SSS: Just when you think things are getting better...

[LegendKiller]

So, we get married, wife is diagnosed with cancer, cancer removed, checkups are clear, after 4 months she goes back to work.

Now we get a notice that the photographer has declared bankruptcy. We have our proofs, but that was only 2,000 of a $4,000 contract. Steph is really upset, things seem to get better and then they get worse.

Now we have to scramble to get in on this, since I guess these things are first-come first serve.

Sigh...

[redcolours]

wow thats rough. glad your wife has her health back.
but i hear ya about one thing after another. im going thru some rough sh!t myself, all spaced within a month.

hnag in there man, it'll clear up.
as a quote from some movie:
"...cant rain all the time."

[Jeffbx]

Ask them to just give you the negatives & call it even. You might be better off that way, and it'll certainly be faster.

[LegendKiller]

That's more or less what I say. It's a sunk cost at this point. However, I guess this stuff is pretty important to many women, steph included, so it isn't as easy to let it go.

We paid a whole crap-ton for the album to be done, with the enlargments and finishing and the album itself. So we have lost all of that, which is almost 1k.

It's just one more thing that she didn't need, which of course means it's one more thing I didn't need... :)

[chrissy]

You need to make sure you have a letter from him stating he keeps no rights to the photos also. If you take the negatives or proofs anywhere without that release form/letter, you might have an issue trying to get photos made from them.

I hope it works out for you :)

[Cubsfan]

That's more or less what I say. It's a sunk cost at this point. However, I guess this stuff is pretty important to many women, steph included, so it isn't as easy to let it go.

Guess this one seems relatively minor to me (especially compared to cancer), but then again, I'm a guy :)

Chrissy's right though, try to get a letter from him. Of course, if he's in bankrupcy court, then he may not be able to give you that letter since I suppose your photos are an 'asset', which the court to use to pay off his creditors. Since he owes you money, maybe you could convince the court to give you the copyright to your photos as payment for the debt that he owes you.

[LegendKiller]

Guess this one seems relatively minor to me (especially compared to cancer), but then again, I'm a guy :)

Chrissy's right though, try to get a letter from him. Of course, if he's in bankrupcy court, then he may not be able to give you that letter since I suppose your photos are an 'asset', which the court to use to pay off his creditors. Since he owes you money, maybe you could convince the court to give you the copyright to your photos as payment for the debt that he owes you.

Yeah, when we got the notice I was like "meh, we just do it ourselves" while she was crying. Women get so wrapped up into the big wedding that must be perfect that they seem to forget that life is never perfect and something as complex as a detailed wedding isn't going to be perfect. I just take it as it rolls.

It didn't help that my family adds their own drama to everything.

I am 99% sure we already have a release, we also have all of the proofs and two cds with all of the images.

It appears that this guy has had 2 other companies, which took some digging because I didn't see them when I checked him out. I wouldn't doubt that he suckers a bunch of people in, takes their money, and once they start calling in the debts he pulls the bankruptcy card and skips out on the large portion of what he owes them.

Our DJ knew him and never gave any indication of this. His pictures were good so we didn't think too much of it, beyond the initial check that I did. In a place like Naples, it wouldn't be too hard to rack up a ton of money, if he were to do a wedding a weekend for a year, that's more than 200k and ours was the base package, they easily went into the 7-8k, especially with all of the rich people in naples.

[guiseppewv]

That really sucks, LK. Hopefully at the very least you will be able to get all of the negatives and a release for them too.

[clutchy]

this is your chance to score some major points with the lady friend. Get the negatives(don't forget the release), hopefully they are digital, then make the album yourself. Creativity and story-telling are key.

good luck, and bummer about the photog...

[Houdini]

this is your chance to score some major points with the lady friend. Get the negatives(don't forget the release), hopefully they are digital, then make the album yourself. Creativity and story-telling are key.

good luck, and bummer about the photog...

Why bother with "digital negatives?" And what are they? If he shot on film, then yeah, I'd demand the negatives.

[LegendKiller]

When it comes to stuff like that I am about as creative as a stick.

Ask me to whip up an excel model, no problem. Ask me about finance, no problem. That's art for me.

Pictures? Heh...not a chance.

[guiseppewv]

When it comes to stuff like that I am about as creative as a stick.

Ask me to whip up an excel model, no problem. Ask me about finance, no problem. That's art for me.

Pictures? Heh...not a chance.

:heh:

I wouldn't stand a chance either. :)

[johnnymk]

'bout the right time to call Bubba and lay some smack down on the creep.

[faither]

Other than being out the cash, if the CD's you have are full resolution, you'll be good to go. Many photogs, though, provide lower-res photos on the CDs. Assuming he shot JPEG (boo, real men shoot RAW) and had decent equipment, the files should be anywhere from 1.8MB to 3MB. Any smaller and you may not have the original files.

If he didn't do any processing of the original files / proofs, I'd be happy to help out. Gratis, of course.

[LegendKiller]

Other than being out the cash, if the CD's you have are full resolution, you'll be good to go. Many photogs, though, provide lower-res photos on the CDs. Assuming he shot JPEG (boo, real men shoot RAW) and had decent equipment, the files should be anywhere from 1.8MB to 3MB. Any smaller and you may not have the original files.

If he didn't do any processing of the original files / proofs, I'd be happy to help out. Gratis, of course.

I'll have to check, I know the images were pretty dang huge, but I think they were still jpeg IIRC, but they were also rather large and good quality.

