Latest / Rachel Oates / Tiktok's Angry Bride Calls Out Bad(?) Wedding Photographer

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Tiktok's Angry Bride Calls Out Bad(?) Wedding Photographer · Rachel Oates

• 0:25
  but it kind of just got exhausting having to literally
• 0:29
  fight for my business is life. I have lost a lot of sleep over
• 0:40
  this. I have shed a lot of tears.
• 0:53
  Hey everybody, and welcome back to a new video.
• 0:54
  So I have been making a lot of really heavy, very long, very
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  intense videos recently. And today I just want to talk
• 1:00
  about something a lot lighter with lower stakes and something
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  that's a bit more fun. And today I have turned to a
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  topic which touches on my, my, my true love in life basically,
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  and that is photography. I don't get nearly as many
• 1:16
  opportunities to talk about photography on this channel as I
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  would like. So when I do I, I would like to
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  make the most of them. We're going to be talking about
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  some silly online drama today and this comes from TikTok and
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  it's only something that I know about thanks to the Do We Know
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  Them podcast and this Reddit post in our slash wedding
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  photography which gave me all the links and fun stuff like
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  that. Basically, the drama all started
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  when this bride decided to straight up call out her wedding
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  photographer publicly on TikTok, including tagging the two
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  photographers involved, their accounts and sending a hell of a
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  lot of hate their way, as happens when things like this go
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  viral and blow up and whatever. Now I get it right.
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  Your wedding is your special day.
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  It only happens once and you want a reliable photographer to
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  make sure they capture all those really special moments, right?
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  And wedding photographs can be expensive, so you wanna get what
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  you're paying for. I know that I've personally only
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  shot one wedding. Well, kind of.
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  I've shot one wedding paid as like even then I rarely charge
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  anything because it was like a favour for a friend of a friend.
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  And then I took some like casual photos.
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  My sister for her wedding, the one I was working, even though
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  it was like a favour, like it was still the most stressful
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  photography job I've ever had. Like easily.
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  It's intense. I've also worked with a lot of
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  wedding photographers. I used to work folio albums who
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  make these like bespoke handmade wedding albums.
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  But just kind of personally over the last hang a minute, how old
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  am I? OK, so over the last like 16
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  years, I specialised mostly in photographing live music and
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  events like that. So that's where my specialism
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  is. So I'm used to like working
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  quickly with low lighting, with fast moving subjects.
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  And that's a whole different set of skills to say for example,
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  landscape photography or portrait photography or street
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  photography. Each different kind of
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  photography requires you use the camera in a different way and
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  you develop different skills and so on.
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  So with all that in mind, I'm going to be trying to like draw
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  on my own personal knowledge and experience to weigh in on this
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  situation today. So let's start by having a look
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  at the TikTok that the bride posted.
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  Now this has been deleted online so I had to find a re upload of
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  it elsewhere and it's kind of been slightly cropped down but
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  hopefully you still get the gist of this.
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  Also it had the most annoying kazoo music.
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  I think it was a kazoo. It was either that or a nose
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  flute. Either way did not like it so I
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  have just cut out the audio. It was annoying.
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  And yeah, let's start by looking at these photos because they are
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  objectively bad. Some are underexposed, some are
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  lacking a subject. Some are just completely
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  unclear. Some are poorly composed, badly
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  edited. There's a lot going wrong in
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  these photos, and if these were the only ones a photographer
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  delivered, I'd be like, well, no one should pay for these.
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  These are horrific. Like, even an amateur with an
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  iPhone could do better. Absolutely.
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  The thing is my first instinct when I saw these was, oh, are
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  they from a guest's disposable camera?
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  Because way back in the day that used to be a thing.
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  So back when disposable cameras were nice and cheap and they
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  were like a fiver each and developing, developing was like
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  what, £6 for a roll of film? And oh God, do I miss those
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  days. And it was a really common trend
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  for couples to alongside having a regular wedding photographer.
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  Oh, I guess sometimes instead of and, but they'd buy like a pack
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  of runner like 10-12 disposable cameras, like a big one.
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  And they'd put each one on a different table at their wedding
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  and tell the guests just like, you know, have fun, take some
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  photos, go crazy. And then obviously the guests
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  get drunk and they get silly and you get really fun candid
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  photos, right? It's a nice little thing and
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  like everyone's kind of part of it and it's yeah, whatever.
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  And honestly, most people wouldn't know how to use a flash
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  on a disposable camera and the photos would end up terrible and
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  you'd end up with like 20 good ones out of like 120 shots.
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  But it was part of the fun in the experience and it was a nice
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  thing. And I know disposable cameras
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  are ridiculously expensive now in comparison to what they used
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  to be. But at first I thought, like,
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  this might be what's happened. Like they've got the disposable
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  camera photos back and there's not many good ones because
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  guests mess up, right? But now they didn't do that, so
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  that's not what these photos were.
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  And these were real photos given to the couple by the
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  photographer. So I understand the bride's
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  anger at receiving these because no client should receive photos
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  like this. No client should receive photos
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  this bad. That is just, that is just fact.
