Wedding Photographer Run away

[photo4fun]

Hi all...I have been married for almost 14 years... and a hard lesson learned is to check and double check the references given by some photographers. SO here's the story in which I could truly use your input on. Wedding date: Nov 11, 1995
December 1993: Working at JcPenney I meet a wedding photographer who came into my department to buy Christmas gifts. We start talking and this gal asks if I would like her to do my engagement and wedding pictures. (Insert lesson #1) If you are aggressively approached by someone pushing to do your pictures probably not the best person to go with...but young and in love I talk with my parents....
June 1995: Bridal Show in convention center.... And the photographer is there with her beautiful display of Wedding pictures including one of Tony Dansa (sp?) Threes Company show...anywho... she hands me a list of references and my mom and I go home and call some... we actually talk to 2 people out of the 15 or so on the sheet. Of course those are the ones who answered. :
Fast forward to Oct 1995: I get a call from a random man who tells me my photographer can't make the engagement photo shoot in Big Bear because she just had a softball sized tumor removed from her chest... (Insert lesson #2) Should have started looking for new photographer... young and in love and OH wait it gets better....She had me pay her all up front...young and in love and STUPID!!
Oct 31, 1995: Photographer magically recovers very quickly from her massive surgery and tells me that her equipment was stolen while in the hospital and that she will need to rent, beg or borrow equipment for my engagement pictures and wedding. (Insert lesson #3) Should have canceled the check I wrote and RAN the OTHER WAY.... Young and in love and a TOTAL IDIOT... but...
We compromise on going to the UCR botanical gardens... which if you are familiar with the gardens they are best in bloom in Spring and Summer NOT Fall... (insert lesson #4) Gardens look very dry at UCR in Oct. So we again compromise for the lawn and tress of UCR...
November 11, 1995: Let me set the scene... beautiful pipe organ church with stain glass windows. Carpet is forest green which complements my burgundy and white theme. Insert annoying Wedding coordinator and the Photographer is late.... she volunteers my user man (my bro) to be her video person... Except he should be you know, walking my guests down the isle...but ok.. set up tripod and yeah we think we are set...
Prior to the wedding (I mean like 15 minutes before it's suppose to start) she takes studio pictures. During the wedding she takes pictures of all the traditional wedding things...including but not limited to door knobs in the hallway... LOL!
Ok so lets fast forward to picking up the proof book... I get a call from a person who tells me that my proof book is on the front porch of an address in downtown Riverside. I drive up and literally my proof book is laying on the sidewalk where anyone could have taken it. I knock...no one is home in fact the house looks empty... : Young and in love and STUPID as all get out... lol
I pick up the 1/2" 3 ring binder and start flipping through the binder...EVERY single print has BLACK permanent marker written all over them...She numbered each one, asked random questions on them... and wrote right across my dress....
Here is the link to 4 pages from my folder on Photobucket...If it doesn't work I'll post a few BAD ones on here.
http://photobucket.com/WeddingpagesWarren

Here's where I could use your input... I have scanned in a few pictures and was able to crop off the writing... however the one with my dress and all the details on it... photoshop seemed to fix it sorta... the pic turned out blurry when I printed it and there is glare from the scanner along with white spotting in areas..
Any help would be great!!

14 years without a single picture worthy of being printed is just...hmm well sad.

Oh and forgot to mention... don't know what ever happened to the video that my bro was taking.. fortunately enough (well kinda) one of my bridesmaid's husband is kind enough to video from the balcony of the church... in which the large portion of my wedding video is him focused in on the chest of every girl in my wedding....totally 5 very well videoed chests...

HELP!

[Lilikoi the cat]

rubbing alcohol or denatured alcohol will remove the marker without boogering the print (I think)
Unless the paper is porous you should be able to remove the ink. I would try this with extreme caution only because you do not have any replacements

[photo4fun]

The one picture that says Real Tears... we tried rubbing alcohol on.... didn't quite get the desired result....

Not sure about denatured alcohol.. I'll look into that.

[RogerAylstock]

Carrie,
Sorry to hear such a sad tale. First, is the photographer still around and are the negatives still available? When I was moving from LA to northern California, I offered to sell all my old wedding negatives to my past clients as I was shutting down my wedding business. That might be the first stop and would save you a bunch of time scanning (which is probably violating the photographer's copyright depending on the contract agreement you had with them). As you said, most of the writing is easily cloned out with Photoshop. The writing across the dress can also be cloned out but would just take more time. The problem is dealing with the lower resolution files from the scan.

