Ortiz Photography

The old saying, «A picture is worth a thousand words» is only true if you have the right picture. Bob Ortiz knows how to capture the moment so that you see depth of life in his photos. Bob does not only weddings, he shoots conferences, events, promotional pics, headshots, real estate pics and so much more.
With more than 30 years experience, what distinguishes Bob from all the rest is that he is fast… gets the best shot… professional…caring…knows how to make you look good… has all the right equipment… and life and color spring from his photos. I hired Bob and he shot more than 300 promotional photos in two locations with four wardrobe changes in an hour. I have never been this pleased. His work is outstanding and pleasure to work with.
When it comes to selling that million dollar house, landing that next job or documenting your event so you can increase future attendance, I would highly recommend Bob Ortiz photography — he is your competitive advantage… I know he is mine.

Bob was amazing and flexible during our Christmas card photo shoot. We had to keep moving from one spot to another so that my husband wouldn’t figure out that this was actually a renewal vow ceremony and a surprise birthday party for him. Bob was great in moving with us and making sure I had the perfect location for my renewal ceremony. We are so excited as this photo shoot has made our Christmas card become the best one ever! Thanks BOB!

Bob goes to my parent’s church. My parents knew me and my husband were looking for a photographer that took great candid pictures as well as the standard requested wedding pictures. My Dad told me to go look at Bob’s website. Both my and husband really liked the engagement and wedding pictures Bob had on his site. We met with Bob and really thought his personality and humor would be a perfect match for us — we were right!
Bob took both our engagement and wedding pictures. We are beyond thrilled with the pictures he took. We have so many amazing pictures to pick from its going to be hard to choose the ones we want in our photo album.
My husband and I didn’t see each other until the ceremony so I had no idea what type of pictures he took with this groomsmen. I was not only laughing at the amazing and funny pictures; I also got teary eyed looking at all the great shots he took. I had asked him to make sure he took pictures of our guests because I knew we couldn’t be everywhere that night. I was beyond excited to see all the pictures he took of our family and friends. It help us see things we missed or had forgotten. Bob also made sure to take all the family pictures we had requested.
I cannot thank Bob enough for capturing our special day. He was very professional, has a great attitude and made everyone laugh AND let relax. If you’re looking for a talented and professional photographer with a great sense of humor, I would recommend Bob.

Bob Ortiz shot my wedding and it was amazingly done. He has done many photos sessions of both my children and I have referred him countless times. Always pleased, and highly recommended!

He was the photographer for my parents wedding and captured breathtaking photos that I’m eternally grateful for today. The quality of the photos were amazing and I have a lot of them hung up in my house today.
He has a warm, funny, kind-​hearted personality and will make you laugh so no matter what the occasion, especially if it’s your nerve wracking wedding day, he’ll put your butterflies to ease. If you’re ever looking for a truly talented photographer, than go with Bob. I saw he didn’t get the best of reviews from some people here on Unilocal,but you can’t believe everything you read and I’m thankful my parents didn’t listen to those reviews because we were beyond pleased with the outcome and would highly recommend him to anyone. Give him a shot and you will thank me!

Bob took pictures for my father’s memorial and went over and above what was needed. Anytime I asked him for something he was more than willing to assist me. We couldn’t be more grateful to have this day captured for us as nobody would have been able to do it like Bob Ortiz.

Bob did an excellent job at the Friarbots Holiday Party 2013! Thanks so much Bob for the great family shots!

«Wolf in sheep’s clothing?» Really. is that necessary? Bob is the kindest man I think I’ve ever met. He is extremely knowledgeable and knows what he’s doing. He is very lively and gets the group into the pictures. In some of the pictures, I wasn’t sure what he was going for in some but if you do go with it, they turn out beautifully. When I got the pictures back, they were fabulous! Wedding was on Sunday, we received pictures by Wednesday/​Thursday. Super quick if you ask me! Especially it being Thanksgiving week.
I wouldn’t agree with some of the reviews on here. We got to see the same picture in different effects/​coloring and it really gave a different vibe in each one. He really did take his time and went over and above my expectations.
I would definitely recommend him in a heartbeat!

