Disney Photographer Mike

[GreenDisneyBride]

Hi all,

We just found out that we got Mike strickland. We love his artistic style and had actually requested him. We are thrilled that we got the photographer we requested.

Has anyone else worked with him, what is his personality like? Did he do everything you wanted? Just wanted to find out some more information on him and his photography style.

Thanks.

 

[SheilaHeartsDisney]

We had him for our engagment shoot. I liked his persoanlity but as far as photography goes he didn't give us any fun photos everything was super posed. I don't think we gave off the vibe of being a crazy candid photo couple. After looking at everyone elses photos I wish we were but I believe to have a good photo you really need to have a good model. You could be the best photogrpaher in the world but if they model isn't good your photos aren't going to be that good.

 

[lurkyloo]

We are TOTALLY the crazy candid photo couple, but the Magic Kingdom photos we did with Mike are very awkwardly posed.

 

[geek+nerd]

We had Mike as the Disney photographer for our Escape wedding. We had also hired Randy Chapman. We had an awful experience with Mike. First, he sat in the first pew with my parents and didn't move around during the ceremony. There were a bunch of pictures of me and DH with his head cut off. Second, he commented to one of our guests that he loves working with Randy because he doesn't have to do anything; regardless of whether he was joking or not, it was extremely unprofessional and made a very negative impact. Third, he did not take a lot of pictures at all. While we had at least 8 pictures of our cake topper from 5 different angles, there were none of our guests at our cake cutting. We were extremely disappointed in the quality of his work and complained quite vociferously to Disney.

DH and I had a trip to Disney over Christmas break and did an EPCOT shoot with Amy. She was amazing!

 

[GreenDisneyBride]

Thanks so much for all of these reviews. I think we might see if we can get amy instead. If we can't then I definitly know that I will be talking to my planner and him during our phone meeting.

Thanks!

Any more reviews are always welcome!!!

 

[blondie1184]

I just found out that Mike is my photographer as well. Has anyone had him as their primary photographer? Was anyone happy with the results?

 

[Ash8716]

We had him for our MK shoot in December and were very disappointed. His personality was ok but as others mentioned things were very posed. It was all the same, there were no unique of fun photos. We were not able to go to every location we wanted either. We were not happy with his style at all!!! Honestly it was the biggest waste of money. He never even picked the camera up, it sat on a stand the entire time while he pushed a button on a cord. I am still so bitter over these photos, sorry for the rant.

 

[Scott_Sheppard]

I think you will find Mike Strickland one of the BEST wedding photographers in the industry. He has shot over 5,000 weddings at Disney. Go to the Disney Fine Art web site and see for yourself. You can not compare what Disney people shoot when they are not the MAIN photographer. Disney's new policy has taken care of this problem and you really not need to take one or two peoples advise when these guys have shot ten of thousands of wedding and 99.997% of these couples are very happy. GO look for yourself and you will see that Mike is a GREAT photographer @@ !!

 

[NoOrdinaryPrincess]

I think you will find Mike Strickland one of the BEST wedding photographers in the industry. He has shot over 5,000 weddings at Disney. Go to the Disney Fine Art web site and see for yourself. You can not compare what Disney people shoot when they are not the MAIN photographer. Disney's new policy has taken care of this problem and you really not need to take one or two peoples advise when these guys have shot ten of thousands of wedding and 99.997% of these couples are very happy. GO look for yourself and you will see that Mike is a GREAT photographer @@ !!

I disagree. You will notice that most of the posters were dissatisfied with their MK shoots, and he is the MAIN photographer in these situations.

More than that, multiple people complain that he doesn't move around/stays in one spot/isn't efficient enough to get to all desired locations, and ALL of these things are an indication of laziness-not a desirable trait in a photographer and not up to the standards of customer service you expect from Disney and from the prices you pay for a Disney event.

