TERMS OF USE

Due to the dynamic nature of the Tampa Bay photography and design services industry, we seldom publish our rates on our web sites, unless we are running some sort of special, which we rarely do. Please call for rates and availability. All services are booked on a first-come, first-serve basis, and all scheduled services are secured with a deposit, which is required to maintain the integrity of our schedule.
While Aurora PhotoArts has time guidelines to keep our booked work as productive as possible, we do not charge clients by the hour like so many other do. We charge by the job. We do not rush our work, and we do not watch clocks. The entire point of booking us to do a job is to give you the results that you deserve, and trying to get any job done too quickly may compromise quality. Any service from our competition, or aspiring competition, offering unlimited pictures, or looks, in a short amount of time may not be as good of a deal as it may seem, as quality is compromised if a session is rushed. We do not disrespect our clients by charging them by the hour, although terms and limits may apply in special circumstances, and in those rare situations, we extend the client the upmost respect and courtesy, and we communicate what is going on. Please see your service agreement and service specification sheet for more.
Although we encourage our clients to take the time and sit down with us for a free, no-obligation consultation, all services, especially model testing and headshot photography, can be booked over the phone. Model testing services are almost always booked over the phone, due to the high volume of such work, while the more comprehensive modeling portfolio photography services usually entail a consultation. Model testing and modeling portfolio photography services are not the same, and we can explain the difference. Model testing sessions will not give you the diverse range of looks that you will need for a modeling portfolio, and are not designed to be substituted for a modeling portfolio photography session, as you need at least six looks to establish a professional portfolio. Contact us for details.
Travel outside of the Tampa Bay metro area for location photography sessions may require travel rates in addition to the rates of the booked services. We consider the Tampa Bay metro area to be Tampa, Saint Petersburg, Carollwood, Northdale, the University Of South Florida area, The University Of Tampa area, South Tampa, Clearwater, Palm Harbor, Safety Harbor, Brandon, Valrico, Plant City, Lakeland, New Tampa, Wesley Chapel, Land O Lakes, and Lutz, as well as Bradenton, Sarasota, and Fort Meyers. Please discuss this with us for details. Most of our clients, however, travel to the Tampa Bay area to work with us, and we have had clients travel literally from all parts of Florida to book services from us. Much of our photography work, especially modeling portfolio photography work, which should never be attempted in a studio, is done on location. We are experts in using the Tampa Bay area as a location for photography work, and know all of the best places, even the secret ones which our competition do not know about. There are benefits to our experience, as we have been doing location photography work in the Tampa Bay area since 1994. The Tampa Bay area is our area; we love, and we know it, well.
For the convenience of all of our clients, no services can be booked, or scheduled, without a deposit. In addition, although all consultations are free, with no obligation to book any services, if our schedule is busy, we may require a deposit for scheduling a consultation; you would only be charged if you failed to show up for the consultation, in that case.
Photography and design services are guaranteed for quality, as the point of booking our services is to give you results that you can use. We minimize the risk to you in booking our services, and make obtaining the services that you deserve as convenient as possible.
Additionally, there are no hidden charges or fees with any of our services. There are some photography studios and photographers who will bait people with low rates and sitting fees, only to turn around and hold their pictures hostage as they try to sell the pictures from the session back to their client, and the client ends up paying far more than they usually would have agreed to. We will not do this to you, and we do not agree with such unethical bait and switch practices common in photography today. All of the image files from your service are yours to keep, with no strings attached; we only watermark images that we use on our web sites, and our clients will receive all images without watermarks. It is good business to be as up-front with possible with our clients, and to make the services that they book with us as easy and as convenient as possible. We pride ourselves on our client referrals and on our repeat business, and establishing a fair, service-orientated professional relationship with our clients, with an emphasis on value and quality, is the way that we get those referrals.
Additional services, such as booking a make-up artist and/ or a stylist, are not included with any of our photography services. We can refer you to subcontracted professionals if you require their services.

All client photographs are kept on file in active working storage for at least three (3) years after their session, and may be made available for a reasonable fee if needed, although clients should not have to obtain these files from us if they keep and maintain their original files. After three years, we will back up and file the files in archive, after which we can make copies available at an additional cost. Due to the possibility of events beyond our control, such as accidents, availability if files is not guaranteed after the initial delivery of files after the session is concluded. All signed agreements and releases are kept on file indefinitely, and do not expire. All of our clients receive extensive support and instructions after their session, and are encouraged to keep their files organized and maintained in a safe place. Although clients do recieve all of their image files from the session, most of these files are raw, unedited files, and are not optimized for printing or upload to the Internet. Please do not use files unless they are edited and optimized for a specific use; our instructions will explain more about this.

The following statement has been placed here to discourage shopping by competitors and aspiring competitors. These precautions are taken to ensure that we maintain and retain market superiority, as we are, in our opinion, better than our competition, and are the most advanced photography and design services company in Florida. It is our experience, and also our opinion, that we have consistently dominated the Tampa Bay market, and that we are leaders of our market. It seems that our competition knows this, too, as many are very aware of us, and are afraid of competing with us. Our clients benefit from our market leadership role, and we take our work very seriously. Service agreements, releases, paperwork, instructions, and other client support resources are only made available to legitimate clients. As of 2012, these are treated as controlled documents, but we do have spec sheets and other types of documents, such as brochures, if available, which can be made available to anyone considering booking our services; documents such as brochures can not be mailed, however. Class 2 controlled documents, such as releases and instructions, are only seen and used by clients after their booked session, as we are not in business to train our competition and aspiring competitors. Although signed agreements and documents are legally binding indefinitely, our documents, which include client support resources, are subject to change at any time and without warning, and any agreement presented today may not necessarily be available tomorrow; you have to book the service and have a signed agreement in order to lock in specific terms and conditions of any service, which included quoted rates. Due to our policy of discouraging shopping from our competition, anyone calling for rates and other information who cannot be identified will not be given any information, and this is especially true for anyone calling from a line where caller ID information is blocked. These policies are active because of experiences which we have had in the past where competitors and aspiring competitors attempted to shop us using unethical means. We reserve our time and efforts for legitimate clients. You have to book our services with a deposit, the deposit paid in full, to become one of our clients and to be able to retain Class 1 documents, and Class 2 documents are only made available to clients after the service is concluded, and their balance has been paid in full. ALL of our documents, which include agreements and releases, are encrypted and traceable, as are our client support resources - Clients are not permitted to transfer or forward documents to any unauthorized party, which obviously includes competitors (An attorney is permitted to review client documents, as long as the information is kept confidential and they do not forward it to anyone trying to compete with us). Again, we are not in business to train our competition, and it has been our experience that our competition tries to learn the business from us. We are market leaders in the Tampa Bay area, and our competition proves to us, through their actions, that they are followers. We do not just run a business, we run the market. The Tampa Bay photography and design services market is ours, and we demonstrate that with every client whom we work with. We believe in what we are doing, and we work hard to make sure that our work is the quality work that our clients deserve. We are confident that, after talking to us, and booking our services, that you will believe in what we do, too.

FIRST PUBLISHED
06/28/12/0900

UPDATE HISTORY

06/28/12/0900 - 06/29/12/0900 -

WEB SITE UPDATE LOG

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