ROGUE Photography

I found Joshua on the website Thumbtack. I was looking for a wedding photographer and he was charging half off his normal rate, $1200 instead of $2400, which was in my budget range. We talked and it sounded like a good fit so I booked him for our wedding on September 14th. The day of our wedding, we started with the first look and Joshua had already chosen a spot for it. It was in this courtyard surrounded by lots of windows with reflective glass. He set my husband up so that he was looking away from me, however when I walked out, my husband could already see my reflection in the windows, completely ruining our first look moment. You would think he would’ve told my husband to at least close his eyes. This courtyard also had a very ugly drain that was captured in a lot of the pictures. I asked Joshua to edit it out. He said he couldn’t do it and didn’t have that expertise. I was able to figure it out in 5 minutes on a free app!! You would think a “professional” photographer would know how to do that. Keep in mind, he chose this spot, while there were a few other areas of greenery outside the ceremony location, one of which he had already taken pictures of my husband alone, while my individual pictures were taken in a parking lot (no greenery at all for me). I counted on him as a “professional” to know the best spots around the place for the best pictures. He had all kinds of complaints and excuses for the lighting and why what I wanted, couldn’t be done. He also didn’t want my bouquet in any pictures and insisted I leave it out. I insisted that I wanted pictures with it. Looking back at all my pictures, I have very few with my bouquet and that’s because I said I wanted them. He made me feel dumb for wanting them in the pictures. We also have very few family pictures. I told Joshua I wanted the family pictures in the church where my ceremony was held. He insisted on taking them in the courtyard once again because “the lighting was better.” Looking back at the pictures that were taken inside the church, I loved how it looked, and even though he said he had to adjust the lighting in all those pictures to get that quality, that’s his job. There are lots of pictures with my family’s heads cut off in pictures that we would have used but cannot. I also noticed that I was wearing a hair tie in some of my pictures towards the end. An observant photographer would have noticed that and told me to get rid of it. I realize this was my fault for putting the hair tie on, but wish he would’ve noticed or edited it out, like I requested him to do after I received the photos. When I texted him my concerns regarding the photoshop requests, he didn’t bother responding to me. He typed a very lengthy email to my mother of why he couldn’t complete my requests, and didn’t bother texting me back. I acknowledge that my mother paid the bill for this, but at the end of the day, these are photos of my wedding as I was the bride, so I would have liked a response back directly to me. I realize I booked this at a discounted rate of what he normally charges, which he mentioned this point a couple times in the email to my mother, but he had never mentioned that I would receive a lesser quality of work done to the photos as well. Ultimately, I have some really great photos from our wedding day and some that I wish were in a different location. I didn’t feel like he was the most professional photographer, with a lack of correspondence leading up to our big day. And I didn’t feel like my priorities mattered at all to him. Please save yourself the headache and make sure to read all reviews before knowing what you’re getting yourself into. If you decide to book with Joshua, stick to your guns and make sure he takes the photos you want. I’m sure Joshua’s response to this review will be full of excuses, as have all his messages regarding my concerns have been.