Ryan Flagler
1/5
We contacted Kaleigh to shoot our annual anniversary photo. She sent a contract over for us to sign which we did. The day of our shoot comes up, things seem to go smoothly. We pay in full. She notes that she will send us some sneak peak photos prior to the full completion of our session.
Fast forward 30 days. We haven't heard a word from Kaleigh and never got a sneak peak. I recall from reading our contract that the photos would be delivered within 30 days. My wife emails Kaleigh asking for a status update and notes the contract.
Kaleigh responds that due to the 4th of July our photos aren't ready. She delivers the photos on day 33. This isn't immediately a huge concern. We could get over the lack of communication and late delivery as long as the photos were acceptable.
Every single photo of our anniversary pose was out of focus! We were so excited to see our photos but they were worse than anything our friends had taken of us. A large portion of the rest of our photos were also out of focus. It initially seems like the camera was focused on the wrong thing. I can see some rocks in the foreground that are less blurry than our faces. I can see the edge of a park bench clearly while our kids on that bench are fuzzy. Upon further inspection, even the areas that seem to be in focus are somewhat blurry. This makes me think that a potential issue is the post processing. We email Kaleigh voicing our concern and asked if she could provide some copies of the original photos unedited to see if the originals were more clear.
Kaleigh responds by asking that we make sure to download the print quality version of the photos. In a series of emails back and forth she denies any request for unedited originals in order to identify whether the post processing was problematic. Additionally she claims the due to weather she over-exposed the images which reduced the sharpness of the skyline. I've been a hobbyist photographer for over a decade and I can tell you that this has nothing to do with the issue in our photos. Simply put, they were taken out of focus.
At this point, we asked for a refund so both of us could move on from this experience without further wasted time.
She denied any refund, for these reasons
1. She is not required by her contract to delivery any number of photos or poses
2. She was very busy, she took the 4th of July off, and she took more photos than normal which is why our photos were late
3. We downloaded the photos from the website
Our feedback for her points are the following
1. She took photos of our pose, just poorly. The fact that Kaliegh is even using her contract to waive responsibilty of capturing acceptable photos is appalling.
2. If Kaleigh needs more time to deliver photos, she should revise her contract. It did not include any exceptions to the 30 days. Additionally, quality is greater than quantity.
3. Kaleigh recommended we download the photos and then blamed us for doing so!
Kaleigh offered to schedule a 15 min reshoot in order to capture sharper images. We had no confidence this would result in anything better than what she already provided. Furthermore based on her responses to our refund request, we had no desire to do any additional business with her. She already claimed once that she's not required to deliver any number of photos to us, why would that change after more photos?
It is of our opinion at this point that Kaleigh is in over her head as a professional photographer and small business owner. We have not heard from her since my last email noting the same 3 points above. I write this review now in the hopes that you will think twice before hiring someone who would come up with so many excuses, violate their own contract, claim that same contract indemnifies them from providing any photos, and ultimately blame her customers for not providing a refund. If you do still decide to hire her, remember when you sign the contract that it means nothing unless it benefits Kaleigh. Please choose your next photographer wisely.
See the crop comparisons (to protect our identity) of Kaleigh's work.
