Website: https://www.naturalimagesphotovideo.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bgriffin70
This photography group appears to operate in just about every state they can get their hands into.
There’s so many stolen images in the galleries I gave up sourcing. It’s ridiculous. Most are stock but not all. Most of the top gallery on their wedding page is stolen/stock, most of the real estate photos are stock and many of the corporate images are stock.
PS: Their pricing is bananas.
Update 2/13/23 @ 7PM:
Added: The owner’s excuses and more stolen images.
A local photographer gave me the heads up that Billy, owner of Natural Images, has been posting ads in quite a few local wedding groups on Facebook. Mind you, I’m in OHIO and he’s in ALABAMA. So WTF? Of course the ad is with one of the stolen images that I posted below.
Billy is placing the blame on a former employee and says he’s hired a new employee, Mallory, to fix the issue.
There are a lot of issues with this “former employee trying to sabotage me” lie, mostly that Mallory posted an ad on their Facebook Page 20 hours ago and the top image is stolen. So if she’s supposed to be fixing it all… uhh… you may have hired the wrong person. Oorrrr, Billy is lying and trying to come up with any excuse since he got caught.
Oh and there were stolen images on his website so claiming that everything there was their own work products is yet another lie.
Oh and another issue? That back in June someone realized that they were using stolen images so contacted the original photographers back when I was in retirement. Note the date of the message to the photographer.
Since Billy is active in about every local Ohio wedding group you may want to make sure that yours doesn’t have any ads from this photography group. He’s definitely all over the Gulf Coast area groups and Alabama groups. Possibly Kentucky too.
So… now I’m on a mission and I’ve added more sources below of images he’s stolen.
Fuck off Billy. Don’t lie.
Adding more stolen images below. I gave up at 50 but I could have kept going.
Update 2/14/23 @ 2PM:
Added: Mallory’s side of the story, faked review from website with stolen image, stolen image in an ad, stock landscape photos…
Billy blocked me on Facebook *cue the violins* and finally appears to have deleted most (NOT ALL) of the stolen images off his Facebook Page and website.
Mallory, the newly hired employee/past bride, commented on the Facebook post. She claimed that she was just using the images that Billy sent her to use in ads he had her create and post and she had no idea that they weren’t his images.
The stolen ads live on though in what feels like every wedding Facebook group in the United States. If you’re in the US make sure to check for them and their ads similar to the style below. Various profiles will post the ad from Billy to random profiles to a BIRD. So far he’s been found posting ads for weddings in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Ohio. I’m guessing there’s more.
In researching all of Billy Griffin / Natural Images Photography & Video Productions online footprint to make sure everything is down I found he’s also used a stolen photo in an ad for Foley Local Magazine (page 19). The top image is not his (sourced below) and I have my doubts about the second but I cannot find the original source.
Someone brought up that they had doubts they actually won the various awards they are claiming to. Since I’m digging in, I’m going ALL in and started to dig into that claim as well. I had concerns that like other thieves in the past, Billy may have entered a stolen image in a contest.
Claim 1: “Winners of the 1997, 1999, 2011, 2021 and 2019 Telly Awards for Wedding Videography, Cinematic Films Category”
There IS no Telly Award for Wedding Videography that I can find. I’ve searched for their names, business name… nothing. You’re welcome to browse yourself but I couldn’t find any record of them or the category they claim to have won. They may have done but I certainly couldn’t find any record of it.
Claim 2: “Winners of the Pretty Poser Magazine Weddings in the UK, 2021 and 2022 seasons”
Pretty Little Poser Model Magazine is based in the UK and appears to be a voting based magazine. There is NO yearly winner as he implies but there is one photo that they apparently did win something with
Claim 3: “Winners of the Wedding Galleria Magazine Portraiture Awards in 2011, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2022 seasons”
THERE IS NO WEDDING GALLERIA MAGAZINE!!! Which means there is no Wedding Galleria Magazine Portraiture Awards.
MOST of the stolen images are gone from their website but some, like the images above remain. I know it’ll shock you to find out they are all stock images.
I also sourced below that there’s an image that was alongside a testimonial that was a stolen image. So, does that couple even exist? Do all of them?
Update 2/14/23 @ 4PM:
Fucking hell I missed the Instagram page.
Update 2/15/23:
When I get mad I dig and boy I keep digging.
Guess what I found?
Billy got caught doing this in 2005. More chat about it here.
He made a lot of storm chasers mad. Like this guy who was still talking about his theft 3 years later in 2008. He’s also mentioned by another storm chaser in 2011 on Twitter.
But I’m sure it was the employee hired in 2022 that got in a time machine and did that all to sabotage him. *rolls eyes*
Update 4/24/23:
Billy is still posting ads (with their own images this time) pretty much all over the US and if confronted about the link here claims that lawyers are involved and they are suing me for “personal slanderous attacks” against him and his wife. If they are, I haven’t received anything but if/when they do the truth is the truth. These images were not created by Natural Images Photo and Video that they used to heavily advertise in the United States. Billy himself posted many of these ads online, not just his employee. I’ve had others try to sue me but no one has won a case against me yet because the truth is a defense and I do not post here without evidence of the truth.
This ad below was posted by Billy himself, though he claims he never posted anything that was stolen and everything was posted by the claimed past employee.
