Beware of Organized Photography Trips

I enjoy teaming up with a few other photographers and models to shoot in interesting locations that would otherwise be inaccessible or expensive. I wanted to travel a bit further afield to try my luck so looked into a number of different organized photo tours. I started with a weekend in a location that I could drive to with a group called the IBMS. It went well and was fun so I budgeted for four trips in 2019. One was within driving distance in Florida and the others were out of the country in Cuba, Jamaica and Mexico. Most of the organizers wanted full payment up front with pricing that varied from $400 for the Florida trip to $6000 for Cuba (oddly, Cuba is an expensive place to travel). Two of the trips were organized by fairly well-known tour groups and two were organized by photographers of my acquaintance, one a roommate at a previous event and one who was a friend of friends in Florida.

I ponied up for the trips and began to make travel plans. Little did I know that three of the trips would be cancelled because too few people signed up and paid. First was the trip to Cuba that I was really looking forward to. There was a drop dead date by which a call would be made as to whether there was enough interest or not. The trip was one person shy of breaking even for the organizers so they cancelled it. I received a refund of my money promptly, and fortunately I had not made flight reservations yet so I did not lose any money.

The second trip was the trip that was fairly close to home for which I paid $400. It also was cancelled due to insufficient paid reservations. In this case, the organizer turned out to be a dreamer who is incompetent as an organizer and who had spent the money on other things. I have received partial refunds of my payment to the point where I finally have my refund (a year later). The loser who organized the trip has more excuses than Carter has pills.

I should mention at this point that the trip to Mexico took place and was successful (with the IBMS) and there were no financial issues.

Of the original four trips, the one to Jamaica remained, but again it was cancelled due to a lack of paid reservations. I had been pressured to pay in full ($1,000) a year ago and once again the organizer, who had been a roommate the previous year, seemed to have spent the money elsewhere and was unable to refund my money. After much complaining, I received a partial payment of $100 but I am still owed $900. The organizer has been taking his own photography trips as evidenced on Facebook, but does not have any money to repay me.

After three of the four trips were busts, I was hesitant to trust anyone else with my money but I did substitute a great trip with UTAdventures late last year and had an excellent, if expensive, time in Mexico. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions about what to do if you are tempted to follow this path. All I can suggest is to only trust a company with a great reputation and a solid history. Let the buyer beware.


https://colinwardphotography.com/