I also disagree with the portfolio giving an accurate representation of what you individual experience will be because it allows the photographer to pick and choose his best pieces. Anyone, even with no training or skill can come up with 20 good photos when they've shot over 5000 weddings. I think that to get a full picture of what you can expect from a photographer you must look at their portfolio (because photographers definitely have distinct styles), in conjunction with reviews from brides he worked with previously. This is a common practice for most large ticket items.
I would argue that this is one of the largest communities of Disney brides and no a single bride has chimed in with a positive experience, is a telling sign, and quite frankly, one Mr. Mike should use as a growing experience and encourage him to move around more, or work harder to get that "perfect" shot the bride wants, and encourage more spontaneity and fewer "awkward poses".

If you have a resources that offers more objective, unsolicited opinions on his work, I offer you share them, though.

 

[One_Song]

You can not compare what Disney people shoot when they are not the MAIN photographer

I wouldn't trust anyone who can't handle being the assistant photographer. Our assistant took some beautiful shots. If they're talented, they're still talented as a #2.

 

[Scott_Sheppard]

WOW... This man has shot over 5,000 Disney Fairy Tale Wedding and everybody is freaked out because a very small number of people have not liked his style.

You must remember that photography is a subjective medium, if you look at the numbers, 99.997% of all people that have had Mike Strickland as a photographer over the past 20 years at Walt Disney World really like his work.

If he work is SO BAD... then why is he a featured speaker at professional photography events world wide...

Guess what ?? His photography is stunning @@

So just because YOU and a very very small group of people does not like his work does not account to anything really...

Everybody has an opinion

If you have had Disney's Senior Photographer "Mike Strickland" assigned to you as your photographer then you are a very lucky person !!

 

[Boston Disney Bride]

We had Mike as our Escape assigned photographer...and THANK GOD we hired Randy Chapman. Mike was lazy and sat through our entire ceremony and did not get any good shots of us. It was difficult having to pick the 20 that come in the album that is included with an escape wedding. I'm not sure if you hire outside photographer if they just don't care about getting good shots..but he just gave me a bad feeling about Disney Photography.

But he was a sweet guy...just not the kind of photographer I want.

 

[Boston Disney Bride]

I wouldn't trust anyone who can't handle being the assistant photographer. Our assistant took some beautiful shots. If they're talented, they're still talented as a #2.

Could not agree more.

 

[NoOrdinaryPrincess]

WOW... This man has shot over 5,000 Disney Fairy Tale Wedding and everybody is freaked out because a very small number of people have not liked his style.

You must remember that photography is a subjective medium, if you look at the numbers, 99.997% of all people that have had Mike Strickland as a photographer over the past 20 years at Walt Disney World really like his work.

If he work is SO BAD... then why is he a featured speaker at professional photography events world wide...

Guess what ?? His photography is stunning @@

So just because YOU and a very very small group of people does not like his work does not account to anything really...

Everybody has an opinion

If you have had Disney's Senior Photographer "Mike Strickland" assigned to you as your photographer then you are a very lucky person !!

Once again, I invite you to provide an alternative, object community of brides who have used his work that have a different opinion, but from the feedback here it seems as if he doesn't try which affects the quality of the product the bride and groom receive.

I agree that to an extent art is subjective, but I can't think of a single couple, regardless of their style preference, that wants a majority of their wedding day shots to have the groom's head cut off as in geek+nerd's experience (the entire experience with photos, is recounted in her PJ).

 

[One_Song]

WOW... This man has shot over 5,000 Disney Fairy Tale Wedding and everybody is freaked out because a very small number of people have not liked his style.

You must remember that photography is a subjective medium, if you look at the numbers, 99.997% of all people that have had Mike Strickland as a photographer over the past 20 years at Walt Disney World really like his work.

If he work is SO BAD... then why is he a featured speaker at professional photography events world wide...

Guess what ?? His photography is stunning @@

So just because YOU and a very very small group of people does not like his work does not account to anything really...

Everybody has an opinion

If you have had Disney's Senior Photographer "Mike Strickland" assigned to you as your photographer then you are a very lucky person !!

