From what I have read here and in other forums, Bella is to the wedding business, what corporate farming is to the family farm. Not good at all. For me, turning over medium jpeg when the customer is being promised HI-Res image files is enough to look the other way. It boggles my mind that so many (it must be many or Bella wouldn't be so involved in the market) photographers would have a clear conscience in performing these kinds of jobs. Yes, for some $450 can seem like decent pay for a days work. Not so good, for the client. After all, it's your face they saw on their wedding day, chances are they never laid eyes on the salesperson that booked you. When you show up for the wedding, YOU are representing Bella. Either you place value on your work and respect your clients, or you don't. Bella it seems, certainly doesn't place much value on their photographers or their clients.
Butch I admire the clarity of your perception. A corporate farm - minus decent regulation with large manure pits oozing bacillus and ammonia into the local town's drinking water - pesticide and discarded offal spilling onto the neighbour's lawn.
Give me 3 pigs and a Stevie Wonder soundtrack anyday.
RWR --- Let me be clear .... there is plenty of manure on a family farm as well. They just spread it around more equitably. The problem with corporate farming is it's all about the sale of the crop. Not the quality of the crop or the value of that crop to the customer. Seems it is all about $$$$ and not about pride of a job well done.
Our selling approach can be summed up to: SHOW WORK, NOT PHOTOGRAPHERS!
* Under absolutely NO CIRCUMSTANCES are we to provide "lists" of Bella photographers' names.
If this was really the case then the sales people shouldn't even know the names of the photographers, once the bride books the contact info could come from management.
Thanks for all this info, I didn't really know who they were before but I'd seen an ad or two. I will definitely steer clear now.
