HELP: What would cause these shadows?

[silverstar123]

I was going to edit your photos until i saw it wasn't OK to. But i think an edit in lightroom would improve them greatly! Because even the white balance is off! Let me know if you are interested in me editing.

Check your PM, thanks!

 

[silverstar123]

Wow. Extremely inexperienced. We should spam their email. I'd get a full refund.

I agree with Eric. A partial refund isn't really adequate. Just curious as to whether or not you saw their portfolio before you hired them or not?

We did, and it looked good. Not wonderful and "wow", but good. What we ended up getting was far from good. The quality of the photos was just one of the things that made dealing with her an unpleasant experience - like it taking close to 2 months to see a single image, digital or hard copy.

EDIT: Oh, and if we don't get a satisfactory resolution, I'll be plastering our story along with her name and website all over the internet just to make sure it'll be extremely tough for her to get another job.

 

[ababysean]

Wow. Extremely inexperienced. We should spam their email. I'd get a full refund.

I agree with Eric. A partial refund isn't really adequate. Just curious as to whether or not you saw their portfolio before you hired them or not?

We did, and it looked good. Not wonderful and "wow", but good. What we ended up getting was far from good. The quality of the photos was just one of the things that made dealing with her an unpleasant experience - like it taking close to 2 months to see a single image, digital or hard copy.

EDIT: Oh, and if we don't get a satisfactory resolution, I'll be plastering our story along with her name and website all over the internet just to make sure it'll be extremely tough for her to get another job.

who was it?

 

[sean7488]

wow that really sucks that you had to pay someone to get those crappy images. You should definitely get a full refund.

 

[KmH]

.......EDIT: Oh, and if we don't get a satisfactory resolution, I'll be plastering our story along with her name and website all over the internet just to make sure it'll be extremely tough for her to get another job.

Don't forget to include in your story, what you did as far as due diligence before deciding to hire the photographer.

One of the problems with a thread like this is we don't get to hear both sides of the story.

 

[ababysean]

I think before going on a witch hunt, we should have a few more facts...
How much did you pay?
Share some other photos, and not only the bad ones...
Share the work you saw before you hired them.

 

[MichiganFarts]

I think I'd be extremely po'd with myself if I had taken someone's wedding shots, and had them turn out like that.

Sad to hear you're getting excuses, instead of reconciliation.

 

[willis_927]

I hope that the other photos turned out better than this. I would think the photographer would have noticed this in the preview and shot again, making some adjustments.

 

[Josh66]

It cannot be denied that they shadows are due to something (hood) blocking the flash.

You can tell because some of them do have some details in them (in the shadow, that is) from the ambient room light (which you can tell was tungsten). That could only happen if none of the light that illuminated the rest of the picture (the flash) fell on that area.

You can even tell where it was cropped, and how much by the placement of the shadow.

The first one looks more or less uncropped. The second one had quite a substantial crop, lol. (Maybe 2/3 of the picture is cropped off...)

edit
I'm not saying cropping is 'bad' or anything, but cropping and throwing away more than half of the picture tells me that it probably wasn't all that great to begin with.

Honestly, I can't imagine why someone would even let a client see these pictures.

 

[MichiganFarts]

I think before going on a witch hunt, we should have a few more facts...
How much did you pay?
Share some other photos, and not only the bad ones...
Share the work you saw before you hired them.

O|||||||O has the answer for you.

Honestly, I can't imagine why someone would even let a client see these pictures.

I think that any amount of money was too much for these. I wouldn't want to give those shots away. I think O|||||||O hit the nail on the head.

Why wouldn't you notice those while you were shooting? Seems like a quick delete and reshoot to any sane person, important wedding shot or not...and I've never done anything remotely professional.

Let the witch hunt, commence!

 

[heyjoe]

OP- Do you recall the photog having off camera flash / speed light? Or was she just using her camera's pop-up flash?

 

[kundalini]

I'm a hack amateur, but even I could produce better results with or without flash.

 

[Josh66]

Why wouldn't you notice those while you were shooting? Seems like a quick delete and reshoot to any sane person, important wedding shot or not...and I've never done anything remotely professional.

Let the witch hunt, commence!

Hell, even if you didn't notice while shooting ... who in their right mind would deliver these to a client as the finished, polished product?!

I certainly don't review every picture I take (in fact, I very rarely used the LCD at all), so I can see how it might have been missed during shooting.
[EDIT]Though, I do test every lens I own with the hood on to ensure that the hood does not cause a shadow. So far, none have. This must have been a huge hood (probably not the one made for the lens) to cause a shadow like that...[/EDIT]

BUT, there is NO F*KING WAY you could miss that on the monitor while doing PP. There is no way I would have even bothered processing these.
To think that they were actually delivered to the client is... LOL, I can't even think of what that is. It's not professional.

 

[gsgary]

You must have employed someone from the begginers forum did you look at other work they had done

 

[Josh66]

did you look at other work they had done

These days, looking at the portfolio isn't always good enough. A lot of these low budget Facebook photographers steal others work to build their portfolio.
I seem to remember a few threads here where just that happened...

You need to get references, and talk to those people. Talk to people who have used her (?) before, and ask to she the work she delivered to them.