Eric Powell Photography

Photography is a serious hobby of mine, so I did a lot of research on local wedding photographers prior selecting Eric Powell in 2008. He also came highly recommended by a coworker of mine. I didn’t want wedding images that were too posed or overly-​processed, and most importantly, I wanted someone I just clicked with.
Eric and his assistant were so much fun to work with — they made us (and our guests) laugh a LOT. He was also helpful in setting up a timeline for my wedding day to make sure everything went smoothly. My wedding images came out beautifully exposed and tack sharp. My wedding albums are works of art.
Unfortunately I don’t live in Southern CA anymore so I can’t hire Eric to photograph my children. Now that I’ve worked with other photographers, I appreciate Eric’s photography even more.

When my fiancé (now husband) and I first visited our wedding site, we saw Eric Powell’s work and were immediately impressed. He has a photojournalistic style that is not stuffy or overly posed. He works with your personality so your pictures look like YOU, but better!
We really enjoyed working with Eric and Carol (his second shooter). He is easy-​going, yet always professional. Our wedding day was one of the hottest days of the year, and Eric and Carol were consistently upbeat and motivating while running around catching all of the action of the day. All of our friends and family enjoyed working with Eric as well.
We received our pictures shortly after we returned from our honeymoon (~3 weeks), and we absolutely love our photos. We received a CD with all our pictures, plus Eric posts all the pictures online so you can send your family the link.
Not only is Eric one of the best photographers out there, his photo packages are also reasonably priced for the product you receive.

Eric did our engagement photos in 2002 as well as our wedding photos in 2003. We were married in Santa Barbara and for a small fee he and his assistant made the drive which we were very appreciative of.
SERVICE
Eric has a distinct personality (outgoing guy) and great sense of humor. We found him very easy to work with. He did an amazing job and everyone at our wedding thought he was fantastic. He got all the shots that I requested plus so many more that I cherish but never thought to ask for. At the time I didn’t want any formal photos but he asked that I take a few. Turns out those ended up being a lot more important than I thought they would be. I’m glad he guided us based on his years of experience. We still look at our photos 7 years later and are very pleased with the quality of his work. There was never any pressure to sign a contract if we weren’t sure of him or any pressure to buy more. He made it clear that we should pick a photographer that we felt comfortable with. We couldn’t be more happy that we chose him.
I have always found him to be easily accessible even after our wedding. We had an issue with some of our photos being damaged and he has been very helpful.
PRICE
We found his prices reasonable. With photography it truly seems that you get what you pay for.

We got married in 2002 and used Eric as our wedding photographer based on some positive reviews. He was pleasant and easy to work with, and nice to our family and guests. The album came out beautiful and we are happy with the overall experience. Now I have a baby and am considering hiring Eric to take some family photos for us.

Eric was our wedding photographer. I met with many photographers before Eric and I went with him because of his outgoing, friendly, and easygoing personality. His sample albums were beautiful. Also, he is very reasonably priced.
The day of our wedding, Eric did a great job taking some very artistic and lovely photos. He took a variety of very unique shots of my husband and me in our church, also before the ceremony, family pictures, and lots of great reception shots. He has a really great eye for detail. We received our proofs by the time we came back from our honeymoon! The best part is, our wedding album is alsolutely beautiful. I couldn’t be more thrilled with it. It is artistic and something I will treasure forever.

I have used Eric for so many different types of photography for many, many years and have always been extremely happy with his work. He is talented, creative, professional and, above all, incredibly easy to work with and flexible. He has done corporate portraits, event photography and even surgical photography for me, and the only reason I would ever use anyone else would be if he definitely was not available for a specific date. Working with doctors can be an extremely difficult and stressful experience, but Eric has the knack of putting everyone at ease and getting complete cooperation, without being bossy or pushy. I would recommend him to anyone.

