Policies and Procedures
General:
· If your child is sick or appears to be getting sick, please contact 24 hours in advance to reschedule. Do not bring sick children to your session. Please understand, we work with many brand new babies weekly and try to cut down on exposure to sicknesses the best we can.
· Please arrive on time. If you are 15 minutes or more late for the session, we reserve the right to cancel the session. We have other clients after your session time, and cannot cut into their time.
Gallery:
· Your on-line gallery will be ready approximately two to three weeks after session date. It does take time to edit and ready your images for your viewing and we do our best to have them ready in two weeks, but sometimes due to the amount of clients at certain times of the year, it can take the full three weeks.
· There are two parts to your gallery. You will see a slideshow of the images – some in black and white and some in color. When placing your order in our ordering platform, you may see all images in color, and then can do a quick black and white viewing with the click of your mouse.
Ordering *IMPORTANT* Please read this section!
· Your order must be placed and paid for within 10 days of on-line gallery presentation. YOUR IMAGES WILL AUTOMATICALLY EXPIRE. If you need an additional 48 hours, this can be arranged. Please contact us prior to your gallery expiring in order to acquire those additional 48 hours. Please understand, we have many clients, and are trying to keep our ordering and lab processing times consistent so everyone can receive their orders on time. If you wish to have your images held and place your order at a future time, we require a non-refundable deposit of $1,000 to help with the costs of maintaining these images. $950 of this will be applied to your print order as a credit only for that particular session. This cannot be applied to future sessions.
· ALL UNORDERED IMAGES WILL BE DELETED INDEFINITELY. When placing your order, we acknowledge that you are ordering the images you love, and we archive only those ordered images for one year. The images that you do not order, we do not archive, and they are purged/deleted from our system.
· When placing your order with our ordering platform (www.jodieotte.com/photocart/) , you may pay with major credit cards. If you wish to pay with a check, please notify us of this, and send your check payable to Jodie Otte or J. Otte Photography to the address of 5331 Broadway Road, White Hall, MD 21161. We need to receive the check within 5 business days of your order. Please understand, paying by check will delay receiving your print order by an additional two to three weeks.
· There is a $50 returned check fee.
· If you have any problems understanding the ordering platform above, you may also send your order by email to theblackhorsestudio@verizon.net Please reference the pricing list at www.jottephotography.com/pricing.htm while placing your order. You will be invoiced back for immediate payment.
· 6% MD sales tax will be added to your order.
· Due to the custom nature of the products, all sales are final.
· Your final products will be ready for you approximately 6 to 8 weeks after your order is received and paid for. Custom coffee table books may take an additional 4 weeks as we have design time to factor in.
· Your products will be shipped to you by United States Priority Mail. If you wish to have these sent another way, there is an additional fee.
Copyright
· All images are copyrighted by photographer, Jodie Otte. It is illegal and unlawful to scan, copy, print, or reproduce Jodie’s work in any manner or medium without written permission.
· Jodie reserves the right to use images taken for display, publication, and other purposes to promote her business.
· Digital Files: If you purchase digital files, you may print them for personal use only. You may not sell the digital files/images or give them away commercially.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does my session fee include? Your session fee includes time and talent of the photographer and image preparation which takes an average of six to eight hours post session. Remember, you are working with a custom photographer. Unlike department stores and photography chains, you are getting individual attention and the ability to customize your session to fit your family’s needs.
Do you “touch up” images? Yes. Small scars, baby acne, or other blemishes may be touched up when requested. Light skin smoothing techniques may also be used. Small touchups of this nature are not an additional fee. However, please note when placing your order what touchups you would like to have done (these may get noted directly in the ordering process). It is your responsibility to note touchups you wish to have done when you place your order. Touchups that go beyond “light” are at an additional fee if they can be performed.
Do you shoot digitally or with film? Currently we shoot digital only using top of the line professional equipment. We do not limit the amount of images that we take. We take what is needed in order to be able to present you with at least 25 final images, but usually around 40 to 50.
Do you shoot in black and white or color? We shoot all in color and then convert images to black and white using a special process that appears more like black and white film. This allows you to choose color or black and white for any image.
Why is my child's head "cut off" or my child is "off center" in an image? Images are composed based on artistic vision. Sometimes images will be cropped in close, cutting off the top of heads or maybe the side of the face. In doing this, we are focusing in on your child's beautiful eyes, and these images are best framed with a mat to give the feeling of "looking through a window" at them. Sometimes images are composed "off center" to give the image more artistic impact. This is not done in every photograph. You will get a good variety of several crops, including traditionally centered images as well. If you really wish to see an image cropped in a different way, sometimes this is possible depending on how it was cropped "in camera". Please feel free to ask if another crop is available, but understand that sometimes it is not.
May I purchase the digital files/negatives? Yes, you may purchase the files from your session. Please see the section of the pricing labeled “digital files”. A digital file is the same file Jodie uses to send to the lab for final printing of any size. This digital file has been prepared and edited with her techniques for final print. It is recommended that you print these files using professional lab or “upscale” lab (not Walmart or Target, etc.) that will not perform any automatic alterations in color, contrast, etc. in their machines. We do recommend MPIX.com
Why is my child's head "cut off" or my child is "off center" in an image? Images are composed based on artistic vision. Sometimes images will be cropped in close, cutting off the top of heads or maybe the side of the face. In doing this, we are focusing in on your child's beautiful eyes, and these images are best framed with a mat to give the feeling of "looking through a window" at them. Sometimes images are composed "off center" to give the image more artistic impact. This is not done in every photograph. You will get a good variety of several crops, including traditionally centered images as well. If you really wish to see an image cropped in a different way, sometimes this is possible depending on how it was cropped "in camera". Please feel free to ask if another crop is available, but understand that sometimes it is not.
Do you photograph pregnancy portraits without a newborn session? No, we do not do a maternity session without a newborn session booked as well.
Why do you delete unordered images? When you order images, we acknowledge that you love those particular images, and as a courtesy, we will archive the images ordered for one year. The images that are unordered, we purge to make room on our system for other clients.
We didn't order our wedding photographs until a year after our wedding, why can't we do the same with our portraits? We handle a large client load, and photograph many clients every week, not one client every weekend as many wedding photographers do. We try our best to run the studio, shooting, editing, and ordering, as smoothly as possible. When you wait to place an order, there is a chance that your images are no longer with us due to changes in the system. Late orders can "bottleneck" our process and cause a large delay in the receipt of your images.
We had a photographer that charged $250 and that included all the digital files, why are your files so much more expensive? I am a custom photographer, and as such, every session is custom and I take the time to edit the images properly so that when the images are printed, they are top quality. I also want to guarantee that my business will remain stable and secure for years to come for all my repeat clients. Many operations that charge so little for their work will not be in business long as they cannot sustain a real business on such little charge, not to mention social security, etc. To give an example, every year, the expenses alone (not counting salary or profit) to have and run the studio are nearly $100,000. We've done the figures. For someone to have a reasonable amount of clients per week and only charge $250 for the entire session is making approximately $2 or $3/hour. That's why those photographers that charge so little tend to not stay in business long, or are operating their business illegally and without paying taxes – sales tax, use tax, income tax, self employment tax, not to mention social security, etc.
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