It seemed at first Tracy Bookman Photography was very pleasant to deal with, but the day of our wedding was a nightmare. First there was the equipment failure which held up all or our portraits before the ceremony. At first, all of our portraits were rushed, and didn’t turn out well at all. We had to continuously remind them of the portraits and people to be in the images that we signed in the contract. After the ceremony, the photographer then held up the start of our reception by taking all of the portraits that were not finished in the beginning.
The real pain didn’t start until we got back from our honeymoon. They knew we got back on Friday, and were going to have the disks of images ready for us then. We called, and were told they had another wedding all day on Saturday, i asked if there was any chance they could drop of our images on route. We were told it wasn’t possible and because our particular photographer doesn’t work Sunday or Monday, we had to wait until Tuesday for our disk to be dropped off. We asked during the call to have the web based proofs unlocked, but they wouldn’t allow access without us first having the disks.
When we finally got the disks, we were disappointed with the quality. The photographer stated his style photography method is “freestyle”, and while we expected that, we also expected an equal match of formal, and traditional images. Over half of the 415 images were black and white that might tell of the photography was under or over exposed during shooting. He never told us to smile, or arrange, or to look at him, or away, or anything else that would make good images. Images had bras coming out over dresses, no smoothing/softening, tongues sticking out, eyes looking sideways, etc. He mentioned that was his style, and those were considered bloopers that clients like to see, but there were no perfect images to back those up.
At our wedding location, we had permission to take photos in front of the fireplace in the main restaurant, and we were looking forward to those photos. Well, during the reception we told him we were ready to travel into the restaurant, he randomly told us we weren’t given permission to go into the main manor. We had seeked permission before our wedding, and we have no idea why he didn’t want to shoot our images there. We should have argued right there on the spot, but who wants to argue with the photographer during our wedding!?!
The worst moment during our wedding reception was when he came to our head table and said he had 10 minutes left of his contract. We told him he was the reason we started the reception late, and he owed us the time. Now, we didn’t have watches, or phones with us, so we didn’t know what time it was. He showed us his watch, and it was 7.50pm, and then he was like, “don’t look at my watch, it’s 15 minutes fast”. So, we really don’t know what time it was, but his contract was to stay for an hour of the reception. The part that really got us was when he was done talking to us, he went right over to the the DJ and said we were ready to start the toast! We were still eating dinner, and then everything got started for the toast, the cake and the dance immediately. We were very disappointed to say the least!!!
We saw a special on the web site that stated if we book with him between January and April, we’d get a free album. We asked for the album after our wedding, and we were told that was only with the more expensive wedding package. The special did not have any stipulations on the package, but were we told we had an outdated sales brochure. We had no experience with him, and got this very brochure from him during our first meeting when we signed our contract. We found out there were several problems in this booklet throughout asking him about all of the problems. Another problem came down to the difference between 50 thank-you cards, and 48 thank-you cards. He said to expect 48, and our booklet said 50. We asked him, and he response was, “if your booklet didn’t have the 50 cards crossed out, and 48 overwritten, then you’ll get 50.
It seemed everything we asked about, they were “sorry for our misunderstanding”. We figured out after some time that although most of the information is in the contract, they also binds other information to the contract in the case of the sales brochure. There was no mention how many images we did get on the disks, and we were told it was listed in the sales brochure. Even though they did take all of the images we asked them too, it even stated in the contract they aren’t responsible for images not taken. Well, they was the reason images were missed.
We immediately started talking to find out what we could do, and requested post processing retouching and softening on the images. We are still waiting for our replacement disks, and are one week overdue now. It seems were we viewed as another business transaction, and not worth the time to create a wonderful set of images that we take and share with others throughout our lives. Which should have unquestionably been part of the service.
We’re just ended conversations with the PPA lawyer in Chicago representing Mr. Bookman, and is also fed up with Mr. Bookman. While I was talking to his lawyer at Howe and Hutton, his lawyer was disappointed with the length of time it took to contact his own client and for Mr. Bookman to make a decision, stating, “He just runs away when I try to give him options.”
