Darrin James Photography

Please do get in touch I was also a victim

Please get in touch.

He is in Australia, he doesn't have a social media presence but this is his wife's professional profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faye-james-332a7332/ as well as her personal Facebook page where you can see pictures of him: https://www.facebook.com/faye.james.1675

Hi, we used Darrin James Photography for our wedding last november, but have just learnt that he's skipped the country without providing us with our wedding video or photo album! My husband and I are really upset & trying to find out where he is, and how to get in contact, does anyone know any more about this??? Thanks If he is in Australia am has something that belongs to you, cant you contact the Australian police? it is theft at the end of the day. How disgusting, to do such a thing!

Darrin James was hired as my wedding photographer in Dubai in December 2005. Its now 2017 and I have no photos no album. I paid him a lot of cash up front in 2005. He disappeared after my wedding, and dragged the hunt on back and forth for three years. By then I was fed up and had already had my child. I decided to file a court case, as I felt taken advantage of and scammed. I filed a case against him through lawyers in Dubai Courts.The cost of legal fees, in addition to what I had paid him already in full for the photography and photo albums by 2011 mounted to a lot of money which I could not afford but I felt so ripped off I felt I had to fight. Needless to say the court system here is slightly different then back home in Canada, and when I received the result and he was fined, but the amount I received was only to pay the remaining legal fees and he was no where to be found to be forced to provide the high resolution photos of my wedding. We then found out that he had left the UAE. For those of you who may not know when I hired him in 2005 he was living in London and was a visiting photographer so he had no excuse to do this. He did this to so many other people I've heard. Sadly he was recommended to me by my wedding planner who is a well known lady in Dubai still to this day all over the media social scene in most of the UAE event magazines. This is to date one of the worst scam experiences in my life as certain family members who could not make it to our Dubai wedding never had a chance to see our wedding photos and when my son now 10 years old asks me why I don't have any wedding photos I feel awful. He is a horrible person with no morals, no values and no ethics. If anyone else has heard of similar scams he has done, please share here and online. BTW I don't believe that his local clients did not pay him. he is such a liar and professional scammer. his policy is pay upfront 100%. I attended a local wedding in year 2011 before he fled the country and they paid upfront in full. He did the same to them and I later found out it was his team there photographing the wedding.

Agree - start a facebook group. Also use twitter or linkedin to contact Lisa Cugnetto, the woman who ran the story. She will at least know the backstory even if she can't do anything now that the story has run. There is a lot you can do depending on how angry you are. I personally hate to see people steal from other people and then become successful somewhere else. And you can post here: https://www.facebook.com/HumansOfSydney <em>edited by dolleymadison on 29/01/2014</em>

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/celebrating-the-character-of-the-great-city-of-sydney-through-photographs-of-its-people/story-fni0cx12-1226740577084 Start your own group - The faces of those conned by Darrin James and take pictures of everyone who he owes something to in Dubai

http://www.live4.com.au/entertainment/4-minutes-with-darrin-james/ Why not contact them with your story Or the place with his excibit and see if they like the bad international press?

I caught darrin out with an email and he gave me his number. Now his phone is constantly off, what a coward. I even had a friend call him in Sydney and still no answer. Just feel for anyone in Sydney using him.

Is there a trading standards thing in Oz you can contact maybe? (im not from there so I dont know) or a CAB?

Well a little bit of Googling ... http://www.pixoto.com/darrinjames007 If you follow the link to the website, make up a name and email, contact him and get his information ... <em>edited by dolleymadison on 23/01/2014</em>

Dear all victims, I know is been a couple of years but has anyone heard anymore where he has run off too? I am still waiting and praying he will produce what we paid for. Last I heard was in Australia as a photographer still Appreciate any help, thanks.

Hi this might be a bit late coz i saw the last msg was posted here few month back. Anyway, i used Darrin for my wedding and engagement photography. I paid him $9.500 + $6.500 for the whole crew + my engagement which was different payment, and end up with only 1700 pics on usb. I paid him the full amount for the job that he was gonna do within few days, and he was supposed to make for me 2 (64 pages) and 2 (50 pages) Premium Italian hand made albums which we never saw. Plus online album. My wedding was in the begging of Jan. He was recommended to me through few people who used to deal with him before... His pictures on the website and his office looked great compare to what we have now on usb, he didn't even edit them, only changed the color. I mean i didnt want him to edit all of them but at least edit 10 pics that u know were good shots. So after that i went on my honey moon for few month, when i came back and tried to contact him i never got through. Im still looking for him! He either have to give my money back for all the albums and posters that i've ordered or he has to deliver what i've paid for. Please help me find him. Last time i saw him when i was picking up the usb to choose the pictures for the albums i had to meet him at his home, coz he wasn't using his office in palm already, and told me that he is moving offices at the moment. I don't wanna pay someone else again to have the albums its really not fair!! I just cant believe he took off without completing his work and keeping all of us behind! <em>edited by SabrinaW on 25/08/2011</em>

I do not know about the albums and the Photographs, but in terms of the Video side, Darrin was using Companies in South Africa and the UK. He had not paid the South african company for 3 months when he left for Australia. As he left, his staff shipped two boxes of Wedding tapes to South africa as he could now not deal with them anymore. Many of the tapes were un-labeled and with no contact details for them to sort what wedding belongs to whom. The company in South African has already returned completed wedding videos to Brides in the UAE. They are committed to try and sort this out. They are prepared to complete the video trailers and and samples of the specific weddings before any monies is paid to them. They have list of all the weddings that they have, both on hard drive and tape, and will send anyone the list to see if they have their wedding. Lloyd can be contacted on [email protected] or +27833921775 edited by cazperfect on 15/05/2011 <em>edited by cazperfect on 23/05/2011</em>

Was chatting about this to my friend today and she told me how her cousin paid 100,000 dhs for a wedding video and album and he just gave her a 3 minute taster video and 20 pictures before disappearing.

