Thanks all for the kind words!
We did ours at 6:30 pm. The last time slot is 7 but that was already taken. The pics I chose we were not squinting, but there were definitely shots that we were squinting. It was also overcast that evening, but I guess it is just inherently bright.
I can not remember the name of our photographer for sure, but I believe his name was Luis. Just don't quote me on that!
By looking at the composition of your photos, I could tell you had Luis. We had him too, and I wasn't impressed at all. (And here in a different thread I said I wouldn't blast him by name. Doh!) Let's just say in one of our shots, he parked us just outside the door of Capt. Cooks, and had our backs to the GCH. Well, they were doing work to that side of the GCH, so in the background of some of our photos, you can clearly see the scaffolding! When he was posing these shots, there was a door mat that was draped across one of the lamp posts that was right behind us, and when he set us up, it was clearly going to be shown in the photo! I had to say, "what about this?". He then moved us around to cover it up.
We also told him that we wanted candids on the beach, and he was clearly not experienced with candids. His framing of our kids on the beach included parts and halves of our bodies (me & my DW), and not just of our kids. He really didn't have any ideas, so we had to come up with all of them. There wasn't any of the cute ideas that you see here. Had I known that I needed to have the ideas myself, I would have taken notes from this thread.
Our family shot on one of the hammocks was a disaster too. He had the 4 of us lay down on it! My wife looks completely uncomfortable. Although afterward, I suggested that we sit on it and that shot came out better, except he used the building as a backdrop and not the grassy area.
Our shots in the lobby of the GCH were inconsistent as well. The one with my wife and kids looks pretty good, they're lit well and the background is lit well (you can see all of the plants and such), but the one with me and my girls - the background is completely dark and we're just lit with the harsh flash. A shot anyone with a point & shoot camera can take.
I will say a few of the pictures he took were pretty good, but for 100+ photos, keepers in the single digits makes for a really low success rate. Not my idea of $125 well spent. So if you're at the Poly and want candids or really cute ideas like you see here, I wouldn't recommend Luis.
My wife just reminded me to add: when we were waiting in line before our shoot, we saw another couple viewing their photos with the other photog (older, taller guy), and they were great. Makes it more disappointing to see their results vs. ours.
I should have said something right then and there, but I didn't have the heart to. It was the last day of our stay too, which put us in a time pinch (it had been rescheduled due to the weather).
I would do it again, though. I would just schedule it earlier in our trip, and complain right then and there if I didn't like them!
) alone, which we doubled with edits and embellishments in the site.
)
