Photography By Elyse Destout

My husband and I are extremely dissatisfied with Elyse Destout Photography.
Short version: Due to Elyse’s poor photography skills/​choices, lack of communication and inability to reschedule a photoshoot in a timely manner I will never have the beautiful infant photos that every other family seems to have of their family’s newest addition. I am deeply saddened, as this is something I can never get back. I can’t express how upset this situation has made me.
Long version: I scheduled a photoshoot for my newborn, she was 2 weeks old at the time of the shoot. The studio was beautiful so I was very excited. Instead of photographing my daughter against pulled down backgrounds, Elyse set us up against her studio’s wall (no background). Out of 70 photos there were maybe 2 that I was in love with… But the background was stucco and chipped paint! IT RUINED ALL THE PHOTOS. They looked like I had taken them in my living room. I mentioned this to Elyse and she offered to reschedule. I tried scheduling a shoot immediately since my daughter was already 1 month old by this time. It took Elyse 2 full weeks to respond to my email. I tried calling but was unable to leave a voice message because her inbox was full. She never attempted to call me back. When she finally did email me back with one available time slot (on a day I had previously said I couldn’t do), I emailed back asking for any other options. This time, she NEVER responded! I sent her a couple more emails but by the time my daughter was 2.5 months old I threw my hands up and emailed Elyse asking for a full refund. She called me immediately, literally 5 minutes after sending the email — where was this sense of urgency before? I let it go to voicemail because I was so upset about the whole situation that I was already in tears. She left a message apologizing, telling me she’s been sick, and wanted to offer the «year of photos» for no additional charge because she DOES NOT give cash refunds. I emailed her shortly after explaining that I was very disappointed — I had paid $ 150 for this service. I declined the full year of photos because I couldn’t imagine dealing with this level of unprofessionalism for a full year. Instead I chose 40 of the horribly executed pictures to receive digital prints of (what the original package was). She ended up releasing all 70 digital prints to me, but that means nothing to me since I only wanted 2 in the first place.
I will never leave such precious photos in her hands again, and I recommend you do some more research before booking her. I’ve been kicking myself for not writing her off after the first two week gap in communication and going to another photographer. But $ 150 is more than I could afford on leisurely purchased right now, especially with a newborn in the house.

I am an avid Unilocal reader but this is probably my first time writing a review! I am moved to do so because Elyse is a gem and needs to be better known to our community. I am happy to see the other 5 star reviews and agree with everything said.
Back in July 2014, as a gift for our 25^th anniversary, my husband hired Elyse to take family photos which included my mother and brother who flew out from NY to celebrate it with us and our two wonderful dogs! It was incredible how quickly she worked and produced such excellent results! We were all thrilled. Elyse is very personable, flexible and she clearly enjoys what she does and she does it effortlessly – so it seems on the other side of the lens. After working in her studio she met us back at our house for more outdoor shots. She just was a joy to work with — even with dogs and humans who are not necessarily happy to have their picture taken (you know who you are!). Thanks so much, Elyse!

I hired Elyse to take some professional photos for my website. She was great to work with & her fees were very reasonable. She did not consider the job complete until I was 100% satisfied. I highly recommend her.

We were just recently married and had the pleasure of working with Elyse as our photographer. She went above and beyond in every way and was extremely professional and yet friendly and easy to work with at the same time. She does an awesome job of capturing photos and small video clips of the vows and toasts at the same time. She brought her assistant to capture that video and a second angle for the stills so we have a ton of awesome pictures. We also used her photo booth which worked perfect, was a big hit and much less expensive than renting it through the DJ or someone else. Overall, we were very very pleased with the level of service we received from Elyse and we highly recommend her to anyone that wants an awesome wedding photographer (or a photographer for any occasion, for that matter). Thanks Elyse!

Elyse is wonderful, very patient and sweet. We highly recomend her for all your baby pictures.

My new wife and I were married on 09÷14÷13 and we chose Elyse to be our wedding photographer. Let me just start by saying it was an awesome wedding and she captured it exactly as we pictured it. I highly recommend Elyse Destout as a photographer for your wedding. We have had nothing but compliments from our family and friends who have all said that she was very friendly and professional.
We found her at a local wedding expo at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk early in the year and we were so impressed by her photography and her personality that we booked her on the spot. She is great at not only getting all the typical staged shoots but she also as an amazing eye for getting the candid shoots as well. She is able to capture the perfect moments and she can do post production on any of the pictures to make them black and white, sepia, of pops of color from a single item. She even threw in a photo booth for the day of our wedding and it was an amazing success. Our guests loved the booth and had tons of fun taking pictures.
She was very reasonable with her pricing and has tons of different packages depending on what you are looking to get. If you are looking for a wedding photographer in the Santa Cruz area I would highly recommend considering Elyse!

We went to have a family photo taken by Elyse. She has an amazing studio with state of the art equipment. She’s very personable and relates well to all ages. When we arrived at her convenient studio location she was prompt and ready. She was not only flexible, but took the time to get good pictures. She didn’t rush us, but was able to get great photos in a short amount of time. We chose Elyse because we’ve seen how talented and creative she is. We also wanted to «photoshop» other family members into the picture which she can do. I highly recommend her!