It’s hard to believe reviews these days on Unilocal solely based upon the fact that a lot of people aren’t very forthcoming about their side of the story and only come on here to blast someone’s reputation.
After having our wedding this past Sunday, it’s hard to believe that Ortiz Photography deserves anything less than 5 stars. We scheduled the first part of our pictures to take place at 1 pm at our hotel and Bob and Bob’s wife were both on time and very professional. That team works like clockwork. My groomsmen and I were ready first so we started taking pics while the girls were finishing up. Bob’s shot placement is spot on and and he knows what he is doing when setting up the shots. My groomsmen were having a great time following Bob’s instructions and laughing at his jokes.
Bob and Eileen (Bob’s wife) were very detailed during the entire picture process. Eileen would fix my wife’s dress and veil for each shot and I have to say that after seeing the pics, they look amazing. You really do get what you pay for. Even on the shots that we were running extremely low on light turned out amazing. It’s Thanksgiving and Bob already uploaded over 1,000 pics to a site for us to view. They were clear, well focused and not blurry at all. I’ll be sure to upload some pics to discredit the people who don’t seem to be impressed. I mean, some people are just never pleased no matter what, so don’t trust the negative reviews all that much. Bob is the subject matter expert and if you follow his lead, the shots will look amazing.
Again, I just can’t believe some of the bad reviews posted on Unilocal.I mean, come on, our DJ and florist both dropped their jaws when they asked who our photographer was and we said Bob Ortiz. He is extremely well known in the industry and I am sure there are hundreds of other people out there that can vouch for his work that don’t «yelp.»
Pics soon to follow. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Bob Ortiz is not worthy of being called a photographer, let alone a photographer for something as special as a wedding. I met with him before our wedding and unfortunately was duped and thought he would do a good job. To my dismay, what followed was a long series of lies, not following through with promises, change of stories constantly, and worst of all, very very very very bad wedding photos.
Don’t waste your time or money on him. My experience has just ended with disappointment in our wedding photos and being lied to constantly. He was nice when we first met with him, but then when it was time to go over the details before our wedding, he was very short and snippy with me, and rushed me through talking about the photos I would like to have.
Then when our wedding day came (Oct. 20, 2012), he fell through on his promise that another photographer would be with the men getting ready. Then he rushed us through all of the photos before and after the wedding. It was nerve racking and uncomfortable. Then when we got our photos back, I cried for days. They were awful. In fact, I’ve never seen such bad photos. They were almost all out of focus and almost all were crooked. There was a cross behind us in the ceremony, and it was crooked in every photo.
He also missed so many special moments I asked him to capture. For the ring ceremony, he took photos with a candle right in the middle of them so you could hardly even see us. It was so sad to see such sub-​standard, awful photos of our wedding. We told him how disappointed we were with the photos, and he got very short with us, raising his voice and snapping at us.
He said he would re-​touch 100 photos, so we sent him 100. When we got them back they were almost all the same. There were maybe 5 that he just added amateur color tints to. For the rest of the photos, he sent us back «before» and «afters», and what he did was darkened and yellowed all of the original photos, and then presented the real original photos as retouched «afters». We called him to tell him that we noticed this, and that the photos are not retouched after all, and he hung up on us.
We resorted to retouching the photos ourselves. My husband had to learn how to professionally retouch photos, and a year later, we finally have our photos retouched. Then out of the blue, Bob called my dad and told him he would make a free album for us out of 80 photos. Hesitantly, my husband called him to tell him he would send him 80 of the photos we retouched, and Bob said he never told my dad he would do that for us. My dad called him to ask him why he told us he would make a free album for us, and Bob denied he ever said this, and hung up on him.
Bob Ortiz is extremely unprofessional, disappointing, and a horrible photographer. You would be wasting your money, and more importantly, you would be left with unprofessional, low-​grade, and all together poor looking photos if you used Bob Ortiz. Don’t be fooled by the photos he has on his website. His actual work looks nothing like those photos. I hope that by writing this, I can help someone not make the same mistake I did by hiring him, especially not for something as special as your wedding day.

