It seems Couvrette’s portraits and prices created a stir in the city. On Saturday, the Ottawa Citizen’s Randall Denley picked up the story in his column:
“Photo fury puts chaos at City Hall in focus”
Denley’s column reflects the challenges faced by small businesses – sometimes the photography is the easier part of the job!
Ottawa executive portrait
I see many self-professed portrait photographers commenting with stuff like “I could shoot for less.” This is from wannabees. The fact was that Paul Couvrette did quote around $2700, or about $117 per person, if they came to his Gladstone St studio at scheduled times. The Council members decided not to go all the way 2 kms, so “have Paul set-up on location here. Make him come to us 8 times.” One hour on location, is about the same as 4 hours in studio because of set-up, tear-down, transit and lost time at the homebase.
So Paul, or Tom or Harry whomever had the contract has to cancel in-studio shoots and schlep his equipment on location, pay his assistant etc and still have some Councilors do a no-show. In fact Paul had to Photoshop at least one Councilors head into the official set.
So in the end Council themselves escalated the bill by almost 400% because that’s how The City of Ottawa does business.
Darrell Larose
Thanks for your comments Darrell!
Harry