No it isn't my fault you call yourself a professional photographer

[Aislin]

to be fair I deal with a fair number of really well trained and amazingly well educated professional photographers as well as some amazing self taught professionals. The know their stuff and know the limitations of my one hour lab dinosaur of a machine. They also know a few tricks like, always shoot the shot twice, if in doubt use to different camera's so that if one fails the other will be good, uses different batches of film so that if you have a bad batch you won't have All your photo's suck, use the right setting for the light conditions and the speed of film you are using, indoor lighting use a filter so everything under florescent lighting isn't yellow, use lights to light your subjects, use the right flash settings to reduce or eliminate the dreaded red eye.... you know.. the stuff you would know if you say READ THE BEGINNING PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK!?!?!?

Well we have a little princess who comes in every few weeks and drops off between 8-12 rolls of film. She claims to be a professional even has business cards. BUT has no training and does not seem to know anything about the things i listed above. She over exposes film, under exposes, uses bad lighting, wants one person in the picture lightened while the other stays dark. all things our other pros use either their own, use computers to do or GO TO A PROFESSIONAL SERVICE TO DO. All these things are preventable by basic good use of technique but I want to establish she has none.

over the past 6 years she has gotten 3 people in my lab fired. hundreds of dollars of free film and developing. And 2 days ago she tried to blame me for a light streak on her film.

8 rolls of film all had the same streak on every exposure but only half way across each exposure. So I called her and informed her she had dropped off bad film and to have her camera checked.

She comes in and accuses me of purposefully exposing her film to light, ruining her film because i don't like her (I HATE HER) but i would NEVER ruin someone's once in a lifetime event to get back at her. I am not vindictive. She rants and raves so I Give her her uncut negatives so she can take them to another lab (The pro lab where they charge twice as much but your pictures are 18 times better because Dun dun dun... they are a PRO LAB FOR COMMERCIAL work). I tell her there is no way it was caused by our machines because the film prior to hers and after hers came out fine, and that it was on the negative in such a way that it had to be done in the camera.

Still she insisted I had done something to ruin her film.


Long story ends with the other lab laughing at her, her lens is broken and needs to be repaired and she has to buy a new camera mean time because she had jobs she booked before they could get her camera fixed.

does she say sorry when she bring in 8 more rolls of film from 2 other jobs to find out if they also ruined by her asshattery? nope.

I refused to do her film.

she now cannot drop film with me to process or have another person process when I am the only person in the lab, I won't take them she will just have to wait because I won't be accused of ruining her piss poor work. my boss already won't accept film from her she could only come in when, my self or one of the other techs was in so now she had 2 more days she can't get service because she could not say those words - I am sorry.

on a side note she ruined 3 weddings and a sweet sixteen because the streak appears on ALL their photos. so no pics for all those people.
I feel so bad for them. worse because the other lab could photoshop the images and dodge and burn the images to get the over expose portion to come out but she is such a terror to all the local labs NONE of them will offer to help.

[myswtghst]

Exactly NONE of the professional photographers I know use commercial outlets to have their film from jobs processed. Heck, most of the work is done digitally now anyhow, but most of them like to have much more control over how things are processed, and are willing to pay/charge more for professional quality prints.

I'm sorry, not on her behalf, but just that you have to put up with that nonsense from someone who is so obviously unprofessional. What a little witch. Good on you for standing up for yourself and turning her away.

[marasbaras]

Just goes to show ... while good customers are always right, sucky ones aren't.

[Eireann]

Hee hee... that reminds me of an SC I had when I worked in a photo lab. This guy called to bitch that his slides were "too light". Well, dumbass, you were probably shooting on the wrong film speed. I asked him a few technical questions about his camera; his answers were punctuated with a defensive, "I've never had any problems with it before!"

(As we all know, this means you'll never have any problems with it, as long as you live.)

I asked how old the camera was. His response:

"I've never had any problems with it before!"

You've already sung that song, sir; if I put a few quarters in you, will you sing something else, please?

Finally, I told him that we only ran slides once a week (true), and that nobody else had complained (also true), so it couldn't be the fault of the lab.

I guess he really wanted to make me cry; he said huffily and with extreme snottiness, "I guess I'll just have to take my film somewhere else, then!"

"Okay!" I said cheerily, and hung up on him.

[friendofjimmyk]

over the past 6 years she has gotten 3 people in my lab fired.
.

Wah!? How? Why? Was it actually their fault or did they put this shrew in her place?

[computeraide]

she now cannot drop film with me to process or have another person process when I am the only person in the lab [...] my boss already won't accept film from her she could only come in when, my self or one of the other techs was in...

Why doesn't the boss grow some balls and "fire" that stupid heifer? She's lost the company more money on wasted training than she has likely made them in profits for printing her work.

