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A daughter's love for aquariums led her parents to book an aquarium suite at Sentosa, forking out the room rate of nearly S$2,000 per night, all to create good memories.

To ensure that the happy moments would be suitably captured on camera, the parents hired a photographer for S$360, only to end up preferring the shots that they captured on their own mobile phone cameras.

The sum was for a 1.5 hour photoshoot.

Facebook user Jacquelyn Ng Su Peng posted in the Complaint Singapore group on May 12, 2021, to share about the family's disappointing experience.

She raised a number of issues with the photographer's service on the day itself, including the fact that the photographer was 30 minutes late, was "very quiet" and did not interact much with the family, and seemed "not very interested" in taking the photos — all of which could perhaps be excusable, except that the photos taken by the photographer were also not up to their expectations.

Photos were "very dark with poor composition"

"Basically very dark with poor composition, and doesn’t seems to be the work of a director photographer," wrote Ng, of her thoughts on the photos.

Her post featured several side-by-side comparisons between photos that the parents took for themselves with their phones, and photos by the photographer:

Ng also said that when she asked the photographer why the photos were dark, he replied that it was because he had not been asked to bring along a studio light.

This was in spite of the fact that the parents were promised that they would have the studio light with no additional charge at the point of making the booking, according to a screenshot of a conversation which Ng uploaded.

Ng then asked if the photographer could "at least make the pictures brighter", but ended up getting ignored by both the company's boss and photographer.

The parents also say that they were blocked by the company after trying to reach them via Facebook and Instagram.

This stood in sharp contrast to how the company's boss had earlier been "very responsive and proactive" while planning for the photoshoot.

Parents had considered decision for "almost six months"

Ng explained in her post that they had hired the photographer as they were not confident of their ability to take nice photos in the room, and further added that they had been thought about the trip to the aquarium for "almost six months" before finally making the decision.

She also added that her daughter had never travelled out of Singapore since she was born, and that the parents decided to go ahead to book the pricy room by treating it as if they were spending on an overseas trip.

You can see the full post here.

Afford-A-Graph has responded to Mothership and shared the constraints it faced during the indoor shoot. Read more:

If the company sounds familiar, Afford-A-Graph has previously met with censure from the public after asking its followers not to hire freelancers.

Top image via Jacquelyn Ng Su Peng on Facebook