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  And The thing is, every photographer, no matter how good
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  you are, how experienced you are, what event you're shooting,
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  you're going to take some bad photos.
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  That's just the fact of life, you know, it's like 3 things are
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  certain in life, deaths, taxes, and you'll take some bad photos,
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  you know what I mean? So in that case, I do think the
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  photographer who sent them these files was in the wrong.
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  And I think the photographer has also made quite a few other
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  mistakes that we're going to be discussing in detail in a
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  moment. But the big thing here is the
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  bride is wildly misrepresenting the entire situation here
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  because these are not the only photos she received.
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  She actually received an album of several thousand photographs.
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  Now, the problem is, even with receiving so many photographs,
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  these bad photos should not have been among them.
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  So we're going to talk about what the photographer did wrong
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  1st and then we'll talk about the bride and well, circle
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  background and everything. So let's talk about the
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  photographer. Like I say, these photos should
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  not have been sent to the client.
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  They are the kind of photos that you immediately delete.
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  They are not good enough. They should not be delivered as
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  a final product to the client. It's just as simple as that.
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  I think sometimes certain photographers, especially if
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  they are inexperienced or early in their career, seem to think
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  that the more photos you can deliver the better and they
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  compromise on quality. I think the best piece of advice
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  I ever received in regards to photography, which completely
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  changed my life and made me a better photographer in every
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  way, was from my old boss, Stuart Randall.
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  He used to be a wedding photographer himself.
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  He was really well respected. He was absolutely fantastic.
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  And now he only shoots the occasional wedding, I think, but
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  mostly he runs folio albums so he knows what he's doing.
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  And this one that he was driving me home from work and I was
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  like, you know, like Japanese advice for me, that sort of
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  thing. So I was like what, 19 or so and
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  keen to learn. And, and his like, one bit of
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  advice is like, if you don't remember anything else, remember
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  this like edit in, don't edit out.
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  And that absolutely changed my entire approach to editing and
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  critiquing my own work. Because like I say, I mostly
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  shoot live music, right? And at those events, you have to
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  be fast. And so to capture the right
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  moment, especially the light and change and everything, I will
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  often use at certain moments, burst mode on my camera, which
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  means you're taking several photos per second.
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  That means that by the end of the night, you can end up with a
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  hell of a lot of photos. We're talking hundreds of
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  photos. Sometimes it's in the thousands
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  if you're doing a big event like Battle of the Bands or you're
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  working a festival or something like that.
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  This is also absolutely true for weddings.
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  You are shooting all day, You're trying to get all the moments,
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  all the special moments. You are going to come away from
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  the wedding with, again, thousands of photos.
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  So how do you pick the best ones out of that?
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  Where do you even start? Well, back when I was still an
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  amateur and I didn't know what I was doing, I would go through my
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  photos and just remove or delete all the ones I thought were too
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  bad or not good enough. And then I'd end up with the
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  rest. And it was a big mix of still
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  hundreds of really good photos, good photos and mediocre photos.
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  And they were all kind of there jumbled together.
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  But it was still a really overwhelming number of photos.
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  And having them all together like that, it it's a lot.
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  So when Stuart told me to edit in instead of editing out, that
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  changed my entire approach. Because now when I go through a
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  set of photos, it doesn't matter if there's ten photos or 1000
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  photos. I always do the same thing.
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  And I start by assuming that I am getting rid of every single
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  photo and then I go through each one individually.
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  And I say, is this the best I can do?
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  Is this not only good enough, but is this exceptional?
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  Is this excellent? Is this something that I want in
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  My Portfolio? This is is this something that I
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  want to print and frame and put on the wall?
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  Is this something that I want to print out in an album?
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  Is this something that I am excited to show people?
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  And I only not not safe because obviously, like I say of all my
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  RAW files, but I only like kind of keep, if you want to put it
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  like that, the best of the best. And then once I've gone through
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  and I've picked them out and you, you know, you might be down
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  to 10 photos, you might be down to 100 photos, you might be out
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  to two. Whatever it is, once you've
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  picked out your favourites and the best of the best, then you
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  can go through and start editing.
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  And I like to do kind of, if everything has the same lighting
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  and everything like that, I'll do a blanket edit on everything
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  and kind of like apply the same settings and then go through
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  each one individually and tweak them to make sure the photo is
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  edited as perfectly as I can. Like to the best of my ability.
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  Like I say, you end up with less shots overall and less shots to
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  give to your client, but the ones you're giving are
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  fantastic. They're brilliant.
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  They're the best you can do. And it's so much better to give
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  few really high quality photos than a bunch of mediocre ones.
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  So to show you a little example here from a gig I shot late last
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  year. And here is me very quickly
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  scrolling through all the RAW files from when I saw everyone
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  Says Hi play at Brudenell. And I took a crap tonne of
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  photos this night, as you can see.
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  And I whittled these down too. I had quite a few favourites in
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  here, quite a few that I liked. And I picked them all out,
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  edited them, and then out of those I'd edited and really,
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  really liked, I sent all of them off to the band Nick and the
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  guys absolutely loved the most fantastic.
