Patrick Pike Studios

I am so glad that I chose Patrick Pike to take our wedding elopement pictures in Yosemite Park! He is an amazing photographer and so talented. He loves what he does and it shows! Not only did he take lovely portraits, he was like our own personal tour guide throughout Yosemite. Patrick knew all the best spots, some so secret and so intimate. It was a beautiful experience and he made our day so special. Great memories and pictures to remember it by.

Patrick is not just a fantastic photographer but also an amazing person. At our first meeting with him months before the wedding we both immediately felt at ease with him and loved his relaxed easygoing nature. His photography has the kind of timeless, beautiful, and artistic character that will last forever, unlike some other Yosemite based photographers we saw.
Patrick’s calming presence and experience with Yosemite (he knows it like the back of his hand — literally) will make your wedding amazing. He talked us into doing a first look and are so glad he did. He shepherded us around the Valley and took us to places only someone who works in the park every day could find. And he kept us sane when it thunder, lightning, and hail rolled in. And our guests absolutely loved him! (And my wife loves that he got me to stop making the same photo face Chandler has in Friends).
If you’re lucky enough to get to work with Patrick, count yourself blessed. Nobody does Yosemite better.

First things first, Patrick does take amazing and breathtaking photos, no doubt. That should be the tough part and the easy part is delivering on those photos in a reasonable amount of time, and that’s where there seems to be such a huge disconnect, and for most wedding couples, that is pretty much a deal breaker.
I am okay with being told it is going to take 6 weeks to edit and prep the photos, no problem, do your thing sir, you are the expert and we want the best shots possible. After 6 weeks, it would be nice to at least touch base with us and let us know there has been some progress made but the pictures are not done yet. On the contrary, to hear nothing, no reply to emails, phone calls, and voice mails is just crazy and bad business.
Being an approved vendor for doing weddings through Yosemite/​Ahwahnee is a gold mine/​cash cow, I know if I had that place locked up, I would not want to put that at risk, and frankly I think the Ahwahnee needs to do a quick review of their vendors because it also reflects poorly on them and they do not need that.
Like I said the pictures were great… when we got them 7 weeks after we were supposed to, and after reading some of these reviews, I consider myself lucky. Some of these stories of 6+ months to get photos that were paid in full is horrific!
Choose wisely if this is the route you want to go, discuss a contract where only x amount is paid upfront and the rest is paid in full upon completion and being given the digital files and whatever else was written in the contract. That may be the safest bet to get results in a timely matter.
Not sure what is going on personally with Patrick Pike Studios, but if there are issues then kindly turn down the job and not ruin people’s once in a lifetime experience, it is not worth it and I would respect Patrick and the studio way more for saying no if they can’t execute what was agreed upon.

My fiancé Derek and I just got our engagement photos and we could not be more pleased. We found Patrick online and were a little nervous having never done a photo shoot before. Patrick put us at ease within minutes of meeting him. He knows the Yosemite valley very well so our photo locations were very private while still capturing the majesty of Half Dome, El Capitan, and the valley and all of its beauty. He is able to tell a story with every shot, not just take a picture. Communication was great before, during and after so we would recommend him without hesitation.

Our experience with Patrick Pike was a love hate experience… ending with more hate. We were married a year ago and I waited until this whole thing played out to make a review. I will say that Patrick is a very gifted photographer with true talent and passion for his work. He was wonderful on our wedding day and we could not have asked for more. He helped us change our location due to the Yosemite/​Government shutdown and everything turned out perfect.
However, when it came down to getting our photographs it was a nightmare of no contact and no photographs. Our package promised us all of our pics at a reduced quality that would be fine for smaller prints and we would get a $ 500 credit for larger prints. We never received any of the pics for our own use and I began calling and emailing Patrick (and we’re talking over a month and a half after our wedding). I left messages wanting to inquire about bigger prints he could do and wedding albums etc… (literally throwing business his way). ALL of my communications were ignored. Even the $ 500 credit we were promised couldn’t be used because you needed a coupon code which he never gave us. We were married in Oct and I wanted at least some small prints for Xmas to show family. So we were forced to pay over $ 400 for just a handful of 4×6 prints through his webpage ($ 11 for a 4×6??).
After 3 months of no communication and at least a dozen ignored voicemails and emails I obtained the paperwork for small claims court. I called him and advised him of this and still nothing. I finally sent a certified letter informing him of my intent to take him to court. Patrick FINALLY emailed us… not even a phone call? He briefly apologized with no explanation, gave us our coupon code, sent us a link to our digital photos and promised us a free panoramic print of our favorite photo. Never got the panoramic even after a few more inquires.
My advice is stay away from Patrick Pike. You can see that other’s had similar experiences. I’m not sure what his problem was but out of everything we coordinated for our wedding the only memory that is tarnished is dealing with him. You don’t want to have to remember that on YOUR DAY!
If you read this Patrick I hope that you are ashamed with how you have treated good honest people.

