Chris Nelson, photog based in NI - reviews?

CabanSail

Can see nothing wrong with sharing facts and warning others.

Please refrain from publishing addresses etc. even if they are freely available already. Sending a PM is OK.

Discussion is fine but keep to the experiences and keep away from vilifying anyone.

Reoil

Here, he's perfectly welcome to come on here and defend himself, ...if people could get in contact with him to tell him.

Splinters

He had tried to defend himself on the wedding forum, however his post was deleted. Any poster on boards.ie representing a business must go through a very simply process in order to verify their account. His post was deleted but he was informed of this process and told he was welcome to post a reply once he followed the rules....which he didnt seem to bother with.

Considering the fact that hes still taking on new business and every few weeks there seems to be a new person with the same complaint about him I really dont see how there could be any explanation other then him just being a cowboy. However it would be interesting to hear his justification of keeping couples waiting over a year (in some cases over 2 years) for their wedding photos when he had already been paid for them.

DaireQuinlan

Reoil wrote: »

Here, he's perfectly welcome to come on here and defend himself, ...if people could get in contact with him to tell him.

I believe he actually posted on one of the threads on the wedding forum, but because he didn't have a verified boards account the post was removed.

MrsSunshine

If he wanted to post on here and explain things fair enough.
It might actually be better to communicate with his clients and explain to us why things are taking so long.
If there is some genuine reason that's fine but to ignore calls and emails from people who have paid thousands of pounds for a service just isn't fair...

Splinters

Very true, he owes his clients an explanation a lot more then the folks on boards.ie.

However I just assumed with the way he conducts business and the fact he's still taking on new business that he would make more of an effort to clear things up on the many posts about him on here. As already mentioned, if you google his name and "reviews" all these topics pop up straight away.

Very safe to say there must be a few people who've not used him as a result....which is only fair.

Zabka

Splinters wrote: »

Very true, he owes his clients an explanation a lot more then the folks on boards.ie.

However I just assumed with the way he conducts business and the fact he's still taking on new business that he would make more of an effort to clear things up on the many posts about him on here. As already mentioned, if you google his name and "reviews" all these topics pop up straight away.

Very safe to say there must be a few people who've not used him as a result....which is only fair.

@Splinters Have you actually seen that post? It must have been before I joined. I would love to know what he had to say.

My last e-mail exchange with him he said that "you (meaning me) don't want to hear any more." Which is laughable as I am dying to hear all of it and also wrote him that this is not true and that I would LOVE to hear it. Of course big surprise not a peep since. This guy sure is special.

Splinters

Heya, no afraid not. I just seen the post by the moderator to say his post had been deleted and that he had been told the few simple steps he needed to do to verify his account, which he didnt appear to have done.

I must admit Id be very curious to see what way hes trying to explain it. At best he might be able offer some form of explanation to one, two (at a stretch) couples for the delay but when it seems to be the pattern for so many people the only explanation is that hes a cowboy.

For the record Im probably chiming in on this more then I should, seeing as Im not a customer of his and havent been effected by him. I am however a photographer looking at moving into wedding photography in the coming months and find this very frustrating that somebody like this is offering such a shoddy service, causing so much distress yet STILL seemingly taking on new business. As a photographer who tries to bend over backwards to accomodate his customers I really do find this shocking carry on. I just think the more fuss caused about this online (so long as it continues to remain within the realms of discussing facts) then at least it may help other couples avoid similar troubles.

Zabka

YEY I FINALLY GOT THEM! Only 5 days shy of our 1st wedding anniversary.

But whaa whaa whaa goes Chris Nelson:

"This was a difficult edit for me having read all the things you have 'anonymously' said about me on boards.ie but I didn't let that diminish the care and attention that I have put into the editing of your final collection of images."

Which is a lie. Some of them are nice but most of the photos were just "meh." For a few of them it looks like he just converted them from RAW to JPEG and called it a day. He also gave us 50 less than the minimum promised but that's what you get when you hire Chris Nelson. I'm not hiding them if you're interested I'll gladly let you see the gallery, becasue I can be sure that Chris isn't going to be showing this one to perspective clients.

If you are still waiting, get a lawyer ASAP, I had to, and if you are looking to hire, still DON'T.

PS: I will post my full review in a day or 2.

Splinters

Are they online? Id be interested to see the quality of an image set hes taken a year to deliver.

His message seems to suggest hes keeping an eye on the criticism here on boards, but did he offer any reason why its taken so long to get the images to you. From what I can see every bit of criticism of him on this and other forums has been justified. Id just be curious to hear how he justifies or explains it.

Zabka

Splinters wrote: »

Are they online? Id be interested to see the quality of an image set hes taken a year to deliver.

His message seems to suggest hes keeping an eye on the criticism here on boards, but did he offer any reason why its taken so long to get the images to you. From what I can see every bit of criticism of him on this and other forums has been justified. Id just be curious to hear how he justifies or explains it.

Simply put - he doesn't.

