Joshua Freiwald Photographer

I have to apologize for the review that I posted yesterday. I’m happy and relieved to say that, while understandable, the fears I expressed were entirely misplaced. We’ve now seen the photos – there’s a ton of them, and they’re fantastic.
We had been getting anxious because it’s taken longer than expected to receive the photos, especially since recently my fiancée hadn’t been able to reach him, and I never heard back after the voicemail I left 10 days ago. Some of our friends were scammed by photographers, and we thought maybe this was happening to us.
My fiancée finally spoke with Josh yesterday and it turns out that there were actually a number of mitigating circumstances. We wish he would have just reached out earlier, but it’s clear now that he was never intending to ignore or scam us.
In retrospect, that’s not surprising. Earlier (both before and after the shoot), he had been very responsive, prompt and accomodating in replying to questions from my fiancée.
After seeing the photos it’s obvious he spent an incredible amount of time and effort editing and working on them. We weren’t sure how many photos to expect from an engagement session, but he delivered a gallery of 375 (!) amazing images that included a number of alternate versions, like black-​and-​white, or cropped differently, etc. (As a comparison, in researching for our wedding, we’ve come across some photographers that give only 300 photos for an entire wedding.)
Because Unilocal reviews can’t be deleted, I’d like to mention some other aspects of our shoot, and also correct some details of my first review.
During the shoot itself, our experience with Josh was great. We were stuck in traffic and arrived at the shoot in Central Park over 30 minutes late, but he didn’t count that against the time we had allotted for our session (around 2 hours). Once we got there, he gave us not only the full 2 hours, but actually kept shooting for another half-​hour after that. We only stopped because it was pitch-​dark and we were getting cold! Josh tried to keep everything relaxed and natural; he stepped in with direction only when we really needed it, and kept the pictures from looking too «posey». We covered a ton of different spots around the locations we had agreed on prior to the shoot.
In my first review, I mentioned that Josh «convinced my fiancée to pay cash» in advance. It has been brought to my attention that this statement is not entirely accurate. First, Josh did not ask us to pay cash (he said most people pay by personal check). Second, he told my fiancée before the shoot that his policy follows the industry standard – 50% deposit to reserve a date, and the balance on the day of the event. (We’ve since learned that many photographers require the balance to be paid in advance of the event, as well.) Third, we actually paid Josh at the very end of the shoot, as we were saying goodbye – he did not bring up the issue of payment at all during the shoot, even at the end when we were about to leave.
In addition, earlier I cast suspicions as to whether or not the photos on his site are really his. This was a genuine sentiment on my part at the time, but after seeing the photos in our gallery, there is absolutely no doubt about that anymore. Because Unilocal reviews stay on your record forever, it’s important to me to rectify some elements of my first review in light of new information. Again, if he had reached out to us earlier, all of this could have been avoided. Missed communication led to frustration, fear, and suspicion.
However, it’s clear now that the speculations expressed in my first review could not be further from the truth. Reviews can have a huge impact on a small business – I don’t want to be responsible for wrongly impugning someone’s character or business. Just as I wrote the first review to alert other potential clients about a perceived danger, I am writing this follow-​up to let people know it was a false alarm.
It did take longer than expected to receive the photos, but we also got much more than we ever could have expected, both during the shoot and in terms of the final pictures. The quality of the pictures, and the sheer number he bothered to give us, are amazing.