NIDJI Photography

Revdex.com:At this time, I have not been contacted by NIDJI Photography regarding complaint ID ***.Sincerely,*** ***

I have been holding off on sharing my experience until I finally received all of my pictures so as not to be any more negatively affected by Natasha and her teamIf it were at all possible to give zero stars, I wouldNatasha was an absolute nightmare to work with
I was really excited to book Natasha for my last-minute engagement party because as a Muslim woman who dons hijab and values her privacy, my priority was to find a female photographer who does all of her own editing so there would be no risk of random men seeing photos of me getting ready, etcI first saw Natasha’s work on a mutual friend’s *** and I loved the style, composition, and quality of her shotsI reached out to Natasha and she was very helpful and reassuring, saying she completely understands my need for privacy as she is Muslim herself and told me no one but her does all of her editingShe also offered a great price for the number of hours she was willing to workI spoke to the mutual friend whose wedding she covered and also got good feedback, looked up her great reviews on ***, and eventually concluded that Natasha would be the best fit for meUnfortunately, I could not have been any more wrong
My sister and I met with Natasha about an hour later than planned because Natasha was running late with a clientWe finally sat down at a *** *** and took a look at the contract together, signed, and paid a 50% deposit in cash for which she sent me an email receiptThe other 50% would be due at the conclusion of the eventShe did not bring extra copies of the contract and told me she would send me a copy in the mailThis is when all the trouble beganAs helpful and reassuring and proactive as she was before I had booked her, she was the exact opposite afterwardsShe would not return my calls, emails, or texts regarding my copy of the contractMy fiancé went to the Hicksville address she had listed on *** and it was an abandoned office space with neighbors who knew nothing about herI became very worried and very frantic that this woman must have run off with my deposit and I had nothing to show for it but an emailed receiptAt this point I probably should have looked for a different photographer for my party, but the deposit is nonrefundable and was a large amount of money that I wasn’t willing to just throw awayEventually, after an entire month of trying to reach out to her, Natasha dropped off a copy of my contract at my workplaceI had asked for it to be faxed or emailed so that it would get to me ASAP but even that she was incapable of doingI had to wait an entire MONTH for a piece of paperAlso, there was no apology given about her lack of communication
Moving on to the day of the party -- I had asked Natasha to be at the barber with my fiancé to take shots of him getting ready, and then drive out to me to take shots of me getting ready, and then we would all head out to do a portrait session and make it back to the party in timeShe was on time to take his pictures, but arrived to the event hall where I was getting ready two hours later than plannedAnother supposed great perk of hiring Natasha was that she sent me a questionnaire to fill out with my fiancé on the kinds of pictures we absolutely needed to be taken the day of our party, which she and her assistant would “whip” out throughout the course of the event to check offI sent this to her about two weeks before my party, and yet not once saw her “whip it out” during the eventOne of the questions asked if I preferred one side of my face over the other and yet for some reason she took most of my shots from the side I didn’t preferNeedless to say, none of the pictures of me were any goodOur portrait shots lacked any creativity whatsoever, and the only shots I do like are of ones I had to ask forAlso during our portrait session she kept stressing how much pain she was in because of a wedding she had done previously in which she had hurt her kneeShe spent the majority of our portrait session complaining about her pain, which really took away from the experienceThe reflector she used would make us squint and our eyes would water, and even after telling her this she would not adjust her equipment or possibly move a little faster for each shotOur portrait session pictures are of either me or him with our eyes closedShe is an amateur photographer at best, and I can’t kick myself any harder for having hired her
I understand Natasha is one person and there is only so much she can capture during a crazy Pakistani event such as ours, but there were so many basic shots that she had not takenIf she had taken them she chose not to include them in my final setFor example, there is no picture of two of my sisters walking in during the processionThere are no pictures of me and my fiancé alone on stageThere are no pictures of the stage itselfThere are no pictures of my guests sitting at their tablesThere are no pictures of me holding my bouquetThere are no pictures of my dress before I had put it onThere are no pictures of my family awaiting my fiancé’s family, even though they remember posing for them (amongst others that she did not include in my final set)There are no pictures on stage of my immediate family with my father’s eyes OPENEDSimple, basic, IMPORTANT shots like these were not includedInstead I received about fifteen repeated pictures of my table settings Again, amateur photography at best, which is exactly NOT the quality of work we agreed upon or paid forWhen meeting her to sign the contract she insisted that she would “do anything to get the best shot possible, even if it meant pushing guests out of the way.” We took this to mean she would maintain a stern yet professional demeanor, and yet my guests complained about her terrible attitude all nightUpon receiving my photos, I had asked for these missing items to be included and she did a very scant job of them -- a lot of cropping and poor editing techniques I could have easily done myselfAlso, she took a picture of my dress wrinkled and hanging on a Macy’s hanger she assured she would photoshop the label out of