Patrick is a fantastic photographer, super personable, and works almost unnoticed in the background at your ceremony. Our pictures turned out incredible, however, we did have some communication problems in getting our album completed. It is here now and beautiful along with all the other pictures that Patrick captured that day.

It’s been a year and we don’t have our wedding photos.
It’s that simple, Patrick Pike and his team provide such bad customer service that 12 months on, we still don’t have any prints from our wedding. We are currently taking Patrick to small claims court because it doesn’t seem like he will ever provide the prints we paid for.

I was married in Yosemite over the summer and knew that I wanted a spectacular photographer above everything else. I did a TON of research for a long time, and looked at practically every photographer in the area. Immediately I was blown away by Patrick’s photos, and knew I had to book him for our photographer. We met him in person about 2 months before the wedding and immediately thought he was awesome. He and his wife are both extremely friendly, laid back people who we instantly felt comfortable around.
We had a «first look» with Patrick (when you take pics with your soon to be spouse before the wedding) and his wife before the ceremony, and I can honestly say that was the highlight of the wedding day. Just the four of us, cruising around the valley and taking photos in the most spectacular locations. We had an idea or two in mind, but trusted Patrick to take us to his favorite spots. We went to Valley View, Tunnel View, and a couple of gorgeous meadows. My husband wanted some shots with El Capitan, and Patrick immediately put us in the most perfect location for that shot.
Our family, bridal party and guests all raved about Patrick and his demeanor — calm, funny, and an amazing ability to be everywhere all at once. I fell in love with all of the photos he took, but was shocked by how many gorgeous candids there were. He managed to capture moments I completely forgot about, funny laughs with friends and tender hearted hugs with guests. I cried when I saw how beautiful they were. He promptly put the photos online with a beautifully written blog post, and tagged us in a Facebook photo a day or two after the wedding. We loved seeing photos right away! After the sadness of a wedding being over, those photos were a true joy.
We don’t have kids yet, but already know who will take our pregnancy photos, baby photos, kids photos, heck — pretty much all photos moving forward. Patrick is a gem and he will make your wedding day SPECTACULAR.

Patrick is spectacular! First, he is extremely personable so you feel very comfortable just being yourself, which of course results in much better pictures! He is super knowledgeable about the spaces around Yosemite/​Mariposa as well as photographic details. He even got in these obscure positions to ensure that he captured the perfect shot on our wedding day!!!

After initially falling in love with Patrick’s photography and thinking the world of him as a person and as a friend, we were left extremely hurt and disappointed. The day of the wedding was fine. The problem arose after we had given him our final payment, and I wanted to work on the wedding album with our $ 1,000 credit. He simply disappeared. For literally 4 months I could not find a way to reach him by phone or email. I was honestly concerned if he and his family were okay, so I contacted our wedding coordinator at the Ahwahnee to see if she had seen him. He was apparently upset that I had done that and sent us an album in the mail that I had zero input in creating. There was no note or form of communication with the album. I am still saddened by this experience.

