Studio Policies

1. The session fee is due in full at the time of booking in order to guarantee your appointment date and time. You may reschedule this session, provided you give us a minimum of 48 hours notice; however, we ask that you limit rescheduling to one time only. Booking normally takes place at the free Planning Session for Portraits, and will be billed to the client immediately after the telephone Planning Session for Headshots. Billed session fees must be paid within 10 days of receipt of the invoice in order the guarantee your appointment date and time. Billed session fees received more than 10 days after receipt of the invoice could result in cancellation of your session.

2. If you must cancel your session due to illness or other personal emergency, please do your best to provide the studio with 48 hours notice so that your session time can be made available to other clients. Failure to provide adequate notice of a cancellation (for emergencies) or multiple reschedulings will result in the forfeiture of your session fees, and another session fee payment will be required to hold your new date.

3. Cameras, camcorders, or recording devices of any kind are not permitted at your photographic session. Please leave all camera equipment and devices at home.

4. Attendance at photo sessions is limited to those individuals being photographed. In the case of children and newborns, attendance is limited to two parents only. Siblings are welcome if they are to be photographed as well. Please do not bring personal assistants, nannies, caregivers, or friends to your session. Having additional people present is very distracting, not only to the photographer but also to those being photographed. You will receive full information about this at the Planning Session.

5. Your session will begin promptly at the agreed upon time. Please be dressed, made-up, and ready to begin at this time. (Because the session length may be predetermined, any additional time required to prepare yourself or children once you’ve arrived will reduce the amount of time we can spend in-session, and further limits the amount of images captured.)

6. All orders from your session will take place at a special appointment created for this purpose (called the Viewing and Ordering Session), scheduled for approximately two weeks after your session. This appointment will last about one hour, and all individuals who wish to place an order (or have input into your family’s order) are encouraged to attend. The Viewing and Ordering Session is for Portrait clients only; Headshot clients do not have a Viewing and Ordering Session. Viewing of Headshot proofs are done only

electronically.

7. Our Signature Retouching is included in the prices of our products. “Beauty Retouching” may be outsourced and billed at an hourly rate or flat fee for such things as removal of braces, digital slimming, wrinkle reduction, teeth whitening, etc.

8. All gift-sized prints 8x10” and under are the same price. And all gift-sized prints come mounted on white styrene.

9. Ordered images will remain on file for one year from the date of your photo session. Unordered images will be purged after 30 days of the Viewing and Ordering Session for Portrait clients, and 30 days from the availability of electronic viewing of proofs for Headshot clients.

10. Reprint orders can be made at any time throughout the year while your images are on file. As always, there may be a minimum print order amount as stipulated in your contract. It is best to place all orders at one time to avoid having to meet the minimum each time. New orders (from images that were not previously ordered) should be made only during the 30 days that they will be available before being purged from our systems. It may be possible to retrieve purged files, but doing so will require an additional fee.

11. Due to the custom nature of the products provided by Bill Gardner Photography, all sales are final. Items cannot be returned or exchanged unless damaged or not as ordered from our professional lab. You may add on to your order at any time, but a sale is considered final at the time it is outsourced to our professional lab. You should review the provisions of your contract relating to our Guarantee.

12. Custom designs, layouts, and albums will be proofed to you within two weeks of placing your order. You are granted one opportunity to make up to three changes within your layout. All requests for changes must be made at the same time, as only one additional proof will be created. We reserve the right to make final decisions on artistic layouts. Once you approve your final proof, your sale is considered final.

13. Digital files are not included with your session fee (except for Headshots), but can be purchased with our top collections, or on their own. Digital files are considered a product, same as our tangible products (prints, albums, etc.)

14. Bill Gardner Photography takes the utmost care with respect to the proper exposure, retouching, and archiving of the digital images. In the unlikely event of data loss, camera equipment malfunction, or photographer illness that prevents the undertaking of the session, photographer’s liability will be limited to the refund of all session fees, or a new session can be scheduled at no additional cost to the client.

15. All images provided by Bill Gardner Photography, whether in digital (online, email, etc...) form or in print, may NOT be reproduced by any means. All images created by Bill Gardner Photography are protected under copyright law, and may NOT be saved to computers, printed, scanned, photographed, emailed, posted online, or shared digitally WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT. For information about Photographic Copyright and Copyright Infringement, please click here.

16. Bill Gardner Photography reserves the right to use the any images or custom created artwork for display, publication, studio marketing, or other promotional purposes. Digital negatives and originals remain the property and copyright of Bill Gardner Photography.

17. Your image presentation at the Viewing and Ordering Session for Portraits will show at least 25-30 images from your session. These images will most artistically represent the essence of your family.

18. You will be provided with some recommendations for artwork and keepsakes at your Viewing and Ordering Session. This session will provide you with a vision for what is possible in decorating your home and creating heirlooms with fine art photography.

19. The studio offers a “Friends & Family” event for our closest friends and family members. This opportunity takes place for a limited time each year during our off-season, and offers a chance for our VIP’s to have professional portraits created at a special savings. It is recommended that you join our Mail List to be sure you are advised of such events. A “Join our Mail List” button is located in the menu area of every website page.