Another issue I had was that in the pictures our guests took of us, it looked as if one of my teeth were missing due to my lipstick color or placement, and so I asked Natasha to please look out for this and maybe photoshop my tooth inI also happened to have fallen asleep on my henna hands and so the stain ended up on my face, and although my makeup artist did an amazing job covering it up, she had reminded Natasha to please keep an eye out for this as wellNatasha assured me she would do this and remove any flaws (like my annoying baby hairs) from the final setNeedless to say, this was not done
Natasha had contacted me a month after my party to tell me she had outsourced my photos to a different company to fix my tooth issue and that she would receive them that week and I would have my final set earlier than agreed upon (one month after the party versus the three months listed on our contract.) This was absolutely not trueI contacted her a week later after she told me this to see where my pictures were, and it was the same nonsense all over againShe would not return my calls, emails, or texts, nor those of my fiancé or sisterFor two months, we tried and tried and tried and received no responseWe also wrote on her *** page, only to see the post deleted shortly afterI understand such a large number of pictures take a long time to edit and organize, but why then would she tell me they were ready if they weren’t? Why not respond to me? There was a terrible lack of communication from the startWhat about the privacy she had been so assuring about? If my pictures were supposedly outsourced, God knows who was looking at them and editing themThe exact reason I had hired her for had all been for nothing
During her two-month disappearance, I happened to google “nidjiphotography zenfolio” and came across photos of other hijabi brides in albums labeled as “private” but were very much public, and they included photos of the brides without their headscarves onI knew some of the guests at both of these weddings and so I asked for the brides’ information to let them know that their photos were all publicThey, too, had the same complaints I had about Natasha not responding to them and breeching their contract, and only hearing from her after they threatened her with legal proceedingsThey reached out to Natasha who IMMEDIATELY got back to them, so I knew she purposely was not answering my phone calls, emails, or textsAgain, I understand these things take time but what I didn’t get was why I was being treated this way as a clientI did some more research and found a complaint about her on the Revdex.com’s websiteI contacted the first bride who gave me good feedback on her who also told me she breeched her contractIf I had known all of this beforehand, I definitely would NOT have hired herThat is why I’ve chosen to write this lengthy, detailed reviewNatasha should know better than to leave clients this unhappy when she is involved in a business that relies so heavily on word of mouth
I had contacted a lawyer about what to do and after taking her advice, I contacted Natasha one last time threatening legal proceedings if she were to continue not contacting me and breeching her contractThe day of our deadline, a day after I sent my last email after taking legal advice, she responded with my picturesThere was no apology, only an offer for a complimentary photo album I surely was NOT going to take her up onI would probably have to wait a year for it to be completed and in my hands, and only after having to fight with her the entire timeAlso, my tooth was not fixed and neither were my baby hairsThe only editing she managed to do was filter some pictures black and whiteWhen I asked her about this, she said this service would be available only at an additional chargeWhere did this extra charge come from when she initially told me she had to outsource my photos to be touched up and I had to wait two extra months after she had first told me my pictures would be ready? She is a LIARHer assistant also used the excuse that she was swamped with all of Natasha’s clients and could not get back to meIf you can’t handle your client load, maybe take on fewer clients? Or maybe be an actual professional, own up to your mistakes, and apologize?
This entire process was mentally exhaustingThe lack of communication, the lack of courtesy, the lack of apology all added up to an experience from hellShe has a terrible attitude in general, and is definitely not a people personMy guests did not have good feedback to give me about herI still have not received my personalized USB containing my files on itI had expected it to be ready to ship so that I would receive it by the deadline, but it’s been almost two months and I still have not gotten itI had called Natasha to inquire about additional images and my USB and she had no clue who I was when I gave her my nameShe also used the excuse of a “family emergency,” which I would believe if this had been the first time she used itThe other brides I had contacted said she had also used that excuse when she couldn’t deliver their images on time, which were all at various times throughout the past couple of yearsOnce again, Natasha nor her assistant are returning my emails, calls, or textsI am not surprisedShe has not returned any correspondence with my finance going all the way back to her initial disappearanceHad I not received a downloadable online gallery and therefore have access to all of my images, I would have commenced with legal proceedings
Please do not hire Natasha to cover your eventPlease save yourself the trouble and the moneyA fancy camera doesn’t do a photographer any good if she doesn’t have a creative eye to go with it, nor the compassion or professionalism that comes with working with people