We met with Patrick in the spring of 2012 at his Mariposa studio to discuss his services, as we were impressed with his online portfolio. He was responsive to all calls/​emails leading up to our meeting and after our meeting we considered him as a possible choice as our Yosemite wedding photographer. In late 2012 we were ready to make a decision, so we attempted to contact him to clarify his pricing, but we never heard back from him. We checked out his Facebook and Twitter pages at the time and he was actively posting messages, so he obviously had free time on his hands.
There were two other things about him we found a little disconcerting: his services brochure, which contained a number of spelling and proofreading errors (see attached screenshots); and an automated sounding email we received from him in April 2012 which read:
«I hope you’re having a great week! I just wanted to check in with you regarding your wedding photography. We exchanged emails recently and I sent you some information about our work. I was just curious whether you would like to move forward with us for your wedding. If you get a chance, let me know where you are in your planning. Thank you so much! Patrick»
If you read Abbie C’s 8.19.13 review (strangely, moved to the Filtered Reviews section), that person also reported receiving the exact same email. The email we received was sent from «
» instead of Patrick’s regular email, and a little research has since revealed that it was indeed an automated email sent from a service he uses called «ShootQ» (
). If you look at Patrick’s Twitter page (
), you can see he tweets several times a week on average. The question then becomes, if he has time to send out a steady stream of meaningless tweets (like «Gotta get to Yosemite» posted on 10.16.13), shouldn’t he also have time to send a short personal email to a prospective client?
Anyway, we found another photographer who we were very pleased with, so the story had a happy ending.
8.27.14 UPDATE: I was in Mariposa last April on my way to Yosemite and out of curiosity drove by Patrick’s 7^th Street studio off of Highway 49… it’s no longer there, the building he used to occupy now housing some sort of hippie shop. Patrick also stopped posting tweets last December. I’m wondering if there’s some connection between these things and the number of Unilocalers who have been recently reporting Patrick’s failure to provide product and return messages.

In short, if you are lucky enough that he is still available, hire Patrick!
In long…
I could not imagine our wedding without Patrick. My husband and I had a 100+ person wedding at Evergreen Lodge just outside of Yosemite in August. We planned the wedding from LA so we didn’t get to meet him till four days before the wedding. We were hoping to build some camaraderie since he would be such an intimate part of our big day… so we wanted to take him out for beers. Unfortunately, when we arrived in Mariposa it was before the bars were open. Patrick invited us into his studio instead and he shared a fantastic IPA microbrew with us. Signed, sealed, delivered… we were his. :)
Fast forward to the wedding, Patrick blended the perfect amount of humor, professionalism, creativity, spontaneity, and efficiency to his craft. He came with ideas and sought to fulfill ours.
During the ceremony, I am astounded to realize that I don’t remember him there. I don’t mean to say that he wasn’t welcome… but a person wielding a big camera during such an intimate and important time can easily distract from the moment. (I’ve been to too many weddings where the paparazzi get right in the faces of the bride and groom and subsequently block my view during the best parts.) Instead, Patrick practically wore camouflage and quietly glided from tree to tree during the event and still got the most incredible shots.
We chose not to do a «first look» much to the chagrin of most photographers, I know, but Patrick never fought us. He did point out that going to the valley would probably be ruled out… which was a sacrifice we were prepared to make. I asked that he help us keep the photo time as short as possible since we didn’t want to keep our guests waiting too long during cocktail hour.
He made the photo hour so incredibly amazing. He captured the «yosemitiness» of our location without the need of half dome in the back, he made us feel romantic, he made us laugh, he ventured with us, and all the while he took surprisingly few shots… he just made the most out of each vantage point and location. My face didn’t hurt from smiling and we weren’t sick of kissing each other by the end of it!!!
He secures your trust by letting you see some of the shots along the way, but he captures your anticipation by taking a few «mystery» shots… playing with light, a background, or a pose… so that by the time you return to the real world you can’t wait to see all the shots.
If I were to have a regret it would be that we didn’t shuffle the money around in a way that would make it possible for him to photograph the rehearsal dinner… but maybe we’ll splurge on anniversary shots instead!!!
Thank you Patrick for being so down to earth, joyful, and for capturing our day so perfectly! (also, your photo booth shot was priceless… where did you find that beer?)

This is not based on Patricks photos. We used Patrick for our yosemite wedding on 11÷5÷2011 and still have not received the photos. The fees were paid before the wedding and we still have not received the album. He rarely answers email or a phone call and we have repeatedly left messages and email with no reply.
He takes great photos but it shouldn’t take 1 and a half years to get them!
I only wrote this after all other avenues failed. Even his partner at Yosemite
said she would try to contact him with no luck. We know they have talked so now we’ll have to take legal action to get our photos.
I just don’t get it… He is on Facebook constantly and have messaged him while he is online with no response.
Buyer beware…

Amazing! My wife and I did an elopement to Yosemite and had Patrick take pictures with us in different locations in the park.
His work is amazing and seeing the shots on his camera while he took the pictures was incredible! We can’t wait to actually get our proofs and start ordering prints and an album!
The photos were the one part of the trip we splurged on and it was worth every penny!