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  And then I picked out just twenty of the best to post on
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  social media. There is no way in hell you
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  would catch me sending over all of those unedited RAW files, all
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  hundreds of them, because they're not good enough.
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  They're not good photos. Some of them are genuinely bad
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  photos. They're not what I want
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  representing my work. They're not what I want
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  representing my brand. I mean, like, imagine I had sent
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  them to the band and they'd be scrolling through like, well,
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  why is this one blurry? Why is this one so dark?
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  Why is this one cut Tom's head off?
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  Why is Ben pulling a silly face in this?
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  You know what I mean? There's no need for the band to
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  see them. There's no need for the public
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  to see them. They're not good enough.
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  So you don't show them, you call them.
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  That's completely normal and it means the work that you're left
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  with is of really high quality and that's what you want
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  representing you. One of the things actually
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  really struggle with, and it's kind of getting to me a lot at
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  the moment, is I've always been a big advocate for obviously
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  quality of a quantity. In my creative life, I was but
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  quality first when it comes to photography and I'm so proud of
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  all the photos that I post. I always put quality first when
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  it comes to my poetry and the amount of like editing and
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  writing and rewriting that goes into a poem before I put it out
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  there or perform it. You know, I, I go above and
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  beyond with it. Like with my paintings, I always
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  paint the best of my ability and only share the paintings and
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  sketch unless it's like a work in progress.
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  I'm showing you guys like, but I'll only put stuff out there
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  like make a print of it or something like that if it's the
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  very best that I can do, which means putting out less than some
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  artists, but quality is more important.
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  But when it comes to YouTube, we do get punished and penalised
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  for putting out less content. YouTube as a platform and
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  especially like on other platforms like TikTok and
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  Instagram and everything like that with short form content,
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  which I struggle with anyway and I can't really do.
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  But in general, they care about quantity over quality.
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  And so there's always this pressure to be putting out more
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  and more content, even if that means it not being the best
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  quality. You know, maybe you have to rush
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  and edit. Maybe you don't have time to
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  refilm this thing that went wrong because you're working to
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  these really strict deadlines where they just want you to put
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  out more and more and more. And it's honestly exhausting.
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  And it gets you so burnt out. And you're always questioning
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  yourself and second guessing yourself because you're like, I
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  know with more time I could do better, but you don't have that
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  more time. And it's really disheartening.
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  It's stifling creatively. It's it's a struggle.
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  So yeah, anyway, sorry, that was a little personal side point is
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  when it comes to photography, especially with things like
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  wedding photographers, you do, I mean, there are timelines and
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  stuff that you have to work to and that's all disgusting
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  contracts beforehand. But overall, you do always have
• 14:19
  the time to work on getting those quality photos.
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  You don't have to send over thousands of uncle unedited
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  images because there's always time to edit.
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  You know, it's, it is, it is possible like this isn't a
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  YouTube TikTok situation. This is where you do actually
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  have the time to do it, which is why it's a real shame to me to
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  see the product that the client was delivered.
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  So after this bride went off online and tagged the
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  photographer and made a really big deal of it and it all went
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  viral. TikTok has then went and found
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  the photographer's website and they actually found the wedding
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  album on there. The link to it was shared, all
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  that sort of thing. And you can see all the photos
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  and I don't think the photographer called a single
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  photo. It looks like she literally got
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  all the photos off the camera, batch edited them, and then just
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  exported as jpegs and uploaded. Like I don't think anything was
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  done to any individual photos. And The thing is, she did still
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  deliver some really good shots in here.
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  So the bride was misrepresenting the situation.
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  She did get good wedding photos, she just also got a lot of crap
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  ones as well. So let's just have a quick look
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  through the gallery together, kind of scroll through.
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  I've taken a few videos here that you can see.
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  And while there are some really great shots in here, especially
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  the portraits and everything like that, there's also quite a
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  lot of issues. So one of the problems with
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  batch editing is that it doesn't account for lighting changes and
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  things like that. So overall, you can see so many
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  of these photos are quite well, not quite under.
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  They're a little bit underexposed, like the average
• 15:46
  person might not be able to tell, but like if you're a
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  photographer and you, you've seen a lot of photos, like
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  especially I used to work in a photo lab as well.
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  So as well as working at Folio. So I'm very used to printing and
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  handling photos and looking for these like minor differences in
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  colour and that sort of thing. You can immediately see so many
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  of these are just just a little bit underexposed, which is a
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  little frustrating. It's quite funny.
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  I remember when I was at uni, I was, I was in the photography
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  society and we did a kind of joint training session with a
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  local photography studio where they taught us how to do studio
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  photography, which is really, really fun.
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  And he also gave us like a little workshop in like printing
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  and stuff like that. And at one point he was like
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  trying to explain to us like what's going wrong and stuff.
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  And he held up this one print. It's like, right, what's wrong
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  with this? And the entire room was silent.
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  And I was just like going me, me.
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  And he's like you and I'm like, it's too magenta.
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  And he's like, what's caused this?
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  And I was like, well, if you checked your nozzles on your
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  printer, we were like going to this whole thing.
