Maidstone Wedding Photography Model Release Scam

If you are choosing a wedding photographer in Maidstone, then watch out - make sure you know what you're doing when you sign a model release form.

What is a model release form?

By law, if a photographer, or anyone else, wishes to make photos public, for sale or promotion, then any people who are recognisable in them must give their consent in writing.

This is common practise for working models, who are being paid to be in the pictures, after all. But if you are looking for a wedding photographer, you are paying them for their time, not the other way round.

Why do I need to be careful?

If you sign a model release form as part of your contract, you're giving the photographer the right to display and print your photos for whatever they want, including money.

What can I do?

As a paying customer, you are not obliged to give your consent - so check the contract carefully, and if you don't want to sign away any your rights, make sure they cross out the model release section,

Otherwise you could see your photos used anywhere, for example on a blooper site, or making money in a brochure and you not seeing a penny.

Photo 3 Scam - withholding copyright

Be careful if you're thinking about hiring Photo 3 Solutions for your wedding or portfolio photographic need, make sure you've done your research and found out who's really behind the company.

Photo 3 have been associated with a number of scams, from overpriced wedding packages to dodgy modelling agencies to withholding copyright from paying customers.

Photo 3 won't tell you outright, but if you hire them to take photographs for you, you won't end up owning the copyright to your pictures. If questioned, they'll tell you that this is perfectly normal behavious for a photographer, but this is absolutely not the case.

If you pay a photographer to take photographs for you, then you are paying for their time and the fruits of their labour - in other words, the photos they take.

So what does it mean when Photo 3 refuses to hand over copyright?

Firstly, it means he can use YOUR photographs wherever he wishes, for life. That means for promotion, to sell them - he could print them and use them on posters or sell a CD full of your pictures to anyone he wishes.

Secondly, it means you don't have the right to use YOUR OWN PICTURES. That means that if you want copies of them - as prints, or digital, he can make you pay through the nose - and will.

So be careful if you're thinking of using Photo 3 to take your photographs and make sure you read the small print.

Photo 3 Solutions wedding photographer website analysis

What does a wedding photographer's website say about them?

As with any business, the professionalism of a photographer's website reflects how professional that photographer is.

And it's pretty clear that Photo 3 Solutions take a DIY attitude to most things.

Photo 3 Solutions have several websites out there, as well as a blog, all with spidering layers of hundreds of pages, clearly built for search engines and not human visitors - who can spend hours going round in circles trying to find the information they're looking for.

It's also obvious that the website is home made, considering the poor, busy layout and lack of decent typesetting.

The final serious issue of all Photo 3 Solutions websites is the most damning. The complete lack of high quality photos in a portfolio. And that means high quality from two angles - firstly the skill of the photographer, secondly the resolution and quality of the image itself.

All professional photographers should have at least one clear portfolio, which showcases their work. The Photo 3 Solutions showcase is a cluster of badly lit, badly composed images with tacky, amateur post-production that usualyl consists of a cheesy soft lighting effect.

And Photo 3 Solutions appear to realise the poor quality of the wedding and portrait photographs on offer, because all of the images are so small, you can barely see them anyway.

If you're looking for a storybook digital wedding photographer in Kent, find someone better than Photo 3 Solutions!

Photo 3 Solutions - Rainham Wedding Photographer in Kent

If you're looking for a wedding photographer in Rainham, Kent - don't just pick the first one you see, especially if it's Photo 3 Solutions. Photo 3 Solutions have a monstrous sprawling website filled with lots of location based pages that exist simply to come up for small locations, but they are all about quantity, not quality.

There are much cheaper, better quality wedding photographers in Kent, if you just look around and compare prices and packages - not to mention looking at the portfoilios to see the quality of work.

Things to look for in a Rainham wedding photographer in Kent:

Cost - obviously when planning a wedding, cost is an important factor, so make sure you shop around to see what's available. Package can start from £300. Photo 3 Solutions most basic wedding package starts at £999 for only 20 prints and no digital copies. Pricey!

What's included - does the time start during the preparation, or only at the venue? Does it include pictures during the meal? Also, how many prints are included? If they're not included in the package, you may find yourself paying through the nose if you want to just add a few more at the end.

Who holds the copyright - it's your wedding, with you and your guests as the 'models'. The photographer should give you full copyright to the images. If they don't (as Photo 3 solutions don't), you have no rights as to what happens to those pictures. They can be used for advertising or sold on without your consent. Nor do you have teh right to make copies (ditigal or prints) without asking for permission first.

Watch our for cowboy photographers like Photo 3 Solutions, and don't let them ruin your wedding day!