Training the Disney Photographers

[jessesgirl-080708]

Carly, I think your pictures are great! I mean everyone has a few they are not happy with, but the ones inside the Castle are wonderful! I love them! You are so pretty!

Thanks! I do love the ones inside.. but I requested so many outside shots we didn't get. The reason I wanted the MK shoot was to get a really great shot of us in front of the castle.. we got one.. it's just kinda blah..Thats the one I was going to get in my portrait. I think that is why I am let down. I really wanted a good outside shot, but our good ones were inside!

I love my other DPS shots though.. they came through for the wedding day and rehearsal dinner!

I haven't wrote them anything.. I think I am more let down by my photographer in general than the pictures her took.
He kept telling us how he had taken pictures of Tiger Woods.. blah blah blah..
I have taken a picture of Adam Sandler before... does that make me a good photographer?? Nope.
And not only that, some really rude comments came out of his mouth..

I guess there's good and bad to everything. I think he told me about 100x he loved my flowers.. so I just can't decide.

 

[myprincessgirlisa]

well i definitley think we all should do something about this!!

for our 10yr family pics...they were nice pics, but i didnt "like" that "I" had to tell him ideas of shots??? i thought he would kinda bring us around & use his "professional & creative" ideas??
it just wasnt exactly what I had expected....im glad I did it & the pics came out good, but just a little surprised at the "process"

i have to say...for disney being SO organized with other things...they seem REALLY unorganized with TDPS?!?!?

 

[Goldeelox9]

Carly,

What kind of rude things? I think the Castle shots with some light turn out so much better then the all night ones...our shoot is at 5am so we will have all night shots and I have your same photographer. I am seriously thinking of switching. I am so sad Paul left! He was amazing!

 

[jessesgirl-080708]

Carly,

What kind of rude things? I think the Castle shots with some light turn out so much better then the all night ones...our shoot is at 5am so we will have all night shots and I have your same photographer. I am seriously thinking of switching. I am so sad Paul left! He was amazing!

haha..ok. I'll post it.
I requested a specific shot and was told ony "special couples" get that shot It was a very simple shot at the archway of the castle. They are the last ones in BP. We did get them.. it was just rediculous.
At the time it didn't seem real so I didn't say anything about it, but now it's very insulting esp when we dropped so much $$$ for DPS and the MK shoot.
Good luck with Ty.. I have seen some of his MK shoots that are just beautiful! Maybe it was just an off day? Def, tell him right away if you anything in mind that you prefer. Apparently he doesn't like that!

 

[Goldeelox9]

Thanks....I have a whole list of must have shots. I printed them all out and I plan to hand them to him. Darn it. I hope he is nice we will be with him for 4 hours, MK shoot and the Epcot. I was also hoping to sweet talk some extra countires in Epcot. hmmm......I am so confused! I requested him because I loved some of his pictures, but I am scared. These pictures are so much money and I want them so much and i want them perfect. This is the biggest stress causer so far in my wedding planning.

 

[orangetiggs]

just make sure you look at his shots on his camera and make sure you get what you want

 

[jessesgirl-080708]

well, we looked at his shots and he said he was "going" to photoshop them into what we wanted..

 

[orangetiggs]

oh then I'm not sure. sorry

 

[jessesgirl-080708]

no, I don't mean it like that.

Did it work for you? I mean, did he re-take a shot you weren't happy with?
His reply to us was all about how he would fix it rather than just re-take it?

 

[orangetiggs]

no unfortunately, i cant even look at my photos!

 

[jessesgirl-080708]

why not?

 

[orangetiggs]

i would rather not go into it on here as I know alot of the disney people read the boards.

 

[DisneyBrideToni]

I know that there haven't been many good shots for the MK shoot but I don't want to cancel because its something you can only do once and I want to take my chances. I know its a lot of money but it would just be nice to know that I did something like that. Hopefully I will get lucky.

 

[jessesgirl-080708]

yea Toni- the experience of it all is great!

 

[jessesgirl-080708]

I edited to add our photog's experience while you were posting I think but my photographer was Joe Duncan. We had an Escape wedding and Epcot shoot and he did both.

Joe was our wedding photographer and he was great!

 

[StitchBride]

We used DPS for our wedding and had the MK shoot and loved our photos. We had Paul & Dean and couldn't have been happier. I know there are bad MK shoots but overall from what I've seen (and I've now seen alot of them) I think for the most part they are done really well and I wouldn't stress too much about it. Yes, certain brides have had just bad pics (sorry....I can't believe they won't admit it) but I think that's more against the norm than anything else.

With that said, when we first got them, I pictured every amazing shot I had seen from previous brides and expected them all to look magazine worthy and when they didn't, I was disappointed. But given time (and forgetting what I've seen from other brides) I love my photos and wouldn't trade the experience or the handful of pics that I hands down adore for anything. Do I love 100% of them? Nope, but overall, I love them.

Unfortunately and its horrible to say but the photographers are human and can have a bad day. Which doesn't make up for when its your wedding and you've paid all this money but I've seen other photos from popular Orlando photographers that were just bleh and you think "If this was the only work I had seen from you, I would think you were horrible"

But I do think Disney is aware of the need to step up their game and create equally beautiful shots and from recent brides in the last 3 or 4 months, its seems like they are doing that.

On a kind of side note, when I first started planning, I couldn't find decent reviews of Disney floral to save my life. Over-priced, boring, and brown flowers and they started getting lots of complaints. BUT they took note of that, it seems, and shaped up so one hopes Disney photo is the same way.

Good luck!

 

[Racey]

thank you all very much for your honesty Good and Bad

Im taking it all in and can see some common problems that seem to be happening - perhaps if I have this info to point out to disney they may be able to address thees problems at least

I was really shocked to hear that one of the photographers had 20+ years experience, however i still have plenty of TR's to go through and putting names to pictures.

I wont be singling out photographers but searching for common problems to ask disney about.

I think i'll have my work cut out over the next few months but it will all be worth it in the end and I really hope it will help plenty of brides and that disney dont take it in such a negative way

 

[Ember]

We had Ty. I've worked on editing the pictures (cropping, adjusting the highlights, etc.) but I still don't love them. They were all basic, boring shots. Not creative at all. The experience was still worth it, and I would do it again, but in my heart of hearts I will admit that I don't feel the end result was worth anywhere near what they charged.

 

[IndyBride]

Disney reads these boards so I'm sure they are well aware of the fact that the photography does not have a good reputation. But like mentioned before if they feel they aren't being hurt by it it may take a while before they do something about it. ====

 

[Racey]

IndyBride - I guess they tend to only read what they want and ignore anything negative because this problem have obviously been going on for a while

Im hoping that my letter will give them a little kick to start looking into it if they havent alreday.

I want to put across to anyone reading this that it WILL NOT be a totally negative letter to slate them - thats not going to be my intention in the slightest.

I realise that this thread could be taken as a hate campaign against disney photographers, but with any luck whoever reads this will not view it in that way as it is not intended to be. Ive had brides giving me great feedback aswell as negative and my aim is to find any patterns to the problems which are occurring (perhaps making the job a little easier for the person who will deal with it at disney).

At the end of the day I want to get wed at disney so I certainly wont be aiming to ruin their rep (not that anyone could), i just want to make sure mine and thousands of other brides have got great photos because when the day is over, that is all that I will have to remember the most important day of my life!