Copyright of Wedding Photos from Photographer?

This is exactly why I'm not going with any studio that won't give me my pics on disc after the wedding. Some studios make their money by 'owning' your pics and charging you an insane amount of money to get prints made. It all sounds like a big scam to me and I don't any part of it. That line about it being their 'art' is BS, they just want to make money off your prints.

I'm sorry you're going through this, it really isn't right, especially if you were mislead. I wish I knew some way around it for you.

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Posted by mokie74m

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Posted by GT143EA

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Posted by Jordy1010

Ahh this really scares me now! FH and I have a whole list of things we plan on negotiating and asking to be included in the contract, but now I'm seriously having second thoughts. What ***** is that I still think they do the best work and I really really want to use them.

RereJohn2009--would you still recommmend them? Also what things do you think you should have discussed up front that you didnt?

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IMO I dont think oyu should book with them! I'm not using them and I didnt even look at them but I think its rediculous that they are going to hold your pics hostage for 5 years!!! There are other photogs out there who also do amazing work.

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ITA. You may not think having your digitial negatives is a big deal now. But after the wedding when you want to show everyone the pics and have some of your favorite photos printed you won't be able to and then it will be too late. You should really, really think about. YOu can get an amazing photog who will give you your negatives, and if you don't ever use them then fine but at least you have the option. FYI I have never used BM or even seen his work (which I am sure is amazing) but IMHO I don't think its worth it to not have your negatives.

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Mookie, we have same photog and she doesn't give you high res jpegs on disc. You have to pay extra for that. BUT we do get the album.

MOST photogs are afraid of giving out high res printable jpegs. They fear people will steal pics of net and stuff. Or they won't get credited.

Theoretically even though you are paying for these pics, no matter what, the photographer owns them. The 'rights' you sign is to say you can use it anywhere...they still own the pic.
For instance, they can sell it for stock images.
Basically, you are paying for 'work for hire'.
At least this is how it works in NY state.

They may do great work...but there's tons of great photographers out there. I would stay away- NOT cool to not give someone their digital proofs...seriously- it's 2009! Who doesn't want their photos to email, post on facebook, on this site- ect.

Absurd.

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Posted by mrslegeyt

Yes, you get the first 25 on their site for free and after that it's $1 per picture. And, if you post on their site, they leave the big copyright mark across all the pictures. And, anyone who wants to order a print from the website has to purchase it at their prices. If you go to their website www.**************.com, click on 'Your Br*tt M*atthews' and just find a wedding (you'll have to enter your email but you can just make one up). Then pick a picture and put it in your cart and you'll see how much they charge. It's absurd!

In speaking with the Photo Manager today about this issue he said 'I'm just shocked to hear you say this because we've never had anyone complain about this before.' I knew it was BS anyway but then to hear that other people have actually complained and he flat out lied to me ... that's infuriating.

To be honest, I wouldn't book them. Not only are all of these issues so awful, but they aren't very nice about it either. In fact, once I booked them, they seemed to stop caring whether I liked them or not. I asked to add additional time to the front-end of my contract so that we could get some pictures of me getting ready with my mom, grandparents and bridal party and the Photo Manager basically told me I was stupid to want that because he's been in this business so long, no one ever orders pictures of themselves getting their make up done. I was like 'I don't care how many weddings you've shot of other people -- this is my wedding and I want them.' Now I realize it's actually no one ever buys them from you because you charge so frickin much. They also gave me a hard time about splitting the photographers up in the morning so we'd have some pro shots of my husband getting ready with his guys. They kept saying 'this is your (meaning my) wedding, nobody really cares about the groom pictures.' Last time I checked it was OUR wedding. Ugh, so aggravating. I ended up getting all these things my way and was really happy with my decisions, so what do they know?

It's unfortunate b/c their work is really beautiful and, imo, several steps above the other photographers on LI that I saw. And our actual photographer, Noah, was great. We had so much fun with him and we love the pictures themselves. However, the studio keeps referring to the pictures as 'art' and that they don't want their 'art' to be reprinted in poor quality (that's why they charge so much for prints ... riiiight) but I'd rather have slightly lower quality that no one refers to as 'art' from a studio that realizes that these are MY wedding pictures and I want to be able to share and purchase them all or as many as I want (without going bankrupt ... if not bankrupt already from the wedding).

If you are looking for an amazing photographer (even better than BM in terms of final product) you should look into 5 West Studios and particularly Spencer Lum. They are located in Manhattan but totally worth the commute and small travel fee they charge. They photographed a wedding I was in and then I made my sister use them. Their pictures are amazing and, even better, they put everything up on Pictage for you to share and then give you CDs of your prints. They were more expensive than BM (and BM was a recommended vendor of the Woodlands) so I decided not to use them but now that this is all over it would've been worth every penny for me to not be going through this. They did the videography for our wedding (as well as my friend's and my sister's) and I can't wait to get the video back. They are more like movies than wedding videos. Check out their website www.5weststudios.com. And if you decide to meet with them, tell them that Kacey (Foster) LeGeyt and Shannon (Foster) Parsons recommended them. We LOVE them.

Sorry for the long post ... I could go on all day about this situation!

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i know how you feel. did you go in for your album yet? im going in august and i am so afraid of the extra costs i am going to get becausce 50 pics is jut not enough =(

I,m sorry to hear about those who haven't gotten disks of their proofs or have to wait an eternity to buy them.
Luckily when I was looking for a photog I checked threads here and saw the warnings to be sure the company did give you a disk of the proofs AND that it was high res - - otherwise you can't print the pics only view on pc.
I do agree with the others that say there are alot of really good photogs out there and most will give you the disk as soon as they process the proofs as part of the package. we spoke to one who made you wait either 6mos or 1 yr, another who would give/sell the disk depending on how much you bought (how big an album) but couildn't say just how much $$$ it would be and one who like BM outright refused saying since his name was associated with the work he did not want the buyer to be able to print sub par copies. needless to say, none of them got our businwess.

I am so happy we kept looking because altho we did get a wonderful album form the photog, I also made an album using HP software at home with about 200 pics in it - - to complement the 80 in the photog version. I also did a slideshow with our wedding songs which is easy to pop in the dvd player so it was really nice to have the pics on disk.

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Posted by mrslegeyt

UPDATE: I just got off the phone w/ the owner at BM (Sheri) and she is sending me a CD of low-res images of all of my photos that I can upload to my computer, email to friends/family and post on facebook, etc. I imagine they will have the BM copyright printed across them so I won't be able to just print pictures from these but at least now my Mom can actually see my wedding photos! I'd say if anyone wants to use BM (and I still recommend that you find a photog that gives you all the high-res images right away in digital format) you should ask for this option up front and put it in your contract. I can't even believe I had to fight with them to get that. That said, Sheri was very nice (which is way more than I can say for the photo manager).

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I am sooo happy it all worked out for you. Are you sure they will have something printed across them? Hopefully not. Congrats.