Alison Bell, Photographer

Alison portrays herself as a mother/photographer who cares dearly for her clients. Unfortunately, all we can say from our experience is that we felt she was negligent (to the point where we could’ve been hospitalized), unaccommodating and unprofessional. Her business model is basically a “pushy salesperson”, where she requires you to make a decision during the so-called “gallery reveal”, which must be scheduled in the middle of the week and middle of the day, when most people are working and at their busiest. Alison boasts that she runs her sessions like a party, but all we did was pose on the sand, pose on the rock, pose on another rock…. Our kids were so bored and had a HORRIBLE time! I had specifically asked her to take candid pics of our kids while enjoying an activity, but we ended up doing only stand-stills and fake walks (the one where everyone holds hands and walk together). In the end, my husband and I felt that there weren’t enough variety in the poses/pics, so we moved into the shallow water onto the rocks. Alison didn’t have any problems with it, as she continued shooting with her camera. However, one-by-one, my husband, my two sons, and I slipped and fell hard backwards onto the rocks. Our clothes were soiled and two of my sons were crying in pain and shock. Thankfully, none of us were seriously injured except for minor cuts and bruises. Alison came and asked us if we were okay, but immediately scurried off because our time was up. Now, what was even more SHOCKING and SCARY was that, after she left, another photographer who had a session with another party at the same approached us, and told us how he was watching us and couldn’t believe that our photographer let us get on those wet rocks. He told us about a client who got onto those rocks, fell down, injured his head and became permanently paralyzed! He asked if Alison was not from there, because anyone who’s been a photographer there should’ve known how dangerous it was to step onto those rocks!! Even though we were shaken by how dangerous it could’ve been, we still wanted to see the photos and even sent a “thank you” message to Alison. In retrospect though, we do feel that she could’ve cautioned us, especially since she told us how familiar she was with the location. After leaving Aulani, we were aware that we were supposed to schedule this “gallery reveal” with Alison. Our inboxes were bombarded by her persistent emails, basically tellings us that we need to make a purchase decision immediately during the session, which could cost $3000. Anyhow, we went ahead to do what she wanted us to do, but the only time slots available were from 10am to 1:30pm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (screenshots available). She was not available on weekends and it was outrageous that she expected us to gather from wherever we were for 90 minutes during work and school hours. We emailed her to let her know that there was no way for us to do the gallery reveal in those times given. She didn’t respond for few days but finally gave us a link to the gallery. We thought that we could finally see the photos on our own time over the weekends… but BOY WE WERE WRONG!! She put a time limit to the link and only one person in our family was able to see the photos for literally less than a minute. She“closed” the gallery before anyone else could see it and refused to give another access unless we did the impossible “gallery reveal” on her own terms. As for the quality of photos, considering she’s asking $3k for digital copies、I was expecting to be blown away. However, although I only got to flip through for less than a minute, I was so disappointed because there wasn’t ANY picture that made me go “wow”. We do photo sessions every year, and considering how much she charges for each photo, her skill is mediocre at its best. They were lightly airbrushed (probably did a mass-edit through a photo editor), and they looked like what you would get from a family photo session at a department store. When we first contacted her, she sounded as she really wanted to get to know us, do her best to do whatever we were looking for, etc. etc. Well, we still haven’t seen the photos after almost 3 months, and all we could say was that we totally regret choosing her. We’re not sure why she became so unresponsive and unaccommodating… Maybe she didn’t feel comfortable with us because we were Asians? *shrugs