I might take you up on that, my photochop skills are limited to what you see in the reviews I did.

[kimchicowboy]

sorry to hear about the pics, but good to hear about the wife's health.

hopefully your wife's luck carries over to my family: my aunt (dad's cousin) was diagnosed with lymphomia (? cancer of the lymph nodes) and my cousin's 15 year old son was diagnosed with leukemia. family heard about these incidents within a two week period. :(

[LegendKiller]

sorry to hear about the pics, but good to hear about the wife's health.

hopefully your wife's luck carries over to my family: my aunt (dad's cousin) was diagnosed with lymphomia (? cancer of the lymph nodes) and my cousin's 15 year old son was diagnosed with leukemia. family heard about these incidents within a two week period. :(

I hope they get better quickly. While my wife's cancer was pretty mild, I know how scared I was if it was more serious. The boy is young, he should be able to fight it. I know a few women who have had non-hodgkins lymphoma and have lived long lives. Good luck to them and I will keep them in my thoughts.

[ufcrusher]

So, we get married, wife is diagnosed with cancer, cancer removed, checkups are clear, after 4 months she goes back to work.

Now we get a notice that the photographer has declared bankruptcy. We have our proofs, but that was only 2,000 of a $4,000 contract. Steph is really upset, things seem to get better and then they get worse.

Now we have to scramble to get in on this, since I guess these things are first-come first serve.

Sigh...

LK, which state is the Photographer in?

[LegendKiller]

LK, which state is the Photographer in?

FL, Naples based.

[Paymaster]

We did our wedding album ourselves, and I think it worked out better that way. There were certain shots that our photographer didn't get, so we got digital images from friends to fill in the gaps. We got our album from the same company that he would have used, and avoided his markup. We were even able to use some of the proofs in some cases to avoid reprints when there was no touch-up needed.

After our first order of prints from our photographer, and two follow-up orders (one to correct an issue with the first order, one for a family member who wanted some prints) the photographer realized that he wasn't making any money off of us, and just handed us the negatives. He gave us the address of where he gets them processed and sent us on our way. :)

[Houdini]

I hope they get better quickly. While my wife's cancer was pretty mild, I know how scared I was if it was more serious. The boy is young, he should be able to fight it. I know a few women who have had non-hodgkins lymphoma and have lived long lives. Good luck to them and I will keep them in my thoughts.

:stupid:

And prayers.

[thresher]

We lost all our photographs in a flood ('97) but kept our lives. Funny. You'll look back and realize that those pictures would have been nice, but her health is everything. Perspective is everything. Love on her and take lots of candids now. You'll treasure them as much (or more) later.

[clutchy]

Other than being out the cash, if the CD's you have are full resolution, you'll be good to go. Many photogs, though, provide lower-res photos on the CDs. Assuming he shot JPEG (boo, real men shoot RAW) and had decent equipment, the files should be anywhere from 1.8MB to 3MB. Any smaller and you may not have the original files.

If he didn't do any processing of the original files / proofs, I'd be happy to help out. Gratis, of course.


my raw files come out at 5-6 megs a piece and this is only a 6 mpix camera...

[faither]

Raw on my Pentax *istD (6MP) run 13MB. Nikon D200 runs 15MB and the Canon 30D goes close to 7. All cameras are different.

[clutchy]

Raw on my Pentax *istD (6MP) run 13MB. Nikon D200 runs 15MB and the Canon 30D goes close to 7. All cameras are different.


crazy, my D70(5-6megs) raw files must be compressed. I know the d200 gives you a choice b/w compressed and uncompressed raw.

pretty cool stuff.

[LegendKiller]

My B.I.L. called this guy up this weekend, left a message asking if he could take pictures for an event. The photog responded with a message saying that he could.

As of yet, there are no bankruptcy filings for the guy. Seems like he's trying to pull a fast one to get out of some work and money.

[faither]

Have him set up a faux meeting in a public place and confront his a$$.

[guiseppewv]

LK - That is a bunch of B$!!!! I would def confront this person and I would take legal action if possible.

[LegendKiller]

So, a flurry of activity.


1. We are filing a small claims case
2. From a few lawyer/friends ((Oxymoron :)) I kid ufcrusher!) in FL, we have found out that he hasn't declared bankruptcy nor does he plan to so far.
3. We have contacted our other vendors from the wedding. From them we have found out that he apparently thinks that because we are now in VA we can't touch him. He also apparently spent all of our money up-front and now has nothing to pay for the expensive album and enlargements.

needless to say, geographical distances matter little to a pissed off bride who doesn't have an album or enlargements celebrating her wedding (I am not happy either...but relatively speaking I am a tranquil pool to my wife's vortex). Considering my wife's legal background, he should have known better.

Word of advice, speak to your other wedding vendors about every other wedding vendor. If they say *one* bad thing about somebody, replace them. Or DJ told us our photog was sort of flakey and we didn't think it would be a problem, especially since it was more time-management/wedding day issues, which we had none of.

[welfareloser]

ooooooooo... git 'im. have fun with it!

[guiseppewv]

I hope you are able to bitch slap this punk!!!

Keep us updated!!!!

[LegendKiller]

Case is filed, we are expenting his whiny voice on an answering machine some time soon, we doubt that he wants a judge to find out that he is claiming that he is declaring bankruptcy but has no plans to do so. He should be served any day.

[utcpal]

good luck