Here's another idea...do a 15 year anniversary recreation of the wedding day with you and your husband. (You know all the things NOT to do to hire a photographer now!)

Good luck with this.

[photo4fun]

She dropped off the map...no negatives and several law suits pending she ever shows up through BBB.

I randomly check to see if she is still around or if I google her.. I have a picture of her that my brother took.. not meaning too at the time but glad he did so I can compare or find her again.

[Lilikoi the cat]

Oh Carrie, hire me! Roger met me one time!
If the rubbing alcohol didn't booger the photo the denatured shouldn't either. Rubbing alcohol is watered down and will remove sharpie off of hard surfaces and denatured will get quite a bit out of fabric. Use a qtip and work fast. If it still won't budge then lacquer thinner/acetone on a hard cloth ball working really fast single wipe motion repeatedly, not letting the photo get moist. Just like taking scratches out of furniture.

[lvolkjr]

I don't know if this will work, but I saw this done on HDTV plasma screen that had permanent marker on it. Buy a dry erase marker and the eraser or a microfiber cloth if you want to use something sharper. Write (trace) over the permanent marker and then erase it.

You may want to try this over a small portion at first and see how it fares. Good luck and I hope that it works. After reading your story I felt really bad for you and my heart goes out to you.

[TamberBliss]

Originally Posted by photo4fun

She dropped off the map...no negatives and several law suits pending she ever shows up through BBB.

I randomly check to see if she is still around or if I google her.. I have a picture of her that my brother took.. not meaning too at the time but glad he did so I can compare or find her again.

I think you should post her photo on the internet in as many places as possible to especially site that are located in your area so other couples will not encounter such a travesty.

If i could i would take your photos all over for you for free .. okay less cost of ink and photo paper.. or better yet keep it free and just give you a disk so you can do whatever you wish with them. mmm can you still fit in your wedding dress?.. I know i don't fit in mine. but i'm working on it.

[photo4fun]

Originally Posted by Lilikoi the cat

Oh Carrie, hire me! Roger met me one time!
If the rubbing alcohol didn't booger the photo the denatured shouldn't either. Rubbing alcohol is watered down and will remove sharpie off of hard surfaces and denatured will get quite a bit out of fabric. Use a qtip and work fast. If it still won't budge then lacquer thinner/acetone on a hard cloth ball working really fast single wipe motion repeatedly, not letting the photo get moist. Just like taking scratches out of furniture.

There is a picture on the photobucket link that I did try the alcohol on. It took color off the picture.



We used a qtip...and that is the result we got. Looks like she was using a semi gloss Fuji paper for the proofs. If that helps any... :

Hire you for Roger's suggestion of a 15 year recreation of our wedding? I'll talk with my hubby about that and let you know.


Another question... If said person drops off the map and no longer runs her business how long until that name for that business becomes available for someone else to use? I found a photographer using her company name but the photographer's name is not the same.

[photo4fun]

Originally Posted by TamberBliss

I think you should post her photo on the internet in as many places as possible to especially site that are located in your area so other couples will not encounter such a travesty.

If i could i would take your photos all over for you for free .. okay less cost of ink and photo paper.. or better yet keep it free and just give you a disk so you can do whatever you wish with them. mmm can you still fit in your wedding dress?.. I know i don't fit in mine. but i'm working on it.

I'm working on fitting back into some of the clothes that I wore then.. have a pair of jeans as my goal setter... I do know that my dress is well kept in a cool dark space in the very back corner of my closet. When we were looking to preserve my dress there was the HUGE thing on the dry cleaner scams of selling the dresses and giving the brides an empty box. So my creative hubby did his own version of what the dry cleaners would have packed it like. Hopefully it's not bad off... LOL!

[Lilikoi the cat]

Carrie,
Too bad about the alcohol. Unless you take off the marker and get a HQ scan and photoshop/clone the color back in. This will only work for some photos like the one you just posted where you can clone it back in. It looks like the solvents in the marker removed the color as the photo is otherwise ok.
The "hire me, Roger met me once" was a joke. I neither have the talent or equipment to do such things. Or the 450 miles.
How about this idea.
Rather than re-shooting your old wedding how about shooting a "new wedding"? You could plan it for your 15th.

[Quankus]

Wow, what a story. Super sorry to hear about that. I've been doing a ton of weddings this summer (got one tomorrow) with a pro in this area and this just appalls me. I truly hope you can salvage a few shots or can make another special photo in the future.