Wedding Photography

Sorry - no picture today. I have something very serious I want to talk about. Something that's near and dear to my heart, and my profession.

I've been getting a few calls about the recent incident involving a Middleburg wedding photographer who's taken over 2 years to deliver the album he promised in 6 months. You can read the story on First Coast News' website.

This is more than just an embarrassment to our profession, but it's a needless tragedy. It's not about the money, or getting it back. It's about the photographs and the couple getting what should be their first family heirloom - their wedding album.

What really saddens me is that this really doesn't need to be an issue. The article ends with 5 suggestions for protecting yourself. I'd like to highlight that second suggestion - "Check to see if the photographer is a member of a professional association."

As you can see over to the right of this blog, I'm a member of several professional organizations. The most important one, though, is our local guild, the Professional Photographer's Society of North Florida. I'm a proud member of this guild. We put aside our competitiveness with each other for your business in order to help each other, to grow professionally, to raise the bar of artistic merit and craftsmanship in our work, and to help each other out so that things like this don't mean you're left hanging indefinitely for your products. If any of us stumbles, there's a dozen or more ready to pick things up and make things right.

Our guild's past president, Michael Joseph was interviewed by First Coast News regarding this incident. I encourage you to read the article and watch the video from the broadcast, as it highlights the importance of hiring a guild photographer.

Here's the mission statement of our guild:

The Professional Photographer's Society of North Florida is a guild of professional photographers, aspiring photographers and industry related businesses working together with the common goal of improving the photographic industry in North Florida by assisting each member with their career success and increasing professionalism in the industry by providing educational opportunities and promoting photographic excellence through Public Awareness.

I'm also a member of the Professional Photographers of America. Membership in this organization also requires malpractice coverage for all portrait and wedding photographers.

Having a backup plan is an important part of being a professional. Being able to offer this kind of assurance to my clients is important. Please don't assume that every photographer you come across has such a significant support system behind him. Unfortunately, Jennifer and Lee Matthews may not have known, and it seems something happened to their photographer, and they're left without a support system to take over where they photographer can't. Fortunately, this doesn't happen often, but why risk it with photographs that may very well be the most important photographs of your life?

While the guild is certainly under no obligation to "make right" this unfortunate situation, I'm sure there are many photographers, such as myself, who'd love to be the "Knight in Shining Armour," do the album, and save the day for the Mathews family. After all, we're all very charitably minded, with many guild members involved in charitable work such as Operation Love Reunited and Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.

There are several logistical problems here, though. First off, the photographer, Kevin Winter Photography, has not given anyone the images to work with, nor has he released rights he retains as the copyright holder for the images. At this point, without Mr. Winter's cooperation in the matter, it would be impossible for anyone else to produce the album. Then there's a matter of the actual cost of producing the album itself. Without knowing the details from the contract between Mr. Winters and his client regarding the album promised as a deliverable (how many pages, what size album, cover material, and all the other details of his product), nobody can make the commitment to produce the album as specified in the contract.

There's no practical way to make the situation right, and that's a tragedy for everyone in our profession.