Reply To: Fauxtogs who should end up on the main page…

[fstopper89]

Sweet Emotions’ definition of RAW is equally hilarious. Seriously she has no idea what she is doing. You know what’s funny? Her profile picture on here, that of the bride on the fakey bluish background with power lines, was posted for critique on a Facebook photography group. Sadly several people commented that it was a wonderful photo. I was looking at it and like “wait, am I missing something?” That FB group has members with varying skill levels though and sadly as well many who are claiming to be professionals in business are asking questions on how to do the simplest things like cloning out the pole in the background etc.

I want to show some fauxtography but really can’t for this girl. I’ve known her for years, since she was a kid, and she’s a very nice girl. However she got a Rebel a few years ago (an older model) and less than 2 years ago decided she was a photographer and started advertising and made a FB page. She started herself out by taking her brother’s senior pics. She had a couple that were decent or had potential, but most were pretty bad. Then she started posting other work she did with clients and she has not improved… in fact, her work now looks worse than some of her earlier work because she’s doing some really weird editing techniques like over-sharpening and over-saturating. She did a wedding last year and it was pretty terrible. She did a wedding in January and it was pretty terrible. She emailed me a month ago desperately asking me to shoot a wedding that was last week because it was a girl she knew and her photographer cancelled on her with less than a month notice, and she (fauxtog) couldn’t shoot the wedding because she already had one scheduled to shoot that day. I told her I could not because I would need much more notice than that to get contracts and payment in order and my schedule would not have allowed (was working that weekend). I felt bad, but for one, if her scheduled photog cancelled within a few weeks of the wedding date you can bet it was some cheap fauxtog and I am not about to shoot a wedding for $200 or whatever. It sucks, it really does.

On that note, a girl I work with contacted me a few weeks ago asking if I could shoot her friend’s wedding in June because her photographer cancelled too and they were desperate. I asked what her budget was and she said $400. I told her I was sorry but I just can’t shoot a full-day wedding for that. I felt guilty for saying that, though I felt less guilty when the date she told me was a date I already have something going on so can’t anyway.