Childers Photography

I choose not to use these photographers because I did find a better deal (not a package bundle either) and someone who used the same equipment for a lesser cost and I did not have to wait for ONE FULL YEAR to finally get my pictures. The photography is beautiful but I really don't understand why they need to touch up the pictures 3 times. (Are they not that great to start with?? They really have to cover/ fix/ add to all of them???) That did worry me to a point that it made me second guess their work. Anyone can use the world's most expensive camera equipment, but it the eye behind the lens that takes the best pictures. Why the need then to over correct every single picture??? \r And their idea of a small deposit is $700. To most people that is NOT a small deposit. I do wish them the best of luck and to any bride who uses these photographers, I hope she has lots of patience to wait a year for her pictures!! \r Also, I think it is a bit wrong that they come on here to ""rebuttal"" people. People are allowed and entitled to their own opinion and if it not in favor of the business, so be it. No one can please everyone all of the time. more

My wedding day was amazing and Childers Photography was a BIG REASON that it was so great. Chuck, Mary and Courtney were all at my wedding and all three were actively involved in helping us throughout the day. I actually chose most of my vendors from the Childers Photography website and everyone of them were tops! Several of my friends have used Childers for their weddings and we all agree they are the best. Chris spent a bunch of time helping me lay out a beautiful album and Mary did some amazing special effects to make my photos even better. They are not be most expensive and they are not the cheapest but they fit right into my budget so I got just what i wanted at a price that I wanted to spend. My husband and I highly recommend Childers Photography! more

Readers: please note two things about this review: 1) he says that ""the pictures they take are great""; 2) the rest of the review is that he does not want to pay us for our services. At Childers Photography, every image is manipulated by at least three artists. We send two or three professionals to every wedding. The equipment that we bring to each wedding totals over $15,000; our lenses cost over $2,000 each so that we can capture even the smallest detail in a bride's wedding gown. Then the images are sent to another artist that creates composite images for album design. There are typically 6 to 8 highly paid professionals that are involved with each wedding. Professional, highly trained people do not work for minimum wages; they are expensive and brides hire us daily for the quality of the images and services we provide. There are many wedding photographers in today's market that will photograph a wedding for $1,000 or less and turn over the files with the rights to print. If a local drug store or supermarket could print my images to our professional standards, we would use them also but THEY CANNOT meet professional standards. Keep this in mind, when a photographer gives you the files and says, ""I don't care where you print these"". He/she is also saying, ""I do not care what your images look like"". Do you really want to hire someone that could care less what your final prints look like? At Childers, we want to see every image before it leaves our possession because our reputation depends on what the public sees. If the local drug store does a bad printing job, that directly reflects on our reputation for top quality photography. Also, by the way, there is a way our clients can purchase the high resolution files from us. So if you are interested in really cheap photography and printing your own images at the drugstore there are many photographers available. If you are interested in top quality photography at very affordable prices, then we might be the photographer for you. We do over 200 weddings per year which means that we are affordable. more

Not to take away from Childers, the pictures they take are great.. That's about the only positive thing I have to say about them. For all you young brides and grooms (unfortunately my wife did all the photography purchasing without me) do NOT use a group like this. As i mentioned earlier, the pictures are great but what companies do like this is slowly real you in! It starts with a ""small"" deposit, next thing you know you are putting down well over a thousand bucks. In the back of your head, you are thinking its ok because ""everybody"" pays this much for wedding pictures and these people are the ""best"". Well if you're reading this review, you should have enough internet searching expertise to realize that marketing makes things seem better than they really are. So let me fast forward things.. the wedding is done and over and its 3 months later and you are thinking about what you get out of all that money you spent on those great photographers you hired for your wedding. Well, the answer is NOT A LOT. Yes, you get a disk with some low resolution (quality) images that are great to look at. I bet they never bragged to you about this part when they were taking you money.. You have no ""rights"" to anything you are looking at. You can NOT download those images. You HAVE to purchase them at a ridiculous price from Childers to have anything. So now you're at the point where you are thinking, ""Dang, I poured all this money into Childers and I don't even have a thing to show except for this low quality CD that only allows me to view pics!"" This is where the Childers contract writers (that YOU signed) are sitting back at their chairs in the office giggling, knowing that more money is on the way. What else are you gonna do? Have another wedding? These pictures are almost priceless (to you) and they know you will spend additional top $$ to purchase the picture from them, which is your ONLY option. My word of advice for what it's worth.. Go somewhere else and buy the rights to YOUR (not theirs) pictures. Otherwise, you will be spending $13.00 for 5x9's that cost them 14 cents to print. They will try to tell you that it is a ""art"" to adjust the color and quality of the pictures taken to be ""perfect"" but they are full of it (in my opinion). 97% of the images are printed as taken. If you want to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for 3% of your pictures, you are going to the right place. If you want great pictures at a reasonable price, go somewhere that allows you to buy the rights to ""YOUR"" pictures. Else, you will regret it and be out more than what they make you think in you consultation. Once they have you locked in, all their costs come out and there is not a thing you can do about it but pay top dollar. Stay away from Childers! more

