Not The Man For The Job
I’m a dog groomer, and I take lots of photos of dogs all day to put on my Facebook and Instagram, it’s “my thing” if that makes sense. A cut and a photo with every appointment. I very seldom shoot things other than dogs even if I have a nice set up.
A friend got married a few days ago and, wanting to save money, asked if I’d shoot it for them. I told him it’s not really my forte but he convinced me by saying he didn’t care if they were perfect. They were on a shoestring budget and I agreed to shoot it for $250, which is nothing for a 10-hour event.
On the day of, I’m driving around following the bride as she goes from appointment to appointment before the ceremony, taking photos along the way. I shoot the ceremony itself, and during the reception, I’m photographing speeches and people mingling.
I started around 11 am and was due to finish around 7:30 pm. Around 5 pm, food is being served and I was told I cannot stop to eat because I need to be taking pictures; in fact, they didn’t save me a spot at any table. I’m getting tired and at this point kind of regretting doing this for next to nothing.
It’s also unbelievably hot. The venue is in an old veteran’s legion and it’s like 110F and there’s no AC. I told the groom I need to take off for 20 minutes to get something to eat and drink. There’s no open bar or anything, I can’t even get water and my two water bottles are long empty.
He tells me I need to either be the photographer, or leave without pay. With the heat, being hungry, being generally annoyed at the circumstances, I asked if he was sure, and he said yes, so I deleted all the photos I took in front of him and took off, saying I’m not his photographer anymore.
If I was to be paid $250, honestly at that point I would have paid $250 just for a glass of cold water and somewhere to sit for 5 minutes.
They went right on their honeymoon and they’ve all been off of social media, but a lot of people have been posting on their wall asking about photos with zero responses. Story credit: Reddit / Icy-Reserve6995