Review: I signed a contract of worth four thousand dollars ($4,000.0) with NIDJI Photography for my wedding shoot. Total amount of four thousand dollars ($4,000.0) is already paid to [redacted] of NIDJI Photography as per our contract obligation to shot two occasion on August ** & August **, 2014 and one bridal photo shoot session. She cancelled the bridal photo shoot siting reason of her sister demise and never scheduled it back. An on-line photo gallery of both events was suppose to be created by her and provide all pictures copied on flush drive, which we can down load. She created on-line gallery which contains pictures of Event One i.e. of August **, 2014 event. She never uploaded pictures of the Event Two of August **, 2014, neither she provided us flush drive of all pictures. She did not answer most of our calls and e-mails neither she has discharge her other contractual obligations. Her contractual obligations includes the following:- Three (3) Hr bridal shoot (100 images);- Event shoots on August **, 2014 & August **, 2014;- Flush drive containing photo shoots of all events which we can down load; - One 14" x 11" leather cover photo album with 100 images;- Three 11" x 20" premier frame mounted photos of our choiceDesired Settlement: She should discharge all her contractual obligations.

Consumer

Response:

At this time, I have not been contacted by NIDJI Photography regarding complaint ID [redacted].Sincerely,[redacted]

I have been holding off on sharing my experience until I finally received all of my pictures so as not to be any more negatively affected by Natasha and her team. If it were at all possible to give zero stars, I would. Natasha was an absolute nightmare to work with.

I was really excited to book Natasha for my last-minute engagement party because as a Muslim woman who dons hijab and values her privacy, my priority was to find a female photographer who does all of her own editing so there would be no risk of random men seeing photos of me getting ready, etc. I first saw Natasha’s work on a mutual friend’s [redacted] and I loved the style, composition, and quality of her shots. I reached out to Natasha and she was very helpful and reassuring, saying she completely understands my need for privacy as she is Muslim herself and told me no one but her does all of her editing. She also offered a great price for the number of hours she was willing to work. I spoke to the mutual friend whose wedding she covered and also got good feedback, looked up her great reviews on [redacted], and eventually concluded that Natasha would be the best fit for me. Unfortunately, I could not have been any more wrong.

