Personal data I collect
I collect: your name so I don’t have to call you Sir/Madam, your email address so I can communicate with you, your mobile number so I can call you to find you on the wedding day, your address so I can post your wedding photos to you and take your photographs because that’s what you’ve paid me to do. All of this is necessary for me to do my job.
How I collect and keep your personal data
If you used my contact form on my website, I receive an email which arrives in a email inbox that is tightly passworded with something that doesn’t contain my birth date. If you go ahead with booking me as your wedding photographer, I will store your email in my address book. If you enquire but don’t book me, I will delete all your personal data from my client database after the appropriate mourning period has ended.
Blog commenting
I have a blog on my website where I showcase my wedding photography. If you comment on it, it’s super public so everyone can see it, so don’t write down your personal credit card details there.
Right of confirmation, access, rectification and erasure
In all seriousness, if you have questions about how your personal data is handled, you can just drop me an email. I’m happy to show you the information I have on you, and unsurprisingly it’ll probably be exactly the things you’ve told me because sadly I am neither a spy nor a mind reader. If some of the information is wrong, you have the right to correct it, and I would definitely recommend this because neither of us want me turning up at the wrong wedding! If you’d like me to delete all your personal data, you have the right to request it, but I wouldn’t recommend asking for that before your wedding otherwise my journey to your wedding will become a saga akin to The Matrix films. I definitely need to know stuff about you to work for you. When you’re done with me you can totally dump and delete. I do tend to keep email addresses of my clients in the database for the duration that I provide your online galleries – if you’d like to fully close your account with me in a manner of speaking, just let me know.
Use of your data
The summary of this is that I’m not going to be weird with your data. I will 100% definitely use your email to email you about your wedding. If there’s something related to your wedding like a discount coupon for prints, I’ll possibly email you that too. If there’s something unrelated to your wedding but related to something we had a human conversation about like a really cool tapas restaurant, I may well email you about that too. I wouldn’t give your email out to anyone else, I don’t even give it to the second shooter! I also won’t be sending you lots of newsletters mostly because frankly, I don’t have time. I do sometimes give out phone numbers to second shooters, not because they’re cute, but because similar to the clause above, it’s best for all involved if they are able to find you on your wedding day.
I have a questionnaire that asks you for details about your wedding day, that doesn’t go anywhere bar my computer and then into a pdf on my password locked phone. After your wedding I might send you a questionnaire for a blog post, you aren’t obliged to fill it out and what you write in there may be edited into content for your blog feature, so again, please don’t leave treasure maps to pots of gold in there. Any and all information I request from you is entirely voluntary really.
Sometimes your wedding looks really jazzy to an independent wedding blogger, and they may ask my permission to court thee. Again, nothing can happen without your consent so I wouldn’t stress about that. Sometimes I submit photos to competitions because it’s how I collect all my shiny preciousesssss, but I tend to only use photos you’ve already given permission for on my own website.
Use of your face-based data
When it comes to your photographs, the EU hasn’t gotten too specific about what that means for working photographers bar that we need to demonstrate reasonable and legitimate use. I can tell you that I won’t sell your wedding photos to Hello magazine, and, if a third party does approach me asking me to buy one of your photos, I will email you about it. Sometimes you may want to sell it. I have had a couple sell one photo and they got €300 so, you know, that was a pretty nice amount of money and they were happy. But in short, it’ll never be without your consent or knowledge.
There’s a couple of things I do to run my business, like show my work on facebook, instagram and my own website. If you have booked me you probably looked at photos of my real couples on these various avenues. I do ask couples to opt into this in my contract, but you can always decide to keep your wedding private. I have shot a lot of weddings that no one has seen, at the end of the day I’m not a weirdo and I respect that some people don’t want to be on the Internet. Even if you don’t specify that you want out, I will actually ask you directly after the wedding as well if you’re ok with me putting you and your guests on my website. You can veto any photos you deem too sloppy, and it is your responsibility to ask your guests’ permission, although we both know Jonny isn’t shy.
I store photos of your lovely lovely faces on password encrypted hard drives in my house that is behind a locked door. I also keep a copy of your photos with an online gallery provider that is GDPR compliant.
GDPR compliancy
The new EU regulations require me to just do stuff that’s fairly within the realms of my job role, I guess all you really need to know is that I’m a nice human being who wants to be able to do my job.
