My wife and I are expecting our first child. My in-laws got us a maternity photo shoot which costed $1800 for 2 hours. It included make up for my wife and access to a wardrobe. Everything was great the pictures were beautiful when shown. But now she sent us a proofing of about 300 photos to choose 15 for further editing and touch up. All photos she sent have watermarks and are blurry and don’t have the sharpness like when she was taking them and showing us. We asked about this she stated it’s common. Because people try to steal extra pictures by screenshot. We asked about adding a few extra. She wants $100 per 1 photo $300 for 5 and $800 for 20 I was so confused. And asked what happens to the photos we don’t get she said they will be deleted. To which I said but why couldn’t we have the unedited photos if you’re going to delete them, there’s a lot of really good pictures we like. She paused and said that just how things are done and this is standard. Idk it’s really making me want to never deal with a professional photographer again. Cause it seems like a money grab to me. Am I wrong?
very fair and very reasonable from the photographer. you can offer to buy the raw files but they will be much more.
we provide a service with a end product that has our name attached to it. thats why you can’t have the unedited photos. its the same for weddings and any other commercial work done for big brands. some brands do pay for the ability of having the raws so they can edit it themselves and that premium is hundreds to thousands PER raw.
you are also choosing the 15 BEST from 300. why do you need another 20-30 photos that most likely look almost the same? you want to hang up the BEST photo of yourself in your house not 1 best and 20 mediocre ones.