My sister and I met with Natasha about an hour later than planned because Natasha was running late with a client. We finally sat down at a [redacted] and took a look at the contract together, signed, and paid a 50% deposit in cash for which she sent me an email receipt. The other 50% would be due at the conclusion of the event. She did not bring extra copies of the contract and told me she would send me a copy in the mail. This is when all the trouble began. As helpful and reassuring and proactive as she was before I had booked her, she was the exact opposite afterwards. She would not return my calls, emails, or texts regarding my copy of the contract. My fiancé went to the Hicksville address she had listed on [redacted] and it was an abandoned office space with neighbors who knew nothing about her. I became very worried and very frantic that this woman must have run off with my deposit and I had nothing to show for it but an emailed receipt. At this point I probably should have looked for a different photographer for my party, but the deposit is nonrefundable and was a large amount of money that I wasn’t willing to just throw away. Eventually, after an entire month of trying to reach out to her, Natasha dropped off a copy of my contract at my workplace. I had asked for it to be faxed or emailed so that it would get to me ASAP but even that she was incapable of doing. I had to wait an entire MONTH for a piece of paper. Also, there was no apology given about her lack of communication.

Moving on to the day of the party -- I had asked Natasha to be at the barber with my fiancé to take shots of him getting ready, and then drive out to me to take shots of me getting ready, and then we would all head out to do a portrait session and make it back to the party in time. She was on time to take his pictures, but arrived to the event hall where I was getting ready two hours later than planned. Another supposed great perk of hiring Natasha was that she sent me a questionnaire to fill out with my fiancé on the kinds of pictures we absolutely needed to be taken the day of our party, which she and her assistant would “whip” out throughout the course of the event to check off. I sent this to her about two weeks before my party, and yet not once saw her “whip it out” during the event. One of the questions asked if I preferred one side of my face over the other and yet for some reason she took most of my shots from the side I didn’t prefer. Needless to say, none of the pictures of me were any good. Our portrait shots lacked any creativity whatsoever, and the only shots I do like are of ones I had to ask for. Also during our portrait session she kept stressing how much pain she was in because of a wedding she had done previously in which she had hurt her knee. She spent the majority of our portrait session complaining about her pain, which really took away from the experience. The reflector she used would make us squint and our eyes would water, and even after telling her this she would not adjust her equipment or possibly move a little faster for each shot. Our portrait session pictures are of either me or him with our eyes closed. She is an amateur photographer at best, and I can’t kick myself any harder for having hired her.

I understand Natasha is one person and there is only so much she can capture during a crazy Pakistani event such as ours, but there were so many basic shots that she had not taken. If she had taken them she chose not to include them in my final set. For example, there is no picture of two of my sisters walking in during the procession. There are no pictures of me and my fiancé alone on stage. There are no pictures of the stage itself. There are no pictures of my guests sitting at their tables. There are no pictures of me holding my bouquet. There are no pictures of my dress before I had put it on. There are no pictures of my family awaiting my fiancé’s family, even though they remember posing for them (amongst others that she did not include in my final set). There are no pictures on stage of my immediate family with my father’s eyes OPENED. Simple, basic, IMPORTANT shots like these were not included. Instead I received about fifteen repeated pictures of my table settings. Again, amateur photography at best, which is exactly NOT the quality of work we agreed upon or paid for. When meeting her to sign the contract she insisted that she would “do anything to get the best shot possible, even if it meant pushing guests out of the way.” We took this to mean she would maintain a stern yet professional demeanor, and yet my guests complained about her terrible attitude all night. Upon receiving my photos, I had asked for these missing items to be included and she did a very scant job of them -- a lot of cropping and poor editing techniques I could have easily done myself. Also, she took a picture of my dress wrinkled and hanging on a Macy’s hanger she assured she would photoshop the label out of.

Another issue I had was that in the pictures our guests took of us, it looked as if one of my teeth were missing due to my lipstick color or placement, and so I asked Natasha to please look out for this and maybe photoshop my tooth in. I also happened to have fallen asleep on my henna hands and so the stain ended up on my face, and although my makeup artist did an amazing job covering it up, she had reminded Natasha to please keep an eye out for this as well. Natasha assured me she would do this and remove any flaws (like my annoying baby hairs) from the final set. Needless to say, this was not done.

