Photographers

I am reluctant to ask this question because I'm now not sure whether people are allowed to make recommendations! But when I was on the weddings website despite advertisers we were still allowed to make suggestions so I'm hoping it's ok...

Anyway - I've noticed with photographers there's a lot of scams out there, where they might have a great deal on free sittings etc. but then it costs thousands of dollars to get your photos!!! We really don't have much money to spend but I really want to get a family portrait before DS gets too much older - so in the next few months really. I mean, I was thinking Pixie fotos but I figure their quality is probably not very good - I just need something that is affordable but nice.

Any suggestions?.... (she asks tentatively wondering if it will be deleted!?)

nothing wrong with pixi fotos. have you done a search - and maybe check facebook, there are heaps on them and lots of newer ones.... in fact i bet if you post there about photographers you will be inundated.

I think you should fly Kylie Cassidy Photography up to Auckland .. she rocks!

LF at the moment DH and I can't afford to fly ourselves anywhere for a much needed holiday let alone someone else but thanks...

I'm ok with studio photos at the moment.

do you have any photography schools/uni/classes around your area? im thinking about going to otago polytech photography class and asking if anyone wants some pics for their portfolio... hopefully (my idea anyway) would be to pay a discounted rate (ie. $100-$200 and perhaps only $100ish for the disk of photo, but allow them the use of the pics in their portfolio, for editing, for job applications, for assesments etc.... since they are still learning and arent "photographers" yet (classed as a student) they might go for it...?


dont know if that would work or not... but they can only say no... lol.

Its not a scam, its normal industry practice to charge for prints and re-prints that's how they make their money.

Photographers will either charge a nominal sitting fee and then extra for prints/reprints.
Or they charge a higher sitting fee and provide you with a CD/DVD of images that you print yourselves.
Depends on your photographer as the better ones wont do this, as they're protecting the quality of their work. They don't want to see their images re-hashed in photoshop by an end user.

Pixie / Studio Portraits (they're called here) photos are ok if you get someone who knows what they're doing. We got a free one through them for our engagement photos, they don't seem to be trained photographers more sales people giving the same sales pitch to everyone. 
We were also asked to wear white, and photographed against a white background gives an odd image.

Were you happy with the images from your wedding photographer?  Why not use them?

Yeah it's not a scam, you just need to really look into it, or read the fine print. We were going to get some pictures done but it was $400 and you got one photo and had to pay something like $250 for the rest...

I also looked into Pixie Photos, one of my friends sisters got her little boy done and the pictures look a bit distorted, like when you look into those mirrors at circuses/carnivals.