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  It was actually really fun. But it kind of, that's what sort
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  of me, the fact that like, I immediately saw that as too
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  magenta. I was like, oh, like it's
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  obvious no one else in the room saw it because they hadn't yet
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  trained their eyes to see it. So that's kind of one of the
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  things that comes with experience when you're doing
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  photography and art or anything like that.
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  Like you guys might be able to like look at these photos and
• 16:59
  immediately see some of them underexposed.
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  Even if you don't have experience in photography, but
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  maybe because you're an artist or you know, other things, like
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  it's something that maybe the average person doesn't notice,
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  but certain people will. And if you're a good
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  photographer, you wouldn't let this happen.
• 17:13
  You know, that said, even good photographers make mistakes.
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  You know, it does happen occasionally or maybe your more
• 17:19
  monitors not calibrated correctly or anything really.
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  That's there's lots of things that can go wrong.
• 17:23
  But I'm just saying it's a thing.
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  The other thing is that we've already spoken about there's
• 17:28
  just far too many photos here and there's too many repeat
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  shots and kind of unnecessary copies.
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  And I understand a photographer taking, you know, 5 or 6 of the
• 17:36
  same photo. But the idea with that is you go
• 17:39
  through and you pick out the best one and then you deliver
• 17:41
  that to the client. You know, you're making sure you
• 17:43
  take some money to make sure you're not like, you know,
• 17:45
  someone hasn't blinked, someone hasn't sneezed mid photo, a bird
• 17:49
  didn't fly into the frame. You know, like silly things like
• 17:51
  that. But that's why you take so many
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  and then you pick the best one. You don't deliver all of them
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  and then expect the client to be like, well, wait, which ones the
• 17:58
  best? Which do we like?
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  What do we want to print? No, that's your job as the
• 18:01
  photographer to pick out the best one.
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  There's some really nicely composed shots in here, but
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  there's also a few that have really not bad composition, but
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  just composition. There's a little bit off that
• 18:09
  could have easily been fixed with like a little crop here or
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  there, maybe a wonky horizon that's not been fixed, like just
• 18:15
  little composition issues that it would have taken 5 seconds
• 18:18
  per photo to fix. But she just hasn't done them.
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  That said, there's also some brilliant stuff in here and
• 18:23
  there is attention to detail in places.
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  So look at these portraits that are taken in like doorways
• 18:27
  surrounded by lots of straight lines and things like that.
• 18:30
  That's something that's actually really difficult to get right in
• 18:32
  photography, and yet she's done it so well.
• 18:35
  All lenses to some degree cause a little bit of distortion, so
• 18:37
  you might know it's kind of bowing on straight lines of your
• 18:40
  photos and things like that. There are things you can do if
• 18:42
  you're using Lightroom or editing software to combat that
• 18:45
  distortion, and you can often get software that let you put in
• 18:48
  what lens you're using and what camera you're using and it'll
• 18:50
  kind of calculate it backwards for you and undistort the image.
• 18:55
  There's ways you can make further adjustments by
• 18:58
  transforming the image and moving around and playing with
• 19:00
  perspective and stuff like that. So clearly she's done something
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  like that. She's done it really well.
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  She's got all her lines straight, it's not distracting,
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  nothings bowed like and that is a difficult thing to get right
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  and she's done it. So clearly this photographer has
• 19:14
  some skill and she can be fantastic.
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  It's also worth noting that the thing she shot were great.
• 19:21
  She got all the key moments, all the key portraits.
• 19:24
  She got some beautiful portraits of the bride, the groom, the
• 19:28
  mothers, the fathers, the family, the kids, the
• 19:30
  decoration. Like she got everything she
• 19:33
  needed to. She didn't miss any key moments.
• 19:35
  And that's a really, really important part of a wedding
• 19:38
  photographer's job. The raw photos themselves offer
• 19:40
  a hell of a lot of potential and things to work with.
• 19:43
  It's just in my opinion, what let's her down is the editing or
• 19:46
  lack of. Like I was saying, let's look at
• 19:47
  the underexposure here, because this might not seem like like a
• 19:51
  big deal, but if you edit a photo like this, brighten it a
• 19:55
  little bit, brighten the shadows up a little bit, you can make
• 19:57
  what was quite a mediocre dull photo look really beautiful and
• 20:01
  gorgeous with just a few seconds of work.
• 20:03
  If she wanted to do something crazy and put her spin on it,
• 20:05
  she could have done some different colour grading and
• 20:07
  stuff and it could have been really fun.
• 20:08
  But even just just making sure it's properly exposed takes this
• 20:12
  from a fine photo to yeah, that's a really good photo.
• 20:16
  More on photos like this, for example, where it's a great
• 20:18
  start, but with a little bit of a crop you could make it even
• 20:20
  better. So like this one just needs you
• 20:23
  to apply the rule of thirds. As it stands, there is too much
• 20:26
  empty space over the top here. It leaves the photo unbalanced.
• 20:29
  But if you crop it get a little throat maybe I don't know.