Do not be fooled — wolf in sheep’s clothing!
He seems very personable and very cocky-​confident, like he knew exactly what he was doing… And yep, we also saw the beautiful wedding album… BEWARE.
I don’t like posting bad reviews, but I really don’t want anyone else to have the same HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE that we went through.
Most of the wedding photo’s ended up being:
— Blurry
— Crooked
— Off-​colored
— Dark
He was afraid of using flash — Hmmm… my father-​in-​law performed our ceremony and Bob Ortiz failed to ask him about using flash… My father-​in-​law said he would have told him «flash away» for his only daughter’s special day.
Unfortunately (and fortunately) some of the best photo’s came from our wedding guests smart phones. Then, for the next year my wife and I spent hours upon hours using Photoshop to fix these horrendous photo’s.
The worst part: Using The Lord’s name and REPEATEDLY TELLING LIES to my father-​in-​law and all of us… Anyone reading this and still considering using him…
PLEASE RUN FAR AWAY!!!

Bob did our family portrait at Saddleback church. I asked for a specific background and handled that request with lots of charm and a big smile.
We are very happy with portrait!

Bob, so glad to see you on Unilocal!We have told everyone how wonderful you are and we are glad to tell it on Unilocal!We will forever be thankful for the wonderful pictures and the experience our guests received with you as our photographer. You truly went above and beyond our expectations.

We hired Bob to shoot our wedding, and he was the ultimate professional. He handled any challenges we were presented with in the day with grace and helped me keep my cool, and keep me laughing — which is the most important quality a wedding photographer’s personality can have. If the bride is stressed, the pictures just won’t turn out well. I was immediately at ease in his presence. The portraits, ceremony, reception and getaway were all captured beautifully, and the memories I am able to save are priceless.
Not only did he get our pictures back in record time, but he also provided the best customer service experience. Not only were my expectations met, but he exceeded and anticipated shots that I had hoped to get but didn’t actually tell him about! The photos were incredible and he even helped aspiring photographers who were in the crowd. He travelled all the way to Washington for our shoot, and utilized his time efficiently in order to produce the best quality photos in a very short period of time, as our hotel caused problems that set our time frame back for nearly two hours. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience!
I give him five stars because he earned every single one of them!

Thank you Bob for capturing our family’s most precious moments yet again!!!
We cannot thank you enough for being so talented, professional and fun. My girls just light up when you are behind the camera and we treasure the memories you help us keep.
Can’t wait for next year’s session!

I was highly referred to Bob Ortiz by my fiancé’s friend, who’s daughter got married a few years back. I interviewed Bob and found him quite personable and his resume impressive. He traveled the world shooting weddings and also teaches in between bookings and had a number of experienced years under his belt. He just so happened to be my wedding coordinator’s photographer when she got married. When he told me he was going to meet my budget, I thought I hit the jackpot!
His style was more traditional, but i thought to myself, he teaches photography… perhaps he can shoot similar to the style that I liked. He made me feel he was capable of doing anything and everything. The first photographer I interviewed was very artistic, meticulous, and paid attention to details. Her albums were state of the art… bar none… top notch. Her studio was well decorated and organized. However, she was more expensive than Bob. I guess… you do get what you pay for. His office was plain and cluttered; his albums were mediocre. Perhaps this way he keeps his costs down. At the time, I tried not to judge a book by its cover. Bob made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Really? How bad could it be? I’ll let you decide. Due to poor weather and our schedules conflicting, we were able to finally make an appointment for our engagement session after two months. Even with a GPS, Bob and his wife were late to our appointment but tried to be understanding since they were coming from OC. Nonetheless we were stuck in traffic and barely missed the sun setting at Griffith Park. After our session, we took Bob and his wife to a nice sushi dinner to get to know them better. They are truly a nice couple. We got to review some of the pictures he took. All of the pictures he took indoors looked horrible. He said he would correct the lighting. He said he’d have the pictures available online for me no later than a week. I needed post these pics on my wedding website so I was pressed for time. More like closer to two weeks, he finally uploaded approximately 300 pics from his camera onto smugmug. Out of the 300 photos, we found 5 of them decent. None of them were post produced. When you have 10 out of 10 people tell me how horrible my pics looked, then I realized that it wasn’t just me being picky. It really was that bad. There were people and police cars in the background. Honestly, my sister, who takes pictures for fun, could take better pictures.
We had already put our retainer for $ 1000. What to do? We decided to take our loss instead of being more disappointed on our BIG DAY.

