We unfortunately had a very poor experience with Mark. Like another customer posted, we were pressured into a contract at our first meeting, too. In hindsight, we should have let Mark keep our deposit (which he said was "100% refundable" but refused to return when we asked). He is pushy, unprofessional, and his business tactics are questionable. We have been working with him since 2008, when we signed our wedding contract. We got married in January, 2010, and are still dealing with his shenanigans. We have too many complaints to list here, but they all involve his desire to try to get one over on you. He has difficulty following his contract and tries to make you feel bad about what he agreed to do and what you paid him to do. Many of our conflicts began when we declined an "upgrade" to something in our contract. All Mark wants to do is up-sell you. It doesn't matter what is in your contract. He will send you long-winded e-mails and assume you're not smart enough to understand his word games. He will then get angry when you call him out. We just filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau after receiving an e-mail from Mark saying that because we are paid in full, he can not afford to get our album from the printer. Although he is not refusing to get it, he said he has to pay his mortgage first. 3 years after meeting him, 19 months after paying him in full, and 18 months after our wedding, we just want to be able to cut our business ties with Mark. It wouldn't be so bad if we had gotten extraordinary photos. They weren't even that good!!!!!

My wife and I purchased a package where we spent extra money to have the owner, Mark Kauffman of Angelica Studio’s, take our wedding photos in addition to the trainee. Mark sold us on his “20 years worth of experience.” You will hear that quite a bit when dealing with him.

After the wedding, we received a flash drive with all of the photos taken by Mark and the trainee. The trainee’s photos were of good quality (unfortunately, most of the formal photos were taken from the side so making a wedding album isn’t really feasible with those photos). Mark’s photos were another story. There were quite a few photos that were either over-exposed (drowning out the details of my wife’s dress), off-color (many of the photos had a strong orange tint almost like everyone was bathing in self-tanner) and others were out of focus. After repeated emails regarding the quality, Mark reviewed the photos and removed many of the “rejects” and then he batched processed the photos. He did admit to having an “issue with his main flash” and he also stated that the initial flash drive contained the rejects. He later noted that he switched to digital photography two years ago. He resent us another flash drive with the edited photos. The flash drive only contained approximately 110 of our photos. The rest of the photos on the drive were from another wedding party. Note: the photos of the other couple’s wedding had the same issue as ours. Again, I had to ask him to resend another flash drive. You would think that at this point he would be on his game. He didn’t have anymore flash drives so he sent us a CD. The CD contained all of the photos; however, the aspect ratio was locked on most of his photos. If I try to expand the photo to view the quality, the images get pixilated. It makes virtually impossible to view detail in the photos. This was only the case with his photos. The trainee’s photos were fine. When I contacted him about the photos, he stated “That's the purpose of the website which should allow you to see them larger.” As part of the contract, we were to receive a flash drive with all of the photos. That does not mean that he can send me photos that have been altered to a point where they can not be viewed effectively. That is not a good enough answer for a customer that has spent good money and is still waiting for the justification for that expense. I did check the website for the photos and I still feel the photos are of poor quality. Example: when a photo is overexposed, it washes out the detail from photo. All you see is white in certain sections of the photo. You can make the photo darker to try to fix it, but it will never bring back the detail. This is a major issue when you’re wife is wearing a white dress. I’ve expressed much of my concerns on multiple emails to this photographer before and after the editing. In return, I got long winded emails about how long it takes to edit digital photos and that it is “amateurish” to look at photos on a computer screen. He says that the real way to view a photo is in print. He’s trying to charge $0.75 per print. My point is that I don’t need $0.75 per print to see that a photo is out of focus, off-color or overexposed.

One of the other issues involved him conveniently forgetting some of the terms of the contract. For example, he tried to charge us for the thank you cards. I had to remind him that the thank you cards were included in the contract. After that, he tried to up-sell to the wedding postcard. He tried to up-sell at every step in this process.

My wedding was wonderful. It was a beautiful moment for my wife and me. Unfortunately, this experience with the photographer has really stained my memory of that day. Every time I look at the photos, I’m really disappointed with the quality and the service that we have received. This wedding is a once and a lifetime experience for my wife and I. You would think that if a photographer has worked in the field as long as he has, that he would treat these moments as special as the people that are involved do. In my opinion, this photographer does not get it. If you are looking to be treated like this is special moment in your lives, I would not work with this individual/company. Good luck in your search for a photographer. We hope that it is a wonderful day.