• 20:32
  Then overall the photo appears more balanced and it's just
• 20:35
  much, much better and of course let's make it a little bit
• 20:38
  brighter too. I have a little bit of an issue
• 20:41
  with some of the black and whites because it feels like
• 20:42
  instead of them being black and white, they're just grayscale
• 20:45
  for the sake of it. They don't really play around
• 20:47
  with contrast or texture like black and white photos are
• 20:49
  supposed to. But you know, like I say, if
• 20:53
  she'd simply delivered fewer images but spent more time on
• 20:56
  each one, the overall quality would have been much better.
• 20:59
  The average wedding photographer will probably deliver between
• 21:01
  like 2 and 700 photos, depending on how big the wedding is, how
• 21:05
  long they were shooting for, whether they had a second
• 21:07
  assistant photographer or not. And that's after taking
• 21:11
  thousands and thousands on the day.
• 21:13
  The idea is you cut it down and just show them you know the best
• 21:17
  of each particular moment. You don't need to give them
• 21:20
  every single image you took in the thousands and thousands.
• 21:25
  Clearly. As the original TikTok shows
• 21:26
  though, and as people pointed out, the biggest problems are
• 21:29
  clearly from the reception. And this kind of makes sense
• 21:32
  because shooting in low light is really tricky.
• 21:35
  And if you haven't practised it, it can be really, really hard
• 21:37
  and it's very easy to mess up. I've seen some people online
• 21:40
  saying that they didn't think the photographer was using a
• 21:41
  flash and that's the problem. But I think it's a little more
• 21:44
  complex than that. She clearly is using a flash in
• 21:47
  plenty of these shots. Like look at this right?
• 21:49
  But one, the direction of the flash isn't great and two, it's
• 21:54
  quite a harsh flash. This shot would have been
• 21:56
  greatly improved if she'd had something to bounce the flash
• 21:59
  off of, you know, just soften that flash up a bit so it didn't
• 22:02
  wash out the natural lighting completely.
• 22:04
  And it seems like she's probably built.
• 22:06
  It seems like she's probably using a built in on camera
• 22:09
  flash, which is never ideal. They're not great.
• 22:12
  I wouldn't recommend it. So if she'd used an on camera
• 22:14
  flash, bounced it slightly, taking some of the natural
• 22:17
  lighting just and made it a little bit softer it she could
• 22:22
  have done so much. Another example of the problem
• 22:25
  with on camera flash can be seen in photos like this.
• 22:28
  So this was one of the ones where where I first saw it and a
• 22:30
  couple of similar ones. I thought they were taken with a
• 22:33
  disposable camera because look at this pink haziness that
• 22:35
  you've got going on, right? That's a classic disposable
• 22:38
  camera problem caused by a mix of low light, a low ASA film,
• 22:42
  where ASA refers to the sensitivity to light that the
• 22:45
  film has, and a flash which wasn't strong enough to reach
• 22:49
  its intended subject. So you end up this sort of hazy
• 22:52
  glow. Since we know this wasn't taken
• 22:54
  on disposable camera but was actually taken on a digital
• 22:57
  camera, it's likely the same problem has happened just in
• 23:00
  digital. So low light, obviously, look at
• 23:03
  it. She probably used too low of an
• 23:05
  ISO, which again is like the digital equivalent of
• 23:07
  sensitivity light. And she used a flash, which
• 23:11
  again was too weak to reach the subject that she was trying to
• 23:14
  shoot. So again, you end up with this
• 23:16
  haziness. That said, a few of the
• 23:18
  reception photos are still really good.
• 23:20
  Some of them she did use the flash well, even if it's still a
• 23:23
  little underexposed in general, and others she made really great
• 23:26
  use of the natural light. So there is some good stuff in
• 23:29
  here. Again, I just wish they'd been
• 23:31
  cut down and the best ones picked out.
• 23:34
  Overall the photographer over delivered on quantity but under
• 23:37
  delivered on the quality of her editing.
• 23:40
  However, and here's the crazy thing, the main woman who's
• 23:44
  getting blamed for this isn't actually the one who took or
• 23:48
  edited these photos. And she is the person who owns
• 23:53
  the business, runs the business, but she sent what she calls an
• 23:56
  associate to go and do this job on that particular day.
• 24:00
  But she's the one who's currently getting all the
• 24:01
  backlash and hate online for it, or at least she was for a little
• 24:03
  while. Sending another photographer in
• 24:05
  your place can be standard practise, it just depends what's
• 24:08
  in your contract. And in hers, it said she was
• 24:11
  likely going to send an associate, as she says in this
• 24:15
  response. This is crazy.
• 24:19
  I I truly do feel so bad for the bride if you guys haven't seen
• 24:28
  my comments because now it's really blown up.
• 24:31
  I have lost a lot of sleep over this.
• 24:33
  I have shed a lot of tears. This was totally being handled
• 24:37
  offline. There was multiple talks with
• 24:40
  the mom and then everything was kind of, I wouldn't say settled
• 24:46
  because obviously they were unhappy, but everything came to
• 24:49
  an agreement. And then the bride decided to
• 24:52
  post this on TikTok. She stated that I went against
• 24:55
  my contract, which is not true. I I sent an associate.
• 25:01
  My contract talks about associates.
• 25:03
  I do not have to introduce those two together.
