If you're looking for terrible customer service and amateur photographers to capture your most un-kodak of moments-- you've come to the right place!
I booked with WPS for my daughters dohl and upgraded to their premium package which included a studio session. The studio session with Jason (owner) was fine, but event photography with Danny, customer service, and communication were awful.
COLOSSALLY DISAPPOINTING EVENT PHOTOS
1. The biggest reason for why I hosted my daughter's dohl at a restaurant with an ocean view is because it was a restaurant with an ocean view.....seriously. I expected the photographer (Danny) to take photos of the sparkly blue ocean with the sailboats parked right by us. But when I asked him to do this- he said he couldn't because of the sunlight. I was taken aback because I thought I had hired a professional photographer with professional equipment that could handle taking a shot of the ocean.... If I had known that Danny was incapable of such a job- I would have saved a few bucks and had my neighbor's kid take our photos with his iphone.
2. If you're familiar with dohls, you know that a lot of time, planning, and money goes into decorating your event-- specifically your main dohl table. I hired party planners to make a beautiful and very elaborate 2 tiered table setting complete with dohl towers, flowers, a beautiful backdrop, curtains surrounding the backdrop, and traditional korean foods displayed over several layers of traditional korean cloths/drapery. Instead of taking shots of the full image, Danny took photos of the top, center portion of the higher table. He left out the lower table completely, he left out all of the drapery from table to ground, and all the other table settings. (He did the same thing for the shots of our welcome table and photo table.)
3. Guest photos. I don't have any! I only had 7 tables at our dohl and Danny didn't take photos of them! When the guests are seated at their table, that's hands down the best opportunity to make sure you get everyone's photo because they're all already sitting down and in one place together. Why he didn't get these photos is beyond me.
4. Let me preface this one-- I love the raw, candid, photo journalistic style of photography. The thing about it though, is that it's gotta be done RIGHT. They need to be snapped at the exact right moment and perfect angle in order to produce a great shot.... Nearly all of Danny's shots from our dohl were candid and unfortunately for me- they were all terrible moments and angles. How can a professional possibly snap all their shots at the most inopportune times? In most of my photos our backs are to the camera, we have awkward and unflattering facial expressions being snapped, bottom half of bodies/costumes are cut off from photos, Hanbok (a traditional gown which I also spent a lot of money on) is cut off from the photo, and there were many cases where one photo is capturing just parts of two different scenarios/moments that are taking place right next to each other (I, as the viewer can't tell what's going on in either scenario or where to even focus my attention to. Total dud of a photo.) ....
TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE
I had a meeting with Jason to discuss my disappointment in our event photos. Jason apologized and offered to give me a free studio session. But I already paid for and already received photos from a studio session with him and didn't want/need another. Respectfully, I declined and asked that he return my payment (Honestly though, I just wanted to feel like he had my back and was going to take care of me). He said he'd discuss with his partners and get back to me. Over a week had passed and I still hadn't heard from him, so I emailed asking for an update. Soon after, I received a unknown number... It was Danny.... SURPRISE! From the moment I took the call, Danny was hostile, rude, and incredibly condescending. Truly he was acting the way a bitter, rude, back alley marketplace worker in those k-dramas would act. He told me everything was my fault. He blamed me for his lack of guests' photos, he blamed me for his lack of the ocean view photos, etc etc and eventually he told me there was no way he was going to return any of my money. He said that he's never heard of such "crazy complaints" like mine in all his years of being a photographer and insinuated that I'm a total whackadoodle.
Truthfully, all of this really could have been resolved amicably between myself and Jason. But my feeling is that he didn't want to be bothered with customer service, so he passed my number to Danny to do his dirty work.
Save yourself the trouble and find some REAL professionals to capture your special occasion. It's YOUR big day and you should have a team of photographers who will capture all that joy! Once the event is over, it's over and you don't get a redo-- so make your moments, photos, and money count people!! read more