This kind of review really saddens the whole team 20 members at Childers Photography. The worst part is that this can be done anonymously; we have no idea who this person is or even if this was a client. She does not mention the photographer's name or her wedding date so we cannot verify that this is a true client of ours. What leads us to believe that this is bogus is the reference to ""paid up"" time; we do NOT have packages or a pre-set number of hours; we are happy to stay as long as the customer would like. No one that is employed by Childers Photography would ever act as described by this person; we love weddings and our clients are always treated with the utmost care. So before you believe the terrible review, please consider that there are very important reasons why we do over 200 weddings per year and have for over 20 years plus brides on The Knot have voted us as one of the best wedding photographers in the Dayton area. more

My now husband and I had the most amazing wedding day.. not a thing went wrong. The weather for our outdoor wedding was unbeatable! Our only complaint? the photographer! He was a complete jerk and very bossy. We wanted creative and candid shots. He got frustrated when trying to pose me for these shots. I was so uncomfortable and frustrated with him. He bossed us around when cutting the cake, tossing my bouquet, and so on. It was awful. He then came up to me and said ""I am only paid up until 15 minutes from now so if you want anything else, tell me now""... in a very rude voice. I would not reccomend them to anyone. The pictures are soso. One of my bridesmaids is a professional photographer and she got a few behind the scenes shots that are of 100x better quality. I tried to keep her from working the whole day but she was so frustrated with Childers that she couldnt help it. Definately stay away from this place, unless you want an uncomfortable, annoying experience for one of the most important days of your life. more

I totally agree: BEST PHOTOGRAPHER IN DAYTON !\r \r Childers Photography has done all my friends and family weddings for the last 15 years. Their prices are great, their service could not be any better and the quality of their work is fantastic. We have used Childers for family portraits, engagement portraits, senior portraits and wedding invitations. At one time or another, we have worked with everyone that works at Childers and they are all great. The whole staff likes helping clients and it shows from the moment we walk in the door. \r \r We highly recommend Childers to everyone! Pros: Great service, great quality and really good pricing more

I just read the previous post and was really confused by all the negative comments. I know personally more than 12 people (family and friends) that have used Childers Photography. They all without a doubt loved everything about the quality and service. The pricing is extremely competitive with others that I checked out. I actually got more photos than I would have gotten from many others. Everyone in my family knows that they will use Childers when the time comes for a wedding photographer. \r \r I think that the negative person was just confused about the way an order is placed. Childers does not use packages so everything is ordered ala carte. Since there are no packages, I can see where someone might get confused. But everyone I know never had a problem except one case and one of their staff spent several hours (at no charge) helping totally design a beautiful album and get the total order ready.\r \r Regarding the time required to get photos, it took me and my 2 sisters only around 6 weeks to get a totally custom hand-made album! \r \r Everyone I know highly recommends Childers. I gave them 5 stars but would give them 10 if it was available. Pros: Great service, great quality and really good pricing Cons: So many good photos to choose from it was difficult to narrow down. more

I saw all the creative photos in their lobby and talked with Chuck about pricing. I met our photographer, Gary, prior to the wedding. Gary got frustrated with my three in a half year old niece. He said to me, ?what is she like two?? I felt like I had to pick out the poses and creative shots I wanted on my wedding day. That?s the photographers job right? I did not get the creativity I saw in the lobby. I get my proofs and there is no picture of his Grandma anywhere! That was a requested photo! The ordering process was unbearable! I was miserable picking out pictures. It was VERY confusing. You have to write down the picture number of each picture and write it down in about three different places. Then write down extra prints you want and all the prints your family wants in different places. There were order forms everywhere! Several people that were in the photos had glasses on. The only person that had a glare on their glasses was my dad. BIG glares in every picture he was in. Of course that wasn?t the photographers fault and they could fix it for a charge. We had the lab take the glare out of his glasses. I get the pictures back and my dad literally looked cross-eyed and drugged! They had to send the pictures back out to the lab and it took weeks to get them back. They still didn?t look right, but I took them just b/c tired of the company. Chris who works there is really nice, but everyone else?not so much. One day I went in and there was some kind of water leak. People were running everywhere and Chuck (owner) was absolutely screaming at the top of his lungs. He was cursing and yelling at people. It was dreadful! VERY unprofessional. My wedding was in October 2006 and I finally got my pictures and album completed July 2007. When I received my orders I had missing pictures, extra pictures, and wrong colored pictures. Not to mention the prices are expensive and it was definitely not worth the money. Take your business elsewhere! Pros: Chris was great and the assistants at the wedding. Cons: Price, staff, creativity, ordering more