• 25:06
  I don't even live in the same town as the bride.
• 25:08
  I'm three hours away. So technically any associate
• 25:11
  that I would have sent that works under me would have been a
• 25:13
  stranger to her. It just states that I will send
• 25:17
  someone that I trust to take her photos.
• 25:19
  So draw a lot of comparison if you've like not heard of people
• 25:22
  doing this before. Then one of my friends is a
• 25:24
  musician and he gets booked for a tonne of shows playing
• 25:26
  keyboard and bass in various different bands.
• 25:29
  And sometimes when he can't make a show or if he's offered a
• 25:32
  different show on the same night for more money and he's like,
• 25:34
  oh, I'll take that one. I'll find someone else to take
• 25:37
  my place on this. And he sends another musician in
• 25:39
  his place and usually takes a look off the top and it's, you
• 25:43
  know, like it's like booking fee and, and he'll send someone with
• 25:47
  the same skill level as him who knows the same material and it's
• 25:51
  all good. It's very, very standard
• 25:53
  practise. It's quite common that this will
• 25:55
  happen if you're booking a photographer or a musician
• 25:58
  through a business rather than booking this particular
• 26:02
  photographer or this particular musician.
• 26:05
  So that's fine. I don't see an issue with this
• 26:07
  as long as it was communicated beforehand and since it was in
• 26:10
  the contract, it clearly was then the photographer or other
• 26:13
  photographer, organiser or business owner or whatever we'd
• 26:16
  like to call her and she tells us that she did go beyond, she
• 26:20
  did go above and beyond to try and fix this.
• 26:24
  I offered raw photos, don't have to do that.
• 26:27
  Those pictures are mine legally under my contract.
• 26:30
  Don't even have to offer a refund.
• 26:32
  It also states in my contract that I do not have to offer a
• 26:34
  refund even if she doesn't love the photos out of something that
• 26:37
  I offered. I get that not everyone likes
• 26:41
  that style and that's why in the gallery I took both and sent
• 26:46
  them both just in case she didn't like that, which
• 26:48
  obviously we can see that she didn't.
• 26:51
  So offering role files to a client is wild.
• 26:55
  It's more than any photographer should ever have to do.
• 26:59
  I don't know how this bride has the cheat to be like, oh, she
• 27:02
  didn't do anything to make it better.
• 27:04
  She didn't offer anything. She's not being held accountable
• 27:07
  when this woman is literally like, I am doing what no
• 27:10
  photographer should ever do to try and make amends to you, to
• 27:13
  try and make you happy. So if you're not familiar, let
• 27:16
  me just reiterate, offering RAW photos to a client is absolutely
• 27:19
  not the norm and no one does this.
• 27:21
  Offering RAW photos is like a Baker offering their client a
• 27:25
  bag of flour and a bag of sugar and a mixing bowl instead of a
• 27:27
  finished cake. It's like going to a makeup
• 27:29
  artist, having all your makeup done and then saying, actually,
• 27:32
  I hate this, taking it all off and saying, but give me your
• 27:35
  products and I'll do it myself. Like it's just not done.
• 27:39
  To put it really, really simply, a RAW file is a large, unedited
• 27:43
  file straight from the camera. It contains a lot of
• 27:46
  information. You generally need a special
• 27:49
  programme like Lightroom or Photoshop or various other
• 27:52
  programmes to be able to view or edit it.
• 27:55
  You can't get a print straight from a RAW file, so you need to
• 27:57
  know how to export a viewable and printable copy of it.
• 28:00
  Half of a photographer's job isn't just to take the photos,
• 28:03
  but to edit them too. So what you're paying for is not
• 28:06
  only the photos been taken, but the editing, the exporting, the
• 28:10
  sorting through them all. Without that, it's half a job.
• 28:14
  If the bride isn't happy and she's demanding that you hand
• 28:16
  over RAW files because she thinks she can edit them better
• 28:19
  herself or she wants to hire another writer or whatever, like
• 28:23
  it's just not done. So the fact that this business
• 28:26
  owner was like, yes, to keep you happy, you can have them.
• 28:30
  Like that's above and beyond. Like she's essentially handing
• 28:33
  over the rights to those images, handing over entire creative
• 28:37
  control. It just, it people could do
• 28:41
  anything to those photos which have your name attached to them
• 28:43
  and let's say they edit them in an awful way and share them
• 28:45
  online with you listed as the photographer, right?
• 28:50
  Because that's hopefully going to be in the data of the
• 28:51
  photograph and everything like that.
• 28:52
  And then you're going to get blamed for the poor editing and
• 28:55
  that's going to reflect badly on you, which is half the reason
• 28:57
  people don't give out RAW files. So clearly if she was offering
• 29:02
  to do that, she was desperate to make her client happy.
• 29:06
  You can't fault her for that. She also, she also proposed, if
• 29:10
  you excuse the pun, to re edit the photos completely herself
• 29:15
  and do that for them. But they were like no, no,
• 29:18
  there's no saving them. But we'll get to that in a
• 29:20
  second. First, I want you to see this
• 29:21
  clip. I just, it's hard because I know
• 29:25
  I'm not going to please everyone but I just wish this was handled
• 29:29
  in such a different way. The night I got the text that
• 29:32
  they were unhappy, it was the mom.