There is no doubt Eric Powell is a great photographer. But he is not easy to work with, is not very flexible and has a major attitude problem.
In 2005, we booked Eric for our wedding. He had done a couple of other Indian weddings before and was recommended by a friend.
For those who don’t know, Indian weddings are 4 to 5 days long, with the wedding and reception falling on the penultimate day. Needless to say, it is a stressful event for the bride and groom.
At our reception, he didn’t like the way one of my groomsmen talked to him. Basically, he was taking family portrait pictures of some of our guests while others waited to take their pictures with us. We kept having to fetch him to come shoot pictures of us (the ones who had hired him) with our guests, but Eric kept drifting away. So I sent one of my groomsmen to call him, and Eric didn’t like the way he was called in the middle of clicking someone. So he came up to us and threw a fit, causing quite a stir. He recapped the number of hours he had put in and that he had already stayed past his allotted time. After that, he stuck around for a little bit, took a few more pictures and left.
The whole thing left a very sour taste in our mouth. Eric’s attitude and his behavior took us by surprise. Perhaps he was tired, maybe he had booked another wedding that weekend and was double-​shifting. Needless to say, he sort of ruined our reception for us and that memory will always remain.
The next day, he called in the morning, but instead of apologizing, he asked for more money or he would not show up to the final event.
Now if you have been married (and I am not talking about the drive-​thru Vegas style or a low key event), you know it is stressful. There are days when things run behind schedule, and everyone has to stay a little late. If you are a to-​be bride reading this, or someone who has been a bride, I have been told that your wedding day is the single most important event of your life and it is a day you have dreamed about since before you could spell the word «wedding».
So even if your photographer is upset, or has an issue, he needs to suck it up, put on a smile and do his job. All issues/​qualms can be discussed later. Right?
Clearly it was NOT us. Our videographer was great. Our caterers were great. Our florist was great. We had no problems with anyone. In fact, we didn’t have a problem with Eric until he took issue with being asked to photograph the bride and groom and threw a hissy fit. In his words «I am an artist and I will take the pictures that I want». I guess we didn’t get the memo.
So while his pictures may be good, he is certainly not a professional in my opinion. For small jobs, he might be ok. For longer, more intense stints, know that his temperament might work against you.

Eric did a fantastic job with our corporate headshots. I happened to come across Eric on Unilocal and decided to have him take our photos based on the reviews that he received here. The reviews were right on the money because the photos came out great! Very professional and reasonably priced.

Eric Powell did a great job on our photos for our wedding day. We did a vintage-​themed wedding and he really did a nice job of covering everything we requested. He brought a female assistant with him who also photographed us during the day — so it was great to have more than one point of view of things.
We were both pleased with the results. He did a nice variety of shots, got a ton of great shots and it’s hard to pick out enough bad ones to make a book — we’re still trying to get it down to a usable number! There are too many good photos to pick from. That was a problem that I hoped I would have after the wedding!
He’s very personable and a true professional, and he gets the shot.

This guy is a real piece of work!!! If I could give negative starts I would. When he shot our engagement photos, I had a funny feeling, but just disregarded it as nerves and thought he’ll do better for the wedding. And when we got our photos back and they were only so-​so not one had photo processing and retouching. Nothing spectacular AND nothing creative or original! But we had already paid a large deposit we couldn’t afford to lose so we kept him for the wedding photos and were completely shocked with what we got!
His work is NOTHING like his photos in his office or website! It was truly a horrific experience with him.
Our wedding package was the smaller of the packages as we didn’t need an album and wanted to custom one ourselves from the photos on the disc of pics he would give us. But to hand us 3 boxes of about 800 pictures some in black and white some color all randomly ordered. And the CD is not better. Not to mention the horrible batch job not one was again color corrected.
Then there’s the fact that he ignored all of the direction I gave him and all of our previous conversations about what’s really important to us. Like, He didn’t take pictures of our guests as I specified like a thousand times as they were mostly out of town… I mean countries not just states.
Part from this, I was very disappointed overall with the quality of his work and his annoying mannerisms at our wedding. His rudeness, arguing with the bride and groom. He was my one major regret about our wedding.
He seemed in a rush and in a panic which made me panic and rush. Later, I found out he was having «personal issues» «family issues» JUST MAN UP THEN AND SAY IT WASN’T YOUR BEST WORK AND TRY TO WORK THE THE COUPLE WHO’S WEDDING YOU JUST BOTCHED.
If you want more details, feel free to email me at:
I am passing this info along to my fellow brides as a WARNING! I don’t want you to go through what I did your wedding photographs is what you will have to relive your special day.
But whatever you do DO NOT HIRE THIS PHOTOGRAPHER!

We were lucky that we stumbled onto Eric. He has an easy going personality that was fun to work with, but he was also the consummate professional at all times. He definitely has the artistic eye and was able to capture many great moments without been obtrusive. Alexis, his assistant, was also great to work with. We were very satisfied with our pictures and his pricing is very reasonable.

You know when you are looking for wedding vendors and they all sort of start to blend together like a bad dream collage? Well, Eric cut through that. We loved his personality because he was outgoing but not pushy. We knew he would keep the minions in line, but in a nice and fun way. His work is impeccable. He has an amazing eye for detail and also captured the standard wedding shots with an artistic flair. He is very easy to work with and not outrageously priced. His assistant was also great, good shots, easy to work with.
I was worried about not having the perfect wedding photos because I didn’t do a video but I needn’t have worried. Eric was amazing!!!