Zabka

My review of Chris Nelson, which I feel I owe to people as a customer:
We decided to hire Chris Nelson to shoot our wedding on September 3rd 2011, since we saw numerous galleries of his work and loved them. All our e-mails, prior to booking, were answered promptly and professionally. We even met with Chris on two separate occasions before our wedding once on location and once at his place. The communication did suffer after we had paid Chris, and we did feel as if there was something off about this, but we had already paid so we went ahead with him (biggest regret ever). We met with him on location 2 days before the wedding to which he was an hour late. At this point, I was terrified that he’d miss half the wedding.
During this meeting we asked how long it would take to get our photos and Chris told us, “two weeks.” The rest of the meeting went fine, and he seemed genuinely interested in taking all the photos we wanted.
During the day itself, Chris Nelson, was on time and seemed to be actively taking photos and stayed for the promised duration.
The main trouble came after our wedding. We were patient and didn’t really expect the photos after 2 weeks, but when the three month period came around we sent an e-mail in early January inquiring about them. We received a reply that he was working though weddings he had shoot before, but our’s and I quote was “rapidly approaching,” and that they would be done by the end of the month (January).
We never did get our pictures in January and also the communication stopped and my subsequent e-mails went unanswered. We have also called him too many times to count, but reaching Chris Nelson by phone is harder than sending a man to mars. If you don’t believe us go ahead and call. I can guarantee that you’ll only reach his voice mail.
Again in April he promised delivery so when May rolled around without seeing any pictures we sent another e-mail which returned an automated reply that Chris is currently filming in Africa. This naturally angered us, since under the pretense of having “too many weddings to edit” he has time to go to Africa. After he returned he said he would give us the photos “very shortly.”
By the end of June we sent a formal letter of complaint to him though certified mail. Receiving no reply we lodged a complaint with the European Consumer Center.
At this point we became curious to know what this Chris Nelson character is all about and a quick Google search brought me to a film forum where he advertised himself as a filmmaker and promoted his other website where presumably the film he recorded in Africa can be found. (For the sake of not wanting to advertise it I’ll not post it here but you can reach it though his profile: http://philipbloom.net/forum/members/chris-nelson.489/) This was the equivalent of throwing sawdust into a flame. This meant that instead of doing his job which he was paid for he goes to pursue his interests and hobbies and not only that, but also thinks it is acceptable to use this as an excuse as to why our pictures were not delivered. As you can see, the customer service he brings is top notch.
Furthermore, his twitter often mentions him meeting people for drinks and lines like “I’m free all day Tuesday…” My thoughts: Really you’re free all day Tuesday, I know A LOT of things you can do on Tuesday, you piece of useless brown goo. This obviously, is enraging when you know that someone takes your money but then does not care at all to deliver your good and furthermore rubs it in your face pretty much flaunting that they have better things to do. This twitter account is: @Storyhows, he also has @chrisnelsonpto, which flaunts his free time less.
Though the reason is not known as to why Chris Nelson does not deliver photos, my hunch is that he simply does not care. He has better things to do with his time than to deliver your wedding photos. Before he gets your money, he tries hard and that’s when he works, after he has made bank, you’re screwed. He couldn’t care less about you or your pictures.
Receiving no reply still, we began spamming him every day with e-mails in August. During this time, through the help of forums I got in contact with someone who received their photos before me but yet was married after me. This exposes yet another lie. We finally heard from him again with another promise to deliver by the end of August. Having zero trust in this promise, we hired a lawyer to help us get our wedding photos. Well what do you know, Chris Nelson is intimidated by lawyers. He dropboxed our photos even a day before the lawyer’s deadline. Honestly, we were not impressed; they lacked both lack quality and quantity. The vast majority of the photos were not edited nor did 249 picture come close to the 300-350 we were promised.
We expected this as when you hire Chris Nelson you are in a catch 22. See, the only way to get any photos out of him whatsoever is by pure harassment – constant non-stop harassment. If you annoy him enough he’ll deliver you something. If you do not he will never deliver anything. We tried very hard to be kind and civil with Chris Nelson at first for about 9 months, but got nowhere. We truly believed that he was taking his time editing people’s photos and was going to come to ours eventually. When we finally learned that this is not the case, we realized it was either we take action and get something or just sit around waiting forever. We are still supposed to get a proof book which we have paid for. I don’t think it’ll ever come. Probably after going through this most people just say screw it, let’s be done with him.
In conclusion, Chirs Nelson is a compulsive liar who could care less about customer satisfaction or making your day memorable. He lies about anything and everything and is essentially a con artist and crook and his “business” of ruining wedding photographs should be shut down. This whole situation has been a complete nightmare. Don’t let Chris Nelson be your wedding regret.

pipsnips

Hi Guys,

We still have not recieved anything and he just wont reply to me. We are coming up to 2 years now and I am just baffled at this. I dont understand and I dont know what to do. We are so so so sad about this. We have been so patient but I cant believe someone would play around with such special memories.

((((((((((((

AnCatDubh

So one of two things you have left to do;

A) arrive at their door and don't leave until you get what you have a legal right to

And

go through legal recourse

You *shouldnt* have to do either but one thing for sure is that posting to this forum (or others) is very unlikely to resolve the matter for you.

consumerhelp

Hi Mrs Sunshine, Splinters, Zabka, pipsnips and anyone else with similar probs please contact me to see if i can assist- thanks

Kenny Logins

consumerhelp wrote: »

Hi Mrs Sunshine, Splinters, Zabka, pipsnips and anyone else with similar probs please contact me to see if i can assist- thanks

Who are you?

Zaph

consumerhelp, I appreciate that you're trying to help and from your sign-up e-mail address I do believe you are genuine, but before posting any further could you please contact reps@boards.ie so that the guys in the office can verify your credentials. Thanks.

pipsnips

Anyone got any updates??????