You seem to be overreacting a bit. No one is "freaked out", the OP asked for others to share their experiences, that is what people are doing. It is hard to feel you are adding anything to the discussion, in a rational way, if you don't provide some evidence to support what you say. You can't throw out a number like 99.997-- how incredibly specific-- without giving any positive examples. If you are going to attack people:

"So just because YOU and a very very small group of people does not like his work does not account to anything really..."

You might not want to promote your business in your signature. Seems like a great method to drive traffic away.

 

[SheriBerry]

We also had Mike for our engagement photos. We must not be that "candid photo" couple either because all of our pictures were extremely posed. Now, I'm not saying that some of the pictures didn't turn out well, but you can definitely see which were more posed and which were not.

 

[librarygeek]

You must remember that photography is a subjective medium, if you look at the numbers, 99.997% of all people that have had Mike Strickland as a photographer over the past 20 years at Walt Disney World really like his work.

You say "if you look at the numbers." Can we look at the numbers then? Where is the actual data to support what you are saying? I think having that information would be very useful to the OP.

I do think photography can be very subjective. However, the stories of his laziness are what gets me - sitting down, not holding the camera, etc. Even if he had only done this a handful of times and it's just a huge coincidence that everyone it happened to posted here about it, I would still be very concerned that he would take that sort of approach to anybody's wedding and would be a little worried about my own (if I was in this situation).

 

[Scott_Sheppard]

Really... This thread was 3 or 4 of the thousands of people that Mr Stkickland has photographed.

Do you think that everybody hangs out in online forums talking about their wedding ???

NO...

I have been to a LOT of Disney Fairy Tale Weddings and have seen first hand the quality of the work that is done by these photographers.

I am just fed up with people bashing Disney photographers.

If these Disney photographers where not working for Disney and had their own outside companies then everybody would be all happy and promoting them like the best thing since sliced bread !!

Who is NEXT on the BASHING WAGON ?? Joe ? Ty ? Amy ? Rick ??

As to my Signature... I am not trying to promote or drive any traffic to any of my sites. I can really care less to tell you the truth. Also the Disney based radio programing we do does make ANY MONEY :-$ Other people here have many links in their signatures pimping what they do to make money, I do not !! What is on our site ? Links back to DISNEY !! We just do these because we love all things Disney.

 

[DoomBuggy0922]

Really... This thread was 3 or 4 of the thousands of people that Mr Stkickland has photographed.

Do you think that everybody hangs out in online forums talking about their wedding ???

NO...

I have been to a LOT of Disney Fairy Tale Weddings and have seen first hand the quality of the work that is done by these photographers.

I am just fed up with people bashing Disney photographers.

If these Disney photographers where not working for Disney and had their own outside companies then everybody would be all happy and promoting them like the best thing since sliced bread !!

Who is NEXT on the BASHING WAGON ?? Joe ? Ty ? Amy ? Rick ??

As to my Signature... I am not trying to promote or drive any traffic to any of my sites. I can really care less to tell you the truth. Also the Disney based radio programing we do does make ANY MONEY :-$ Other people here have many links in their signatures pimping what they do to make money, I do not !! What is on our site ? Links back to DISNEY !! We just do these because we love all things Disney.

This is really unfair. People are just giving their honest reviews, not "bashing" them. If people don't like something their photographer did, then they have every right to give a negative review. I certainly wouldn't call this thread a "Mike Strickland Bashing Wagon."

There was a recent thread about Ty, and people only said good things about him. The same can be said for numerous Amy threads too.

And we have all said negative things about non-Disney photographers when problems have arisen, by the way.

 

[librarygeek]

Really... This thread was 3 or 4 of the thousands of people that Mr Stkickland has photographed.

Then why not direct the OP to a thread or reviews that are positive? She asked for first hand experiences and that is what she is getting. Making general statements without the actual evidence to support it (real brides and grooms that had him) isn't really that useful here. I understand your desire to defend someone that you think is talented, but I don't feel like anyone is really bashing - they are just sharing their experiences, like the OP asked.