Hi,
I got married last year; and after a lot of effort that i won't relate here, i got the photos from the photographer who shot the venue.
I don't want to deal with this photographer again due to really awful customer service but I need (well my wife is the one requesting it) a photo album.
My wife and I selected around 105 to 110 photos that we would like to include in an album.
They all are high-res JPGs already tweaked, I would like a leather album (something similar to KISS albums), size 10 to 13 inches wide by 10 to 13 inches in height, it does not have to be square of course.... I live in Brooklyn, New York.
Could you send me by email some album examples you might have, with the price (including delivery) and time estimate for this delivery? Also if you cannot do it but you know a professional that might be interested in doing this job, could you send his/her info along?
Hi Dave,
I followed the advise from people in this forum and after extensive research on his turf and finding people and businesses linked to him, I wrote him a very detailed email explaining my frustration for his lack of communication (I also let him know that i knew he was working and healthy and included some names of his latest clients that I got from my research) and that i couldn't understand why he didn't at least drop me a short email even to say that he lost the photos(that was my initial fear) or whatever. I also mentioned some other legal matters that i was willing to pursue.
I got a reply back from another person who said was his assistant in less than an hour. She said that they had been really busy; and this was the main reason why they didn't get in touch with me for over a month of futile one way communication from my part...she apologized for that and after 3 more emails we convened that they would send me the DVDs with the photos, which i got 2 weeks later.
I am afraid to request this guy's services again and go through the same bad customer service experience; this is a matter of trust and I do not trust him.
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Brian, i don't have any doc from the photographer allowing someone else to create an album from his work but I paid a decent amount of money for his services and the RAW files were included.
Since RAW files are like film negatives I am assuming that i can print them for my own use as long as I don't claim I am the author (which is impossible since i am one of the subjects in a bunch of the photographs) but i dont have a lot of info regarding the legal ramifications on this matter.
can anyone shed some light on this issue?
If he gave you a copy of the images on CD with a release to print from it, that is all the release you need. One of the many reasons we don't give copyright release cds. It's yours to do whatever you want with.
Oscar, you've got two different questions that, even thought its a legal grey area, still have the same answer.
Legally, the lab must have a release from author (photographer) to print any photos. the issue is copyright - it belongs to the photographer. Now you don't have to have copyright to print but you need at least a release from the photographer to get it printed.
This goes for prints AND albums.
Now, you may be able to find a photographer/album designer willing to forego the release but you will definitely have a harder time.
Any chance you could e-mail the assistant back to get a limited copyright release for printing?
Can you clarify something for me? In the first post, you indicated you have jpegs. In post#4, you indicated that you contracted for raw files? Which do you actually have? Did you do any file processing yourself?
I got from him the RAW (DNG) files, and like 400+ tweaked JPG files that he considered appropriate or the best.
There were a number of people in his JPG selection that I never saw in my life before and he left out other people that are important to me, so, I edited some DNG files from where i generated extra JPGs. Right now my selection is a mix but 90% of the JPGs I want to print were provided by him.
I have been looking for the contract (which took place in February 2007) but thus far i have only found 3 PDFs but none of them mention the files format or copyright release... and this is obviously my entire fault.
It looks like i have 3 options here:
- Contact him and ask for a darn album with my selection and give him more business even when i consider he does not deserve it (besides worrying about when it will be done, etc).
- Contact him and ask him for limited copyright release for printing so, someone else can do this job.
- Do it myself in InDesign or Photoshop using someone else's template.
You can check your contract to see if your DVD copy allows you to do any reprints you want. I have seen that in some of the standard wedding photograpahy contracts.