• 29:36
  I obviously try to deescalate the situation, try to find
• 29:41
  solutions. Her husband ended up texting me
• 29:45
  back from the message and obviously just unhappy.
• 29:50
  I think I offered like 3 or 4 times.
• 29:52
  I want to make this right. What can I do to fix this?
• 29:54
  And I never got a text back. It took them over 24 hours to
• 29:57
  reply to me. And this was yesterday morning
• 30:02
  and the mom was super, super nice.
• 30:05
  Obviously they were still disappointed, which
• 30:07
  understandable, but she basically said that she loves
• 30:12
  me, she loves my work, that this little hiccup doesn't stray away
• 30:18
  from how they feel about me. They just wanted me to use it as
• 30:22
  a learning lesson, which I totally understood.
• 30:24
  So it sounds like they would be lovely and reasonable except
• 30:27
  then they went behind her back and just said screw it and made
• 30:30
  this TikTok video that went wild and got her so much hate online
• 30:34
  until people found the photos and then realised the bride was
• 30:37
  in the wrong, you know? So under my SO under my
• 30:41
  assumption, everything was fine. And then I was at work and one
• 30:47
  of my friends sent me the TikTok and she said who is this girl?
• 30:51
  And this is obviously this is a few minutes after it was posted.
• 30:55
  So I didn't get the traction that it was getting and I called
• 31:03
  the mom balling and I just said listen, I'm I completely
• 31:07
  understand that you guys are upset.
• 31:09
  I thought that we had talked about this but I do not
• 31:15
  understand all my bashing at all.
• 31:16
  She just made a TikTok video and I'm tagged in it.
• 31:19
  So mind you the bride has never once contacted me since
• 31:21
  receiving these pictures and I texted her about them or about
• 31:27
  the video basically was saying like listen I'm heartbroken for
• 31:30
  you. Like I've tried everything I
• 31:31
  physically plan. I've offered to re edit them
• 31:33
  which the mom and dad told me and the bride after I had
• 31:37
  confronted her about the video that they did not think that re
• 31:40
  editing would fix the pictures I offered Roz which I legally
• 31:44
  don't have to. Again, this is this is crazy.
• 31:46
  This is the bit I was talking about.
• 31:48
  Sure, some of these photos can't be fixed in editing, like the
• 31:51
  ones that are all like hazy and whatever and like bad
• 31:53
  composition, like basically the ones that were in the tick tock
• 31:56
  right? They are bad.
• 31:58
  They can't just be fixed with new edits, but they don't have
• 32:00
  to be good. You can just delete them.
• 32:02
  You don't need them all. Not every photo you take is
• 32:04
  going to be good. Not every photo has to be good.
• 32:07
  But the rest of them, the ones that literally just need a few
• 32:10
  minor tweaks and they'd be damn good photos like they're,
• 32:13
  they're salvageable, they're fixable.
• 32:15
  So the offer to re edit was both generous and in my opinion, more
• 32:19
  than enough. It would have fixed all of these
• 32:21
  issues. And again, This is why I really
• 32:23
  feel for this woman because she did do all of this and the
• 32:26
  original bride is just lying saying she didn't.
• 32:28
  It's it's absolutely crazy. And I offered a refund, which
• 32:34
  again legally I do not have to. This is all my contract and I
• 32:41
  basically got off the phone with mom.
• 32:43
  She said that she was going to talk to her daughter because she
• 32:45
  had just got out of workout class.
• 32:46
  Didn't see the full video. Well the video just keeps start
• 32:50
  getting traction and the bride didn't text me for a good I
• 32:54
  would say 10 to 20 minutes after that and basically wasn't sorry.
• 32:57
  Said that she wasn't intentionally trying to
• 33:01
  personally attack me, this was just her experience.
• 33:06
  But she physically tagged me and the associate photographer.
• 33:08
  So I understand her. I understand that, but this is
• 33:12
  someone's small business. This does not affect my work.
• 33:15
  I took full accountability. Obviously I did not physically
• 33:19
  take those pictures, but I sent the associate out there.
• 33:21
  I have taken full accountability for that.
• 33:24
  Did literally everything in my power to make that right.
• 33:28
  And this was still posted on social media.
• 33:30
  The photographer made some mistakes, we covered that, and
• 33:33
  the business owner made some mistakes by not overseeing
• 33:36
  quality controls the product delivered to her client.
• 33:38
  However, I really do think despite my criticisms of certain
• 33:43
  photos, like the bride overreacted so much and she
• 33:46
  misrepresented the situation so much, and in a lot of cases
• 33:49
  she's straight up lied. Now, as this bride was only 19,
• 33:53
  there's a chance she's just that young and a bit like petulant,
• 33:56
  you know? And she's also likely a little
• 33:58
  bit ignorant of what you can normally expect from an event
• 34:00
  photographer. However, I don't think this
• 34:02
  excuses her behaviour. The other thing to consider is
• 34:05
  the fact that this wedding photographer was damn cheap, and
• 34:10
  according to like 1 post I read, apparently her packages start at
• 34:13
  like $1800. If you're getting $1800 for a
• 34:18
  full day shooting at a wedding and editing and everything, like
• 34:22
  it's nothing. That is so damn cheap for a
• 34:25
  decent photographer. And I think this woman
• 34:28
  definitely got what she paid for.
