Salman Fine Art Photography- Wedding/ events

Feb 10th, 2022

If it allowed me, I would give a negative review. We booked Mr Salman Lodhi (who has rated himself 5 stars (below)) to shoot a small event at my home. Communication was great prior to the event and we were sent a contract which we agreed to, stating a fixed price. We asked when to make payment but never received a response and decided to pay on the day. Mr Lodhi turned up on the day unprepared for the weather conditions (it was raining heavily) and requested to go shopping during the event. He claimed his camera had broken but had earlier told one of the hosts his camera had run out of battery. Mr Lodhi was unable to figure out the lighting or the shots we wanted and caused stress to the guests and the hosts of the party. Mr Lodhi wasted huge amounts of time where he was unable to use his spare camera due to lighting issues and background issues. Before Mr Lodhi left, we offered to pay his fee but he refused and stated that it was fine, that payment could be made later as he still had to do the editing of our photographs and videos. After the event, Mr Lodhi attempted to charge a higher fee than what the contract stated and what was agreed, claiming that he required more because he had to stay longer (however, he would not have had to if he had not wasted so much time taking the same photographs several times). When we disputed the higher fee stating a fee had been agreed prior to the event and that we do not believe he even had the content we wanted, he sent five photographs of terrible quality (with photographs of people talking mid sentence) and gave 7 days to pay the higher sum. We responded on the 7th day stating that the pictures were terrible and that we would only be paying the agreed contracted price. We stated we would pay 50% that day and 50% once our footage was received as we then believed him to be a cowboy photographer but only once he acknowledged our email. We were right! Not only have we never had a response to our emails but he proceeded to block us on all social media and block our numbers. We may not have lost any money but we have lost our memories of our day and have had so much stress due to his awful service. We have consulted our solicitors to pursue him for our photographs through the courts but this was completely unnecessary. We will be sharing our experience across all platforms! We had intended to give him a further large contract next year to shoot our week of wedding events but will be going back to our previous photographer. Worst experience of hiring a photographer we have ever had! Avoid at all costs!!
Jan 13th, 2022