A lot of things went wrong on our wedding day, but you'd never know seeing the pictures. They recaptured all the perfect moments.

They were professional, friendly and the posed pictures only took a little over fifteen minutes. I wouldn't haven chosen any other company or any other photographer.

My wedding day went great and the phots were beautiful. The album I picked out came out wonderful and I receive many compliments on it.

Mark Kauffman and his assistant, Marcy were fantastic at our May, 2009 wedding. Showed up early. Kept us on time, while still allowing us our own "personal time" to enjoy the day. Did it all with a smile too!! Our photos are beautiful. Mark is a star photographer. He and his staff manage to capture those "special moments". It is post wedding, and Mark is still spending time with us -- now that we finally decided on our photo to enlarge to hang on the wall to remind us of our "perfect day"!! Thanks Mark. A++++!!

When my husband and I were looking into photographers for our wedding, we saw about 8 in the Port Jeff area. We were a little discouraged after our previous appointments and then we walked into Mark's office, saw a few pages of an album, looked at each other and knew this is what we were looking for. His work was better than everything else we had seen. If you visit his website (http://angelicastudios.com/) it really doesn't do his work justice. I would recommend visiting his office and looking at the albums and meeting Mark.

Before we met with Mark, I was considering hiring someone from Craigslist to do the more candid style shots at a cheaper price, but once I met Mark and actually saw the work that goes into making the perfect album, I'm glad I didn't. Mark was priced a little higher than others in the area, but we were convinced that we had to have him do our wedding. We hired him, an upgraded photographer and put together a great package.

Mark and Marci (ask for her too) did our wedding and we ended up with well over a thousand pictures. We were married September 2008 and are almost done creating an amazing wedding album. It's taken a while b/c there is a lot of work involved but also because we haven't lived in the area since before the wedding. We now live in CA and Mark has been very accommodating to our travel schedule and has met with us whenever we were able to pop in and go over the pictures.

One thing I would definitely recommend is getting all the pictures printed up. Mark was telling us how important it was to have the actual picture proofs, but to be honest I didn't think it was necessary. Now, I can't imagine having been able to do the album without a physical picture in my hand. Even the picture proof books make it so much harder, so I would def recommend getting 4x6 proofs for all your pics.

Anyway, I can't wait to get my album that we all worked so hard on. If you have any questions about the service, please feel to email me at dzittel@gmail.com. I guarantee you will be very happy with your photos and your album if you choose to go with Mark and his team.

Great photos but very expensive.
Horrible communication....Still working on the album, since February.

I worked with Mark Kauffman from Angelica Studios for my wedding. I had two photographers and they each took many pictures. I believe I had over 300 proofs! He worked on the price with me and had many different styles of albums for me to choose from. The pictures were just what I wanted! I had both the photojournalistic and the "traditional" photos. I was able to find an albums I really loved for a reasonable price! I would recommend Angelica Studios for a wedding or special occasion.

As a professional in the wedding industry, I understand the value of great services which is why I decided to work with Angelica Studios.

Of course, I expected great photography, but when I received my photos I was more than thrilled and completely speechless! I don't think I could have been happier.

Pictures were the only reminders I would have of my wedding day and the emotions captured. I wanted to make sure I hired the very best. I never imagined they could have turned out so professional, artistic and overall amazing. Now I have memories that will last forever. Thank you Mark and Angelica Studios!

Jenna
Deer Park, NY

The first day we met with the owner, we talked for 20-30 minutes then pressured us into a package commitment. I did love the quality of his photos, but each time we met, he tried to increase our commitment, both in photo package and in price. He uses a number of photographers that work for him. Unfortunately, I had not done enough research to choose the "right" one. I have since forgotten the photographer's name, but I found him a bit bossy. The owner also kept really poor financial records. Sometimes he forgot what we had ordered. Sometimes he forgot we made a payment. Thankfully I kept precise records of everything we ever signed so I had our agreement in writing. The pictures were lovely, but prepared to have a strong backbone. Keep a clear head of what you want (and don't want) and impeccable records of your contracts and payments.