• 34:30
  I think the photos are more than like, especially the good ones
• 34:35
  are more than reasonable for the price she paid.
• 34:39
  Anyway, on the bright side, it does seem this woman may have
• 34:42
  learned her lesson because she ended up deleting not only the
• 34:44
  original video, but her entire TikTok account.
• 34:46
  And while it's never nice to see anyone kind of run offline, it
• 34:49
  is nice to see someone hopefully learning and growing from their
• 34:52
  mistake. But yeah, I think that's how
• 34:54
  much all I want to talk about today.
• 34:55
  I got a little crumbly Kuby in the background.
• 34:57
  He wants to go for a little walk.
• 34:59
  Did you aren't your baby. Yeah.
• 35:01
  But yeah, thank you for listening.
• 35:02
  I just want to talk about something a little lighter and a
• 35:05
  little easier than usual today. And hopefully along the way
• 35:08
  you've maybe learned something about photography or the
• 35:10
  photography business in general. And if you like this video and
• 35:13
  you'd like to see more photography related content from
• 35:15
  me, then I do have a video reviewing Brooklyn Beckham's
• 35:19
  photography book, which was fun. Elephants.
• 35:22
  So beautiful to see, so hard to photograph.
• 35:25
  You can check that out. It's LinkedIn, the video
• 35:26
  description below. And if you'd like to see more of
• 35:28
  my photos just for funsies, I don't really do it for work
• 35:32
  anymore. I just do it for fun and for
• 35:34
  like my friends, bands and things like that, which is
• 35:36
  great. What was I going to say here?
• 35:39
  Yeah. If you want to go see them, you
• 35:41
  can go follow me on Instagram at Rachel Oates with a 0 instead of
• 35:44
  an O or on my website at racheloates.uk.
• 35:48
  And I've also got some cool art prints and photography prints
• 35:51
  available. I've got merch, I've got new
• 35:54
  merch coming out very soon, which is exciting.
• 35:56
  I'm working on some really cool things behind the scenes that
• 35:58
  should hopefully all be coming out in March time.
• 36:00
  I'm going to have some new T-shirts.
• 36:02
  I'm going to have a series of bookmarks and designing and
• 36:04
  drawing fuel. It's it's great.
• 36:06
  I've worked on one of the designs with an artist who did
• 36:10
  some much for a Lizzy as well, and her art is fantastic.
• 36:14
  You are going to love what she's done.
• 36:15
  I'm very excited to share that with you.
• 36:17
  I'm just going to spend the next month like perfecting
• 36:20
  everything, putting it all together.
• 36:21
  And I've got some calls to, oh, I'm going to do these little
• 36:23
  postcards off some. I'll tell you later.
• 36:26
  I'll tell you later, but it's exciting.
• 36:29
  If you like to put my work, you can over on Patreon.
• 36:31
  And even as little as a dollar a month just helps keep a roof
• 36:34
  over my head and helps me keep making these videos because
• 36:38
  views are always up and down. And at the minute we're in a
• 36:40
  little bit of a downswing and the Patreon is what keeps me
• 36:44
  going and it's really helpful. So thank you.
• 36:46
  I've got some little bits over there where you can see some
• 36:49
  exclusive videos and script notes and there's some polls for
• 36:54
  you all and some behind the scenes stuff and previews of my
• 36:56
  book, which is hopefully coming out soon.
• 37:00
  Oh God, I have so much to promote at the end of this
• 37:01
  video. This is why I don't do self
• 37:03
  promotion. There's always so much.
• 37:04
  It just feels like it just goes on.
• 37:05
  But yeah, I am. I'm starting to get over my
• 37:08
  little self doubt, lack of self-confidence thing.
• 37:11
  And I've been working on my book again and it should be out
• 37:13
  really soon. It's just like a little
• 37:15
  finishing touch as I'm doing now, but I'm also like
• 37:17
  overhauling the cover design. I had like 4 that I put two
• 37:20
  people on site. Which one do you like best?
• 37:22
  And based on their feedback, I'm like, actually I'm going to do a
• 37:24
  whole new design, but I think it's going to be good.
• 37:26
  Boobie is getting so grumbly and right.
• 37:28
  I'm going to go Walker. Thank you for watching.
• 37:30
  I appreciate you all so much. Leave a like leave a comment.
• 37:32
  Let me know what you think and I'll see you again soon.
• 37:34
  Goodbye Kippity. Tippity, we started Stomp.
• 37:39
  If you could want to say she is such a little grumpy girl.
• 37:42
  Can you say, oh, you can see her?
• 37:43
  I bet she is. There she is.
• 37:46
  We got a little wet bit. A grumble pig.
• 37:49
  Oh, what a good girl. What a beast.
• 37:52
  I know.