Take fake pictures on a different wedding, like Ross did on Friend's

-t

Wow, just wow...I feel so bad for him. I'm a very nice person, but if someone lost my wedding pictures, I would be furious (to put it lightly). I mean, that's a once in a lifetime day...yikes, career change or not, he better get ready for some serious consequences. If I were him, I'd look hard.

The newlyweds will not be understanding. They will be angry and demanding. He should expect to have to deal with lawyers and yelling. I hope he finds it.

Lie.

A lie won't even help, bottom line is that he doesn't have the pics, and he shot digital and didn't back up on the scene. At least if it were film he could have blamed the lab.

Who needs wedding day pictures when you have each other? They'd be a shallow couple of people if they sued someone for an honest mistake.

I think I'm going to mention to him to go seek a lawyer just to be ready in case they indeed do decide to sue.

Skip town. Change his name. Grow a beard.

Honestly--you're right. How many times in 23 years have we sat down to look at our wedding pix? Once.

Wedding pics are for posterity. We don't look at them often, but we have wedding pictures from many of our ancestors and they are treasured and will remain so for many generations to come.

1. I would NOT have hired a photographer who did not have a form of backup. Digital or not.

2. because of #1, I would have been much less likely to be in that position.

3. If it did happen to me, as a client, I would be furious beyond belief. I would do everything I could to let as many people as possible know that he is irresponsible. Web page, newspaper ads, whatever.

4. As a photographer, I would not be foolish enough to NOT have a backup. ESPECIALLY if I went all digital.

Your photographer friend should have a lawyer queued up for this incident for sure. It may not destroy his business, but he should be prepared for some hard times and most of all he needs to learn from this.

Offer to take pics of their next wedding for free?

If he can't find the card, then here's nothing he can do 'cept tell the truth. Hopefully they can get pics from their guests. Maybe he can offer to fix those pics and make them look more professional?

If he really loves being a photographer then I don't think he should change career just because of this one incident - accidents happen; it's not like he purposely lost the card. Good luck to him.

Rule one: never annoy the bride. He just broke rule one. Find a good lawyer, and prepare for hell.

This is why I don't do weddings.

On this note, I'd be willing to bet a majority of his business is from word of mouth. If he doesn't give it up, he's going to be hurting for clients in the near future.

Ouch... Run for his life maybe? I know if my wife had found out that our wedding photographer had lost our pics, she would be furious!!! For that matter, so would I! Keep us informed.

Not these days

I hate to say it, Mally, but your friend is screwed beyond all human comprehension of the term 'screwed'. The wrath of a newlywed couple whost photographer has lost their pictures is an awesome and terrible thing to behold.

Basically, you have three options. One, look harder than you've ever looked for anything in your life. Two, skip town. Three, commit seppuku.

I hate to say it, but really any professional photographer should take precautions for all kinds of equipment failures, light leaks and such. Digital media is no exception. There should never be just *1* media card, or even 1 camera. I have worked at weddings and other functions, and I have always, always made sure I had more than one of everything.

Having only one card, and then losing it is just plain unprofessional. How one gets to be a working professional, and doesn't learn this basic concept is beyond me, really. Nevertheless, he should accept his mistake and learn from it.

And hope neither husband and wife happens to be of the litigious lawyer persuasion...

In times like this I've found that the best thing to do is to be honest. Complete honesty. He should look around for the card some more and if he can't find it, he should just let them know straight up. Bigger mistakes are made everyday, who knows, they might understand.

As Rain suggested, perhaps he can offer to clean up any pictures they can collect from their guests.

get a list of everyone that attended the wedding.

call and ask if they found a memory card.


I think the limit of financial liability will be whatever was charged for the photography.


The girl I married would have killed the photographer that lost her pictures.

Probability of the couple understanding the mistake: 0.0001%. Seriously, he's in big trouble. I agree with the suggestions of getting a lawyer.

Just called him and no luck as of yet. Keep in mind that Saturday July 3rd will be the two week mark so he should be hearing from the couple very soon. At this point, I told him to not give up and keep the search going.

I haven't gotten pissy at him because I'm sure he doesn't need me to tell him that it was stupid to not backup his stuff on the spot. But I did mention to him that from now on he should backup on the spot and once he is finished shooting to take the card out of the camera and put it in a strong box just to be extra safe.

The search continues...

Don't get his hopes up.

Although it is entirely possible that the two people who've ever existed on this planet who even might understand the loss of their wedding pictures might both be living in this time period, have met, have gotten married, and chose his friend as a wedding photographer, the odds are only slightly longer than those of me repeatedly quantum-tunnelling a few millimeters at a time all the wat from Washington to Tokyo.

Come to think of it, forget about my idea of skipping town; they'll hunt him down to the ends of the Earth for this one. Seppuku is looking more and more viable.

I realize that honest mistakes happen but this dude, friend or not, deserves what he gets. If he's trying to be a pro, he should act like one, multiple cameras, batteries, memory cards.

If he was volunteering or doing this for free, then it's the couple's stupidity in not having anyone else doing it. But if he was contracted to this and let something as careless as losing the only memory card with any photos on it, then he should not be a photographer and should be resigned to having some difficulties ahead.
Sorry to sound harsh. Hopefully, he'll find it and learn from his mistake. But he should have been prepared and never let himself end up in such a position to begin with.

You're right. I seriously feel bad for the consequences he'll most likely have to face, even though as a professional he should've known better.

I'm no professional photographer, but wouldn't it be wise of a pro to not even use one card the whole time during the wedding? Even as an amateur I've been around digital photography enough to see a fair share of flash cards get corrupted and lose data.

You know, I wonder if it's possible to get digital cameras which use multiple flash cards, in a sort of RAID-like system. That ought to help minimize the problem of dead cards.

While we're at it, can I please get a RAID brain

Would minimalize the outcomes of brain-farts, lost brain etc...

-t