KibblesNbitz
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 p.1 #1 · Short story, with a twist! | |
About a year and a half back I was walking along a path in a waterfront park testing out my new Fuji X100 and I decided to stop and take a break on a bench. A guy walking by noticed my camera and asked me about it, and since he didn't know anything about the new X100, I told him all about it. He asked me how much it was and when I said $1200, he was very impressed and said I must take photography very seriously to spend so much money on photography. I told him that I did, and that I treated it as a serious hobby and had been doing it for a few years and told him about my pro Nikon equipment etc.. He then mentioned he was a professional wedding photographer, and how he shot with a D300s and 17-55, 70-200 etc. and asked me if I wanted to work for him as a second shooter, and offered to pay me $12 an hour.
Now, at the time I was only treating photography as a serious hobby, although I thought I might get into doing it professionally in the near future. I told him I would consider it, and he gave me his contact info and that was that. He contacted me a few days later and asked if I wanted to do a wedding with him, starting as an assistant first and grabbing a few shots and then working my way up to being a second shooter.
At the time I was busy with my full time job, I was considering going into it professionally soon and didn't want to step on his toes, and something just seemed a little off/shady, so I declined. Not to mention I made more money doing my regular job and could always pick up extra hours versus lugging a camera bag around for somebody.
Flash forward a couple months, and I began to seriously look into and consider doing professional wedding photography. I was kicking myself for not taking him up on the opportunity to build a portfolio, although I doubt I would have been able to use the images for a portfolio anyways.
Nevertheless, I went at it myself, got my own wedding and engagement shoots, and built my portfolio over the past year. I don't claim to be in a great position now, but I'm content with what I've built and done so far and think I'm going to do okay in the future.
So today I was thinking about this whole story and decided to look up the guy's website and Facebook page to see how he's doing, see his latest work, etc....
Nope.
Turns out he skipped the state, and judging by the angry clients posting on his Facebook page, skipped to somewhere in Florida and is doing business under a new name. Meanwhile, multiple clients are complaining on his Facebook page how they cant get in touch with him, never got their albums, hell, according to one comment, one couple hasn't gotten their wedding pictures at all, and their wedding was almost three years ago. There was also somebody that posted who said they've been trying to contact him for 4 months to see if he will still be shooting their wedding this September, and when they didn't get a response they had to find another photographer, and they paid a deposit that they haven't been able to get back yet.
It never ceases to amaze me how often this type of thing happens, and there's really no excuse for it, it's almost as if people TRY to run a business as poorly as possible.
Well...glad I skipped that one 
Edited on Sep 05, 2012 at 06:45 PM · View previous versions
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