Just because someone claims to be a professional anything doesn't make it so. I could claim to be a professional pencil sharpener but that doesn't make it true. If I were her clients I would be asking to see:

• a portfolio of her past work
• some credentials
• some references from other satisfied customers

This before I ever agreed to hire her to shoot my "once in a lifetime" event. If I want to take a chance on something that special, I have plenty of family members who have digital cameras who'll snap pictures for me. And they'll either do it for free or for something as cheap as cake.

[Apathy]

"I guess I'll just have to take my film somewhere else, then!"

Please do.

[chainedbarista]

I guess he really wanted to make me cry; he said huffily and with extreme snottiness, "I guess I'll just have to take my film somewhere else, then!"

"Okay!" I said cheerily, and hung up on him.

i just LOVE a happy ending!

[air914]

Just goes to show you "cheapest" doesn't usually mean best - you get what you pay for. I'm sure this girl probably charges less than a lot of other people (I can't figure out how else she would get any clients), and people are stupid enough not to ask for a portfolio. Either that or she stole someone else's work and is passing it off as her own.

I feel somewhat sorry for those people that had their photos ruined, but I have a feeling they chose to hire her based on cheapness and not on experience or past work they had seen (or a past good review), so you get what you paid for....

[Aislin]

Wah!? How? Why? Was it actually their fault or did they put this shrew in her place?

simply she calls the head office and accuses the person over and over of exposing her film to light and ruining her negatives. ( we figure she ruins her own film then tells the bosses the tech did it but we can't prove it. and she mainly has succeeded with people who have other issues like missing shifts and tardies so they are already on the chopping block)

we switch dm every so often and with each dm she seems to get one person fired. low and behold we have a new dm and I won't toady to her so thus she tries to get me in trouble. too bad I had already documented her bad behavior in an attempt to get her fired as a customer the first day the guy started. he is considering it as my manager would love it but has to get a higher up to back her up. this is just one more nail in her coffin. what is sad is she has been fired as a customer before and then we got a new dm and he let her come back ( this was 2 years back)

[Eireann]

i just LOVE a happy ending!

Yeah, I didn't even plan to do it; it was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. Then I stood there with my hand on the phone, thinking, "Will I get into trouble for this?"

I turned to the manager, a fantastically cool Deadhead, and told him about the call. He shrugged it off, and I knew there would be no repercussions.

[PepperElf]

I'm glad you cut her off. There's nothing suckier than someone trying to rip people off with crappy service like that. H oping you get to keep cutting her off too

And along with professional quality comes professional behavior.

In my opinion if she's doing this as a job she SHOULD be going to a professional quality photo lab and not the 1-hour store. It sounds more liek she just woke up one day, bought a crappy camera and decided to call herself a professional.

My boyfriend IS a professional. So far it's never been his *primary* job, but it's something he's always very serious about. Not just getting the right equipment, but knowing how to use it, and keeping it in good repair. He's already taken 2 of his manual-shutter cameras to one of the top stores in Japan (Yodobashi) for "overhaul" (cleaning & repair, etc).

A true professional, in my opinion, is willing to take the time and effort and money to do a good job. Making good images will matter more than the money.

And... yeah, so she has a business card. So what? Everyone has them here in Japan. And in the States... hell your local Kinkos can print you up a pretty stack.

Besides, I also know that some of those photography network webpages offer them free with paid accounts...My boyfriend has a stack of 50 or 100 I think.

Just because someone claims to be a professional anything doesn't make it so. I could claim to be a professional pencil sharpener but that doesn't make it true.

this reminded me of something else i learned from my BF. when he worked as a professional photographer in CA, even tho it was a second job, he had to be licenced.
Too bad the 1-hour shop isn't in CA... would be funny, when the SC says "I'm a professional!" if you asked to see the licence.

[tropicsgoddess]

Just goes to show you "cheapest" doesn't usually mean best - you get what you pay for. I'm sure this girl probably charges less than a lot of other people (I can't figure out how else she would get any clients), and people are stupid enough not to ask for a portfolio. Either that or she stole someone else's work and is passing it off as her own.

I feel somewhat sorry for those people that had their photos ruined, but I have a feeling they chose to hire her based on cheapness and not on experience or past work they had seen (or a past good review), so you get what you paid for....

Yep. That's why shelling out the big bucks pays in the end (no pun intended). I'm surprised that people hired or would hire her as their photographer for whatever event they're having with the craptacular pictures she takes.

[TryNotToBeThatOne]

I have heard of the 'I'm experienced but I'm still building my client base' photographer who charged less, basically to get his foot in the door & to build a portfolio. But after that, if something looks too good to be true, it is.

My dad's a hobby photographer & he developed his own b&w photos for years. And no one was paying him for those pictures.

Not to be rude, but you go to a 1-hour photo to get your snapshots developed, not pictures that people are paying money for.

[crazylegs]

Not to be rude, but you go to a 1-hour photo to get your snapshots developed, not pictures that people are paying money for.

I'll second that, having worked in a mini lab I know exactly what can go wrong, how often, with what results. Which is why I now shoot digital!