If you're looking for a photographer who takes 11.5 months to deliver your wedding album and threatens to sue you, we highly recommend SepAsh.
We hired them for our wedding. They were nice and responsive and did a good job with our trial engagement photoshoot to win the contact.
We paid for 2 photographers. Ashkan showed up with a very junior person who was "carrying a camera". She basically was mostly standing around or assisting Ashkan rather than shooting. That was our first disappointment.
Once we got the photos, there were some very essential ones missing, like photo of the gown, our traditional spread from the ceremony, etc. I was so furious. Knowing he had messed this up, he was kind and offered to shoot my dress. But at that point, the dress was dirty and wrinkled and basically didn't necessary look good. But the ceremony spread was gone and re-shooting was not an option. we had to asked around our guests if anyone had a good shot for the album.
When we got the photos, there were some really good ones but most were just average. There was a nice photo of bride/groom but had a pretty big "sun spot" on it and didn't look good at all on groom's grey jacket. When we asked him to re-touch he said: "I think the sun-spot makes the photo more interesting and artistic, I would leave it". Seriously? By what standard? Are you just lazy or you don't know how to do it? We had to ask over and over to finally have it fixed by December 1, 2.5 months later.
From September 15 initial release of photos, till mid February we were just sitting around waiting to see first draft of album design, which we paid extra for. We called/texted/emailed to follow up, No response or just some lame excuses.
We found out they recently had a baby so I suppose they were busy with personal life, which I understand; but you also have a contract and client. If you're too occupied with family, don't take on new projects. Also it turned out it was their first time designing an album, which caused more delays as they were still in learning process and shopping around for album design software. We felt cheated.
After months of following up, he finally sent a list of 9 printing companies to us "the client" to do the research instead of using his "professional judgment/knowledge" as a photographer to pick 1 or 2 options as best severed our purpose. So we had to google each to find the website and check out our printing options. But since we were not photographers and didn't have a login, we couldn't find much details on pricing. We sent him few options and what we liked our album to look like (dimension, cover style, etc) and asked him to give us an estimate on number of pages and pricing. Absolutely no response on this.
On our initial email regarding album, we confirmed the Square 12x12 dimension. However, the first draft was in a completely different format and size. When we asked to resize to 12x12, we had to listen to their complaint and fuss about it taking time to reformat. Not our fault they didn't do it right first time! And making us feeling guilty about the change we requested. Also bad judgement on album design and picking photos. The first spread contained 3 photos of the invitation at different angles or zoom. Who needs to look at the same photo repeated on a full spread, specially the invitation?!!!
Finally we got our album the week before our 1st year anniversary and the production part only took one week!
Our big mistake was paying them a very generous tip up front at the night of the wedding, showing our good will. As you can imagine, we were so exhausted and annoyed at this process. So we called and asked them if we can get a discount on the album cost (not free, a discount) for all the trouble and headache they have caused us and basically bad service. We thought they get paid for their work and we save some money for a service we didn't get. Even if they covered the album cost completely, there was still a decent amount left for tip.
We tried to connect with them to come up with a solution that makes both parties happy. But they refused to answer our calls/v-mails or emails. After couple of weeks, they sent us a long nasty email, using very poor unprofessional language and threatening to take us to court and sue if the don't pay in full amount in 30 days and that "there was no deadline". We tried reaching out to them again to resolve the dispute but no response.
We considered going to court to defend ourselves but decided to send a check as we didn't care to waste another minute on this and give them the chance to cause us any more pain than they already have. We didn't appreciate the way they handled the project and carried themselves as "professionals". Wish they had the integrity and decency to own up to their shortcomings/mistakes and mature enough to try solving the dispute by communicating as adults rather than a sue threat. A cheap move. They never confirmed the receipt of our check either. Completely unprofessional. read more
