York is causing quite a stir. Todd Remis (pictured on right) of Manhattan is suing 65-year-old studio H & H Photographers (on left), claiming that the photographers had missed the final 15 minutes of the wedding that included the last dance and bouquet toss. However, there are details that make the case bizarre:
[...] what is striking, said the studio that took the pictures, is that Mr. Remis’s wedding took place in 2003 and he waited six years to sue. And not only has Mr. Remis demanded to be repaid the $4,100 cost of the photography, he also wants $48,000 to recreate the entire wedding and fly the principals to New York so the celebration can be re-shot by another photographer.
Re-enacting the wedding may pose a particular challenge, the studio pointed out, because the couple divorced and the bride is believed to have moved back to her native Latvia. [#]
Studio owner Dan Fried says that the cost of defending themselves in court has already matched the sum demanded by Remis, and calls the case “an abuse of the legal system.”
New Zealand-based wedding photographer Delphine Ducaruge takes photos from her wedding shoots and combines them into creative stop-motion animations. You can find more of them over on her Vimeo page.
Poke around on Craigslist, and you’ll find that it’s filled with ads selling professional services at dirt-cheap prices, including photographers offering to shoot weddings for just a few hundred dollars. Does this spell doom for the wedding photography business? Probably not.
Well yesterday [a friend] called me and I could tell he was kind of upset. I asked what was wrong and he said “Jeff, do you know what they are charging for weddings on Craigslist? How can I compete with a $300 wedding?” I told him flat out that he can’t, nor should he. It took me a few minutes to get through to him but when I did, he finally saw the light. I asked him if he thought that the people that were hiring a $300 wedding photographer would pay $2500 for the same service. Probably not. That’s means that he isn’t really competing for those customers. His customer is the one that recognizes the value of a true professional that will deliver professional results. Get that? The key word here is professional.
His point is that you shouldn’t be competing on price, but on quality. Focus on that, and you’ll be targeting a different segment of the market.
Wedding photographer Kirk Mastin hired Shep Films to create this stunning promo that really conveys his passion for the art. It’s pretty inspirational, even if shooting weddings isn’t your thing. How can you pass up hiring the guy after watching this?
Here’s a short and sweet video in which famed wedding photographer Joe Buissink shares some advice regarding the “psychology” of wedding photography, or how to capture genuine emotions and expressions on camera. The tips he shares are useful for other kinds of photography as well, not just wedding or engagement photography.
SnapKnot is a new service that aims to make it easy to search for and compare local wedding photographers.
Wedding photographers can list themselves on the website by creating a “SnapKnot”, which is a widget-style box containing such things as sample photographs, company name, years of experience, professional affiliations, price range, and location. These SnapKnots are then displayed on the main page and can be filtered by location and price range.
Photographers that interest you can be bookmarked by adding them to a private “My SnapKnots” page with a single click.
Launched just over a month ago, the service currently has just under 400 photographers listed, and aims to have 1000 listed by this summer.
Check it out and let us know what you think! Does this service hit the nail on the head for wedding photography?