After meeting with 3 other wedding photographers, Bob was the first one to offer an all day service, a free engagement session and a gorgeous coffee table book all for a fair OFF SEASON price… finally something my mom and I could breath easy about. Not only was the price too good to be true, but we got the pictures back within FIVE DAYS of the wedding… HELLO! I loved the pictures at first sight, but when all the smoke had officially cleared 4 weeks after the wedding, I realized that he had captured EVERYTHING I held precious and dear from my our special day. He’s also experienced enough to know to STAY OUT OF THE WAY when it counts.
One more added bonus that is usually not considered when picking a wedding photographer… Bob did a fabulous job of making it fun and helping us out with our poses. I’m a pretty outgoing person, but, unless you’ve done it before, it’s hard to «turn on the heat» when a camera is staring you right between the eyes.
Oh, AND, his wife Eileen was great too. She fixed our hair and clothes when they needed help. It’s easy to love a picture, but be like, «If only my hair wasn’t sticking up»…they both had a great eye for all those little annoying things.
He suggested a great idea about the sign in book too… call him and ask him about it ;)

Just finished our unforgettable engagement session with Bob Ortiz. I was nervous at first… aside from smiling, I’ve never been comfortable in front of the camera. Luckily, Bob helped guide us and made us feel at ease… in fact, there were times I almost forgot the camera was on us. It felt very natural.
We began our session walking through a quaint street in Laguna. As we were walking, Bob spotted a breathtaking Spanish Style home that inspired some impromptu shots. We knocked on the door and, to our delight, the owner said she would be happy to loan us her porch so long as she could witness Bob create art.
Then, we made it towards the beach in this tucked away Laguna paradise. Luckily for us, Bob knows all the great spots. There was a little rock climbing involved and some playful waves wanting to be part of our shoot.
I loved these moments and will never forget this day. We invited Bob to dinner and ended the evening at Rubys. Just when I thought our session was over, another impromptu session began. It was here magic transpired. I can only explain these shots as Melrose Place meets the Peach Pitt.
He is not only an amazing photographer but also an incredible person. I feel blessed that God has sent him our way and know he will be someone we keep in touch with through the years.
Forever thankful, you are the best Bob!

It’s now 17 months after my wedding and 9 months since my last review. I JUST received my album. It is very nice and the only reason I am not lowering my rating to 1 star. Bob has called several times to ask me to remove my Unilocal review because it’s «hurting business» but I don’t feel that the service I have received warrants that and I feel Unilocal is here for honest reviews so consumers can make educated decisions about who they do business with.
After posting my last review here, Bob contacted me and told me that he wanted to make me happy and offered to upgrade my parent album. He upgraded it so it looked like a mini version of the wedding album, which is certainly nicer than an album with just 1 photo per page, but also did not create a lot more work for him. But the review I posted was that a. I did not have my wedding album 8 months after the wedding and b. that communication/​service was very poor. Neither of those things was handled any better, which is apparent by the fact that it took ANOTHER 9 months (for a grand total of almost a year and a half post-​wedding) to complete my album.
This review is not personal — it is merely a documentation of my experience with Ortiz Photography. I would not recommend their services — there are plenty of wedding photographers in So Cal who will do a great job AND get your album to you in a timely manner and without you having to initiate all communication and progress yourself.

Bob Ortiz has photographed the most precious and poignant moments of my life and he does it beautifully… that’s why now married 10 years and 4 kids later we keep coming back to him and trusting him to catch the stages of our lives we want to remember forever. His images are treasures to us, time flies and memory fades so fast but he captures the ones you just want to hold on to.
His website is so well done and his communications are consistent and reliable. He’s prompt, upbeat and funny.