Always the photographer...tales of the lowest bidder..

pixmedic

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I will give you a great example of why going with the lowest bidder isn't always a good idea. a co-worker of mine recently got married and she inquired about my wife doing the photography. no problem. we sat down with her, went over the portfolio, talked about the wedding. she liked my wife's work. everything was looking good. it was less of a traditional wedding, and more of a quick ceremony with a reception, 3-4 hours tops. no engagement photos were planned.

My wife typically takes pretty good care of my co-workers (and EMS/Fire in general) and since it was so short, she offered to do it for $500, AND do engagement photos a week or two before the wedding. My co-worker was really happy she would do it that cheap, but...(isn't there always?) BUT...she has a friend that has a good camera, and although the friend already told her she wasn't comfortable doing weddings, she would do it anyway. So, we were told that her mom was footing the bill for the wedding, and would be more comfortable in the $200 range if they were going to "pay" and not have her friend do it.

anyway...my wife politely declined the counteroffer, and the "friend with a camera" shot the wedding. (no engagement pictures) I got to see the results of this today... the friend brought one camera, one lens, and no flash. a lot of the shots were weird candid's of people eating, goofing around, talking...very few "wedding" shots. my wife didn't really get too much into WB and exposure issues because almost every shot was OOF, or at the very least missed focus. heavy vignetting on EVERY picture. (i think on purpose)

the lesson here? I don't know. could we have used an extra $200? yup. would it have been a lot of work for a 3-4 hour event? not really. but at some point you have to stick to your guns on what your time and efforts are worth and not be bullied by the threat of their ability to find someone to do it cheaper. my co-worker found someone cheaper, and got practically ZERO photos that didn't look awful even after whatever weird processing the photographer did. sometimes you really do get what you pay for. I would almost feel bad for her getting garbage wedding photos, but how can we be expected to compete with free? We don't even try.
 
You know what, you can only do so much for people and then you just have to sit back and watch it play out. Obviously, photography was not a very important factor in this wedding or they would have saved up for it or given up something else.
 
Seems like I've heard an old expression, "You get that which you have traded a medium of exchange for," or something like that. No, that's not it....ummm, lemme see.... "You get what you take, take what you get, and don't complain,"...no, no, no....that was my kid's pre-school snack time motto....oh yeah, I remember: "The bitter taste of poor quality lingers, long after the sweet taste of low price has been forgotten."

I have heard your story about 10 times over the years. Only the names of the participants have been change to protect the innocent.
 
Seems like I've heard an old expression, "You get that which you have traded a medium of exchange for," or something like that. No, that's not it....ummm, lemme see.... "You get what you take, take what you get, and don't complain,"...no, no, no....that was my kid's pre-school snack time motto....oh yeah, I remember: "The bitter taste of poor quality lingers, long after the sweet taste of low price has been forgotten."

I have heard your story about 10 times over the years. Only the names of the participants have been change to protect the innocent.

this isn't the first time we have lost a potential job because of price, its happened a few times. my wife doesn't have a problem working with people and their budgets to some extent, but you have to draw the line somewhere. this IS however, the first time where it has happened and we have been able to actually see the results. maybe the others turned out great. we will never know. this one did not turn out good at all.
 
Try not to think about the fact that every single piece of infrastructure, bridge, and building you utilize was built by the lowest bidder.
 
Try not to think about the fact that every single piece of infrastructure, bridge, and building you utilize was built by the lowest bidder.

at least construction would have to pass inspection. these photos would have failed miserably.
 
Try not to think about the fact that every single piece of infrastructure, bridge, and building you utilize was built by the lowest bidder.

at least construction would have to pass inspection. these photos would have failed miserably.

...and those inspections are out sourced to the lowest bidder.

Sleep tight!
 
Pixmedic, I'm sure that you do feel bad, but hey, you gave her 50% discount on the price up front, why should you accept a counter offer? You did what you could for them.
 
I see this every day as an electrician. "We can hire someone for a third of what you're asking!"

"Fine, I can't compete against laid-off second-year apprentices who have no license or insurance and won't be around six months from now. Go ahead and hire them"


Honest-to-God, at least twice a month I get a call back from these people, crying in their spilt milk. "Can you come over and finish this up... I paid the other guy, and he's not even halfway through and won't answer my calls or reply to my emails...................."

Photographers deal with Best-Buy "Pros", electricans deal with Home Depot "Pros".
 
Pixmedic, I'm sure that you do feel bad, but hey, you gave her 50% discount on the price up front, why should you accept a counter offer? You did what you could for them.

I feel just a little bad because she is a co-worker, and a good EMT.
But my wife offered her what we thought was a really good deal, and i wasn't going to ask her to go any lower than she already had.
I am sorry we couldn't work something out for her. we even offered to let her make payments AFTER the wedding was done. Im sure most photographers have been the same situation at one point or another. just wanted to share ours.
 
480sparky is your real name Mike Holmes? :lmao:

I'm not from Canada.
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