The lawyer wanted to settle with us offering a photo album, or anything related to photography. We don’t want anything from Mr. Bookman, only a refund. Mr. Bookman offered to rent my tux, unpreserve the dress, get my wife’s hair done, and rent our wedding location for an evening to redo the photography! What a joke, if you’d have food poisoning from a restaurant, would you take the free coupon to eat there again?
The lawyer wanted to settle for an album, Mr. Bookman wanted to settle for reshooting our images after the wedding is over, and we are not unreasonable at all, but only settle for a partial refund.
Recommend Tracy Bookman Photography, or Abiding Memories Photography? No Way!
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This Complaint is one sided, untruthfull, and biased! These Kind of people are simply unsatisied with anything. I know that what was said about Tracy was untrue. He is an honest man and tries his very best to please his customers. He even goes the extra mile for them.
Jared Sutherland on July 13th, 2007 at 4:40 am | Link
I can assure you the above statement accurately represents every bit of truth in our contract with Mr. Bookman. I do agree with you that he did seem very honest when we met him, and most likely might be honest. I also agree he did try to please us by offering another set of disks with retouching, especially where there was women’s underwear showing in the final image. He did keep up with communication with us just after our wedding, but seemed to fizzle when we started pointing out errors.
I’d invite you to start a dialog with Mr. Bookman and talk about our business and final products with him, our wedding was in the evening on March 3rd. Be specific, and ask about the time contract, and the images contract about the exact images we wanted taken of our wedding day. Ask him if he had a camera malfunction, and if the wedding was on time because of the time it took to crunch all of the images in. I’d also like to share the images with you if you’d like where you can see the exact time stamp on the images of when they were taken to show how he slowed our wedding down. Those images show the slow down, and also those he didn’t take that were in the images contract we all signed on.
Heck, we’d like just to know if he just had a really off day, or had something else going on during the day of our wedding.
Finally, I wish I could tell you everything his PPA lawyer has told us over several phone calls and through multiple email messages, and you might think twice about lashing out against us, and you might start to ask Mr. Bookman more questions about his business. You should also ask Mr. Bookman if he runs such a nice shop, why he isn’t a member of the Better Business Bureau?
Original Poster on July 16th, 2007 at 2:20 pm | Link
Please, get a life! Tracy Bookman is very professional and is a very good photographer. Another bridezilla gone zilla!
connie langston on February 9th, 2008 at 6:40 pm | Link
To the original poster with the complaint:
Having Tracy and his son photograph my wedding was one of the best decisions my wife and I made for our wedding.
After reading your situation, its quite apparent that he must have had a totally off-day because most of what you mentioned (unoriginal photographs, camera malfunction, lack of traditional/formal images, unprofessional involvement, etc) was completely different from our experience. That is not Tracy!
Tracy’s photography tells a story through moments captured in time. Our photo slideshow captures the emotion of my wife and I along with the guests in a truly remarkable way. If you were preferring more traditional photos you should have chosen a different photographer because Tracy’s “freestyle” techniques are truly unique and amazing.
I can’t speak to your attitudes during the wedding or how beligerent you were or were not and vice versa for Tracy; but I can say that Tracy’s personable nature made all interactions with him (before, during and after our wedding) pleasant and professional.
I’m sorry to hear you had such a terrible experience, but I’d venture it wasn’t onesided.
Tracy Bookman is an incredibly gifted photographer that my wife and I, combined with both or our extended families, were incredibly impressed and downright amazed at how perfect and beautiful our photos turned out.
So much so that when my wife and I had our first child a week ago, we hired Tracy to photograph his first moments and have once again been completely satisfied and will continue to highly recommend Tracy Bookman Photography.
Brett Wetherill on April 9th, 2008 at 4:09 pm | Link
Good to see that somebody followed up with a different experience. Sometimes everybody has a bad experience with businesses that end up on this site. Other times it’s not that way at all.