This really is dreadful and I couldn't think of anything worse than no having my wedding pics, the whole SA thing sounds very dodgy to say the least. I was telling my friend (who himself is a photographer) about what had happened and like others have already posted said you should at least be able to retrieve the RAW files at NO extra charge. Either way I hope you get your official wedding pics back very soon, good luck.

As a professional photographer myself, this story is so disheartening and his recent email is a TOTAL scam. do NOT i repeat DO NOT send him or a company in SA anymore money. unless he was shooting all 35mm film he can easily upload your images to an FTP site for you to download or he could mail out a DVD. if he personally took the images himself, he has them unless for some god-awful reason he lost them. as for the wedding album. there are other companies (once you have your digital or film negatives) that you can use to make your wedding album with and for a very reasonable cost. right now your number one priority is to receive your files (if that is what was contracted in your contract) and now even if it wasn't in your contract to receive all the files; you should ask for him and wipe your hands clean of his situation and go elsewhere to have an album made. if you need album suggestions send me a message and i can send some businesses to you overseas or even here that could help. good luck :) PS: i agree with nels to contact the professional associations and put them on notice as well as to hopefully suspend his status with such highly reputable associations such as WPJA (which i imagine will suspend him otherwise as you have to pay for that association)

Pretty awful for all involved. I heard a lot of people are owned money by him including the photographers and the retouchers I guess that is why they are asking for payment by the brides. Very unfair for the brides who have already paid and for the photographers and retochers who have not been paid for all heir work. Very tricky. And to think that his wife Fay, who by the way was sacked by Emirates Woman, always used to walk around with her nose up in the air! He set up in Sydney now? The cheek of it!

Following my last message... i've just found something else that may help you. Darrin is a member of a number of Global Professional Photography associations. I would contact each of this associations and provide them with copies of your order, and his email confirming he's gone bankrupt and can't deliver your photos, and ask them for their assistence. For one, they will cancel his membership stopped him from doing this again. But also, they may help! Here's his bio listing the associations. Make sure you mention he's listing his membership on his website (give the address), as if he's fee's aren't up to date with them and he's saying he's a member they'll take action against him via their Australian branch offices. "Darrin is a member of the Wedding Photo Journalists Association (WPJA), Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) and the Master Photographers Association (MPA) All associations have strict code of conducts and he'll be in breach of many of them. Good Luck xx

This is such a sad story. I love my wedding photos and can't imagine what you might be going through. I may have one explaination for the South Africa company though, which may be worth you investigating further. Hiring staff in Dubai is expensive (we all know), so some companys in the media & arts field have been following an Outsourced Model. For example a website company has a 'sales office' here, but the back end programming is done in the Phillapines. Photography isn't just about the 8 hours he was with you on your wedding day. Hours and hours of editing goes into the 3000+ photos he may of shot on the day. It would have been days and days of work for him. With Darrin doing both studio & wedding photography I think he was probably outsourcing this part of his business. The South African company may have been doing all the tweating, cropping, editing and watermarking and uploading them onto his portal for him for sometime. It could be that he hasn't paid this companies invoices, and he's sent your photos to them. However, I fail to believe he wouldn't have kept a backup. You could probably contact the South Africa company (if he releases the details), and understand if this is the case, and negotiate direct with them on the next steps. Or put pressure on Darrin to release the backup. It would be thousands of RAW photos though. RAW / NEF files are the ones you want, these are the large files so you can blow them up onto canvases, big prints etc. They would need work on them though, but you could find a freelancer locally to do that for you, or may have a friend who is an amateur that can help you. Good luck, I hope it all works out well for you.

I don't understand why he would of sent them to South Africa? That doesn't make any sense! Surely he could just e mail you the jpeg, the pics must be on his laptop. Really hope you get your pics.

omg! RAK shelter rehomed a puppy to him last summer! Where is the dog now?

i agree (1) karma's a b1tch and (2) you shouldnt pay another dime. i'm sorry this is happening to you, and with your wedding pictures! i really hope you get this sorted. good luck!

Errrr....what's the payment to this SA company/guy for ??? you paid for your stuff already, as you mentioned.....the most I would imagine could be possible is that you have to pay for the shipment to you.... but THAT IS IT ! I would not fork out another DHS on that.... and...if you really want to go and pay AGAIN then make sure you get the pics FIRST and then pay..... sounds like another scam to me !!

I am a firm believer that in life what goes around, comes around. Darrin James will have to pay, if he causes so much heart ache to his clients.

I have to say, based on what you wrote, that sounds really dodgy. He sent the pictures he took to a group in South Africa? And now he wants you to pay them in addition to what you already paid?

so much for technology. even if he had to 'flee' at least send a courtesy mass email to all impending clients on whatever the situation and outcome!

you will get it i am sure. circumstances and a move no doubt meant they overlooked it I can only imagine so let's hope it is easily sorted.