Professional Photos March 2013

About twice a year, I look for deals from Groupon or Living Social in order to get cheap family photos.  I love taking my own photos of the kids (although lately, I have been pretty lazy and have just been using my phone's camera...but it's hard to keep up with two little kids AND a bulky camera!), but that means that I am never in the pictures myself (not that I am vain and NEED to be in the pictures, but you know, I want my kids to grow up knowing that I was around!).  This particular photographer that I purchased a Living Social deal through (who shall remain nameless but if you are truly curious, you can see his watermark on the lower left hand corner of his photos) really peeved me.  Granted, I waited until the deal was about to expire until I set up a photo session, which meant that the only availability he had was during the week (strike one for this guy: lack of flexibility).  So that eliminated the opportunity for a family session.  But I thought, better to take photos of the kids than to allow the deal to expire.  How this particular photographer decided to do things was that he set up a "photo viewing session" a couple of weeks after the photos were taken.  He had put together a nice slideshow of all of the pictures he took...and they were pretty good.  But then the pressure started....he kept hounding me to purchase photos and canvases through him...I am talking HUNDREDS of dollars...for, like ONE canvas.  Is this a joke???  Anyone who has been to my house knows that I am a minimal decorator and the majority of photographs in my house are magnetized on the fridge.  I print out about 3% of my own photos.  Anywho, long story short, apparently all I got with my deal was the photo session and 12 digital images of HIS discretion.  Needless to say, he picked 12 of my least favorite photos.  AND these are low resolution pics, which means if I wanted to print them out myself, they will be of poor quality.  AND these are the unedited proofs.  So in the end, I think this photographer sucks; he could have made a lot more money off of me had he allowed me to purchase one or two of his edited (i.e. cropped, colored correctly) images so I could post them on my blog and brag about his work.  AND, I am showcasing poor quality on my blog.  What a pretentious *&%$#.  But in good news, apparently even "professional" photographers need to crop and edit their own pictures.  Makes me wanna brush up on my photoshopping skills...I could actually be good, haha.