This business isn't closed down but probably needs to be! I hired Tiana to shoot for my Women's…read moreEmpowerment event and we agreed that she would be there before it started to take pictures of the set up. However, she did not show up until 20 minutes late. All of my attendees had to stand and wait for her so that we could get the shots before they sat. This was quite embarrassing and I decided to initially look over it. Throughout the event, there were lots of times when myself and/or team would inquire if she had caught a shot because she sat down a lot and acted like more of an attendee than a photographer.
After the event, I asked her what the turnaround time would be for the pictures and she told me that she would be getting those for me by the end of night. Unfortunately, she did not provide me with the pictures until about 3 days later. Now here is where the hard part comes in...
So, the event was a summer picnic with lots of florals, bright colors, and overall just a really vibrant event. However, when I received the pictures I actually cried! The edits were so harsh and washed out the entire event. Flowers looked dead and the edits even made it look like a fall, cloudy morning as opposed to the nice colorful day that it was. When I politely inquired about the edits she told me that she had to, "stick with her style" but she could "try" to fix the decor pictures. She then told me to go through and favorite the ones that I needed re-edited (as opposed to just taking off the harsh filters) and get back to her. The only problem was, she had only uploaded 50% of the photos and I told her that I would just wait to receive the final bunch. Unfortunately, I did not receive that until about 2 days later. (After much follow up)
While waiting on those and deciding what to do--as she would not send over the RAW shots and was not really working with me to make sure that I was satisfied. I saw an attendee post a picture that I did not send her. It turned out that Tiana reached out to a few attendees (that had a big following and she could benefit from *her words were network with*) to ask them for their email to send over shots from the shoot. My issue with this was; that was never communicated to me, our transaction was not complete as I never signed off on the edits, I payed, I signed the contract, and she sent them over pictures of me that were not flattering. When I inquired about this with her, she said that she had the copyright to all of the photos and could do whatever she wanted with them because ultimately, she owned MY pictures.
The issue with this was that it seemed to be her self-seeking and self-promoting more than caring about our working relationship. She did not concern herself with my issues and went above and beyond to make sure that I understood HER style, HER rights, HER contract. Yet, she did not understand the fact that I had worked tirelessly, spent hundreds of dollars, only for her to create a vision that would promote herself. She totally misconstrued my event and transformed the scene into something that was not what I communicated to her.
I would like to say that this was the end of my review but, unfortunately, it isn't!
So, another PAID portion of the contract was the creation of a 1-minute video for social media promotion. I did not receive this until 3 weeks after the event and when I did; it was only 44seconds long, had harsh transitions, unstable shots, and a song that totally opposed the theme of the event. I am a natural hair influencer but my event was a women's empowerment event. I communicated on MULTIPLE OCCASIONS that this was not a hair event because I wanted other women to be comfortable attending in the future. However, the song that she had playing for the video was entitled, "Don't Touch My Hair". Now, this was very frustrating because above all else, she completely missed the point here! I would have been happy with a simple instrumental but again, she took the fact that natural women attended the event and highlighted her vision above mine! When I reached out to her about this and told her that I was unsatisfied.. she blocked me! That is right!! A business, who I have paid, BLOCKED. ME.! She not only blocked me but then posted that some business is not with her peace. Apparently, her customers concerns rob her of her peace and are too much to handle.
So right now, I am stuck with my summer picnic photos that resemble a fall/winter event with no video and am down hundreds from paying her. She will not respond and is satisfied because she has already been paid.
Overall, if you're looking for a customer friendly photographer who is professional, definitely don't look here! I tried to resolve this silently with her but it was to no avail. After working with hundreds of amazing photographers this has honestly been an eye-opening experience and I would never recommend her to anyone!