Natasha had contacted me a month after my party to tell me she had outsourced my photos to a different company to fix my tooth issue and that she would receive them that week and I would have my final set earlier than agreed upon (one month after the party versus the three months listed on our contract.) This was absolutely not true. I contacted her a week later after she told me this to see where my pictures were, and it was the same nonsense all over again. She would not return my calls, emails, or texts, nor those of my fiancé or sister. For two months, we tried and tried and tried and received no response. We also wrote on her [redacted] page, only to see the post deleted shortly after. I understand such a large number of pictures take a long time to edit and organize, but why then would she tell me they were ready if they weren’t? Why not respond to me? There was a terrible lack of communication from the start. What about the privacy she had been so assuring about? If my pictures were supposedly outsourced, God knows who was looking at them and editing them. The exact reason I had hired her for had all been for nothing.

During her two-month disappearance, I happened to google “nidjiphotography zenfolio” and came across photos of other hijabi brides in albums labeled as “private” but were very much public, and they included photos of the brides without their headscarves on. I knew some of the guests at both of these weddings and so I asked for the brides’ information to let them know that their photos were all public. They, too, had the same complaints I had about Natasha not responding to them and breeching their contract, and only hearing from her after they threatened her with legal proceedings. They reached out to Natasha who IMMEDIATELY got back to them, so I knew she purposely was not answering my phone calls, emails, or texts. Again, I understand these things take time but what I didn’t get was why I was being treated this way as a client. I did some more research and found a complaint about her on the Revdex.com’s website. I contacted the first bride who gave me good feedback on her who also told me she breeched her contract. If I had known all of this beforehand, I definitely would NOT have hired her. That is why I’ve chosen to write this lengthy, detailed review. Natasha should know better than to leave clients this unhappy when she is involved in a business that relies so heavily on word of mouth.

I had contacted a lawyer about what to do and after taking her advice, I contacted Natasha one last time threatening legal proceedings if she were to continue not contacting me and breeching her contract. The day of our deadline, a day after I sent my last email after taking legal advice, she responded with my pictures. There was no apology, only an offer for a complimentary photo album I surely was NOT going to take her up on. I would probably have to wait a year for it to be completed and in my hands, and only after having to fight with her the entire time. Also, my tooth was not fixed and neither were my baby hairs. The only editing she managed to do was filter some pictures black and white. When I asked her about this, she said this service would be available only at an additional charge. Where did this extra charge come from when she initially told me she had to outsource my photos to be touched up and I had to wait two extra months after she had first told me my pictures would be ready? She is a LIAR. Her assistant also used the excuse that she was swamped with all of Natasha’s clients and could not get back to me. If you can’t handle your client load, maybe take on fewer clients? Or maybe be an actual professional, own up to your mistakes, and apologize?

This entire process was mentally exhausting. The lack of communication, the lack of courtesy, the lack of apology all added up to an experience from hell. She has a terrible attitude in general, and is definitely not a people person. My guests did not have good feedback to give me about her. I still have not received my personalized USB containing my files on it. I had expected it to be ready to ship so that I would receive it by the deadline, but it’s been almost two months and I still have not gotten it. I had called Natasha to inquire about additional images and my USB and she had no clue who I was when I gave her my name. She also used the excuse of a “family emergency,” which I would believe if this had been the first time she used it. The other brides I had contacted said she had also used that excuse when she couldn’t deliver their images on time, which were all at various times throughout the past couple of years. Once again, Natasha nor her assistant are returning my emails, calls, or texts. I am not surprised. She has not returned any correspondence with my finance going all the way back to her initial disappearance. Had I not received a downloadable online gallery and therefore have access to all of my images, I would have commenced with legal proceedings.

Please do not hire Natasha to cover your event. Please save yourself the trouble and the money. A fancy camera doesn’t do a photographer any good if she doesn’t have a creative eye to go with it, nor the compassion or professionalism that comes with working with people.