Do not hire this photographer!

My work recently hired a photographer to take some shots of products, people, etc. They paid a rather handsome sum (more than I earn in a month) for his 4-6 hours of work. I'm told he was reasonable to get along with, and at the time they seemed happy with him.

Then his contact sheets arrived, and I was shown them. Disgruntled engineers and managers had written less than savoury comments in the margins about how boring the shots were, and how they could take better ones (and to tell the truth, some had!).

I have to admit that the shots were indeed boring; yes, the subject matter is extremely dull, but a good photographer can make it exciting nonetheless. There were shots in there of a particular security unit that we manufacture, which I myself had taken shots of a month or so earlier. The engineer had been quite fussy at the time, wanting exact reflections on a shiny black strip down the side. I had been unable to achieve it with my lack of decent lighting, but made up for it with Photoshop; fixed up reflections, dust, bad colour from the lights, blurred logos, etc. 

The shots taken by the professional photographer had a similar angle and lighting, yet was ill refined. Reflections had not been carefully handled, logos were out of focus. At the time I just assumed that he, like I, was going to Photoshop the ones selected as finals. 

Then today I received one of the "finals" for a different product that I was to put into an ad. I took one look, picked up the phone, and made sure that this was, in fact, one of the 
shots that the photographer had sent through. It was.

There did not appear to be any Photoshop work done at all. The levels were untouched, dust covered the unit and laptop. Greasy fingerprints covered everything. The colour balance was incorrect. The laptop screen was horribly blue. Logos were blurred. Angles had not been carefully considered, and so the top of the screen was at an unpleasing tilt and perspective.

Later I was told that he normally gets our company's out-sourced designers to photoshop his photos, and does not do it himself!

Basically, we're never using him again. 

And I would like to warn anyone in Adelaide to not use him as well. Perhaps his photography of other subjects is better; but one must question his professionalism given the above circumstances. One must wonder at a photographer who either refuses or cannot use Photoshop when the photography on its own is not sufficient.

And I would like to note that none of this is libel. Every thing is factual, and I can show the photo
on request, as well as my Photoshopped version.

And after all that, here is the link to his site.

http://www.davidmariuz.com.au/

His work appears good enough at first glance; the compositions seem nice. Some of the pictures I will admit to liking; despite the faults.

But for the price that he charged, I would expect more. And I would definitely expect him to photoshop his own photos.