Patrick just did our wedding at Evergreen Lodge. I can’t speak highly enough about him. He is truly wonderful and would be worth every penny for your special event!
Thank you Patrick for amazing photos and a truly memorable experience!

FABULOUS! His photos are truly amazing, beautiful, and elegant. We would HIGHLY recommend Patrick Pike for your wedding photography.

I know wedding photography reviews are biased because come on, nobody wants to come out and say they didn’t like their wedding photos. Especially after spending all that dough and working with the photographer and getting to know them, etc.
All that aside, believe me when I say that Patrick was seriously wonderful. If you are on the fence about hiring him for photos, get off the fence. It will be worth it.
Considering we’d never met him in person and that we managed to be forty-​five minutes late for our scheduled meeting, he did a great job of putting us at ease. He exudes positivity and it’s easy to see why everyone loves him. Is it weird we discussed moving to Yosemite so we could be his friend?
My husband and I had never gotten professional photos but he took our awkwardness in stride, ninja-​ing around and giving clear instructions and tips. (We now know the best angle for looking like a GQ model and how to kiss so your mouths aren’t gross looking.) He is superhero quick with his lens changes and equipment setups and somehow makes it look like you have the park to yourselves.
During the ceremony/​reception, he was a total pro. Never intrusive but good command of the group shots. He got a great one of the whole group we used for our thank-​you notes. Instead of rushing out, he stayed and made sure we got every last photo we wanted.
Needless to say, the photos were amazing. So many framers in there. We look like us (but better?) and the quality is badass. We’ll love those pictures forever.
If you want awesome wedding photos, go check out his work and nab him up!

My husband and I eloped with our parents to Yosemite on December 30^th, and Patrick was our photographer. We live in Southern California, and so we were unable to meet him before our big day. We chatted on the phone several times, but of course there is a small amount of anxiety when you haven’t met someone face-​to-​face. Well, that anxiety was unnecessary, because Patrick was amazing.
Patrick met us right before the ceremony, and made sure the ceremony spot would be good for pictures. During the ceremony, I didn’t even notice he was there! I was able to completely focus on my Husband. Immediately after the ceremony, we took several group shots, and then left with Patrick to take several photos in other areas of the park.
Patrick was 100 percent professional, but more importantly, he was very friendly and easy to get along with. He is energetic and is excited to take photos – which rubbed off on us, and really helped us get into it. My Husband is usually shy of photos, but he said that Patrick helped calm him and really enjoy the moment. To sum it up, it was simply fun taking photos with Patrick.
Also, Patrick will go the extra mile (or 100!) to get an amazing shot. Our trip to Yosemite was unique – although it has been cold, there has been little snow and thus the high mountain roads were still open. Patrick took us to Tenaya Lake, to take photos on the frozen lake. It was incredible, magical, and we will never forget that moment. It really made our day.
We will update when we receive the photos as well :) You can’t go wrong with Patrick!

It is really hard to try writing a review to someone like Patrick when you have limited space… I could go on and on about the most wonderful photographer in the world!
My husband and I got married at Yosemite in the spring and we picked Patrick because of the gorgeous photos we saw on his website. Since we live far and did not meet Patrick in person until the day of the wedding, I was slightly nervous about how things would go. All my worries were completely washed away when he approached me and introduced himself, just moments before the ceremony.
An absolute pleasure to work with, Patrick even worked as «weather man» that day, as we had rain and even hail at times. He is in tune with the surroundings of Yosemite and his experience photographing at the park was made so clear as our session progressed.
The pictures turned so absolutely GORGEOUS!!! The truth is that my husband gave me a bit of a hard time for not getting emotional during our special day, but let me tell you… When I received the link from Patrick to look at the proofs online and I browsed through them, it finally «hit» me! I cried like I don’t remember doing in a long, long time. The pictures are my favorite thing out of my whole wedding. If anything, I wished I had convinced myself that even though we had a super small wedding, I had asked Patrick to be there for some time prior to the ceremony (to click moments of me and my husband getting ready), for a toast at the bar and for the dinner.
Super sweet, knowledgeable, experienced, reliable and ABSOLUTELY WORTH MORE THAN EVERY SINGLE PENNY, Patrick has to be your photographer, regardless of being your wedding or some other function you wish to have put into memory through pictures!

My wedding pictures turned out fabulous! I got tons of compliments on them. Thanks again Patrick!