I started Photo Stealers before Google Lens was a thing and it was all due to my ability to be able to guess who the original photographer on a thief’s website was. While there are SO MANY new photographers now that it’s impossible I am still often able to do this with photographers whose body of work I’m familiar with.
Case in point, Brooke Mayo.
Brooke is not only an immensely talented and AMAZING human, she was my wedding photographer and who I looked up to SO much when starting out and through to today. I love her work and who she is.
So when I came across this website I didn’t have to Google Lens shit, I knew in my soul that this was Brooke’s work (of course the one image he didn’t crop the logo out of helped prove me right). I also know Brooke and I verified that Vincent Gross was not her employee.
I’m guessing that Vincent is rebranding from Outer Banks Photography to Duck Photography to get away from the bad reviews out there but who knows really the thought behind it.
Also fun fact, I’ve actually met this guy. His (ex?) wife was an officiant at a wedding I photographed in the Outer Banks and lets just say he didn’t leave a favorable impression.
Case in point of why I do what I do, when searching to find the source link for the first image on Vincent’s page, the source URLs Google comes back with don’t link to Brooke despite the image being on her homepage. Google thinks the image belong to Vincent and may be punishing Brooke’s page for the duplicate content even though it’s her image.
I don’t know what Vincent’s intention was here but it’s kind of creepy to use a Brooke’s images AND images OF Brooke and her family/children.
I got hit with a flurry of messages about this fauxtographer so I am guessing they got caught somewhere online. The Facebook Page was wiped between me getting the messages and when I could start the post but the website is still predominantly images that were not created by Seraphina Visuals.
There is a TON of stock images used here, often from the same wedding so to save time I’m only going to post the original source for the first of the group on those.
I think *some* (not all) of these images were placeholders with the Pixieset template they are using. It’s often done and it’s gross. There’s so many other photographers that popped up when searching those images that are using the same placeholder images on their live website. Stop that crap right now.
I think this is also one of the first photographers to use AI images in their portfolio pretending they were real photos. Wait, no. I forgot about Meg. Well, anyway, it’s the first one I’ve come across that is just a regular photographer not selling products TO photographers anyway.
Finally, to kind of go for the full BINGO card here they also have plagiarism.
When I start a post with so many AKAs known already you know it’s going to be a long one.
*nmp* is a new one to me for what I am assuming means “not my photos.” Even if it was widely known what nmp meant even spelling it out doesn’t matter – you can’t use photos to advertise your own work without permission from the copyright holder. Full stop.
There’s at least one post in a local group that was found with stolen wedding photos and no disclaimer about these not being her photos and I’m sure there’s more that I haven’t been sent (yet).
One thing I noticed when searching this photographer out is that she posts *everywhere* so check your local Facebook Groups to make sure she’s not in there. She’s based in North Carolina but I found posts in Pennsylvania, New York, Montana, Tulsa, Colorado, Tennessee, Salt Lake City, Pensacola, Chattanooga, Outer Banks, basically everywhere in the United States she’s in a local wedding group.
While the copyright infringement is the main story here, there is also a side story that Courtney allegedly has a history of not delivering photos/is slow to refund and is why she’s changed her business name in mid 2023 after conversations like this popped up in local groups. This story is at the bottom of the page with the update.
Update 1/29/2024:
It turns out the above was just the tip of the iceberg and there’s a lot of people out there who have had issues with Courtney.
In summary – she has allegedly canceled many times on clients at the last minute for boudoir sessions and weddings. She has allegedly sometimes sent in subpar photographers but sometimes she hasn’t sent in anyone at all. This girl allegedly gets covid a LOT. She allegedly rarely delivers albums. She allegedly owes a LOT of refunds.
She also posted this as an excuse before unpublishing her Facebook page.
Update 2/14/2025: Southern Silos Photography by Courtney Smith was not deterred by her post here and unfortunately has continued on.
Today I was notified that Boston’s 25 news has posted an article (and also aired the same) about a couple in Boston who hired Courtney for $1200 which was to include the travel from North Carolina. They mention Photo Stealers in the article! Anyway, the couple hired Courtney who called shortly before the wedding claiming that she ‘accidentally’ booked her flight for the wrong year and she ended up hiring another photographer for $700. Unfortunately she didn’t pay the photographer she sent so those images haven’t been sent to the client. What a mess.
After seeing the article and recognizing the name I looked Courtney / Southern Silos up on Facebook and there’s been a few posts since my original post about her from various clients.
Allegedly she’s rebranded to ‘Bloom Again Photography’ which still, at this time, does have an Instagram link. I’ve also seen “Always Yours Photography” may possibly be hers as well.
One of her brides made a TikTok about this in January when stuff started coming out, yet again, that Courtney Christine Smith of Southern Silos Photography was not fulfilling her contracts. This bride hired Courtney for their 2025 wedding. The night before their engagement session Courtney replied to a message confirming their location (in Philadelphia) stating she was having a “co shooter” do the engagement session because she had the flu and claimed she’d still be editing. The bride goes on to show screen captures of Courtney bailing on a wedding due to “somebody” dying. The comments have other clients who had bad interactions with Courtney as well.
It’s wild seeing how often my post about her was shared in conjunction with the story being spread on Facebook.
Another PSA post from a bride who had a similar story about Courtney canceling the morning of the wedding because her “family was in need of me for a very serious thing” but she assured the client she was in good hands and promised extra product to make up for it.
The bride reached out to the photographer that she worked with the day of after Courtney made it sound like Jill (the fill in photographer) didn’t send over all the photos correctly. In the end she was able to send over some photos that she was able to recover from the cloud from the wedding but Courtney never delivered herself.
On the above post another client appeared in the comments. Courtney no showed at their wedding along with the coordinator (unclear if they were hired through Courtney or not).
There are a LOT of clients who chimed in on that thread all with similar stories of Courtney either ghosting completely or sending in someone at the last minute and not delivering the files.
So yeah, I think I can confidently say that Courtney is still on her bullshit and is likely in the middle of a rebrand. She has seemingly branched out from North Carolina though and people all along the East Coast are reporting issues so keep an eye on local groups and report to the admin if you see her posting (and screencap it for me before you do!).
It’s been a while since I’ve had a website full of almost all stolen images. There are a few images that I didn’t find sources for but it’s not many.
Since there is *so* much here I am just sticking to sourcing the photographers stolen from that I can find. I also didn’t bother with the stock photos, of which there are dozens. There is SO much that I had to narrow it down somehow.
Also, he used some of these images in his article with Canvas Rebel. He’s a rebel alright… there’s also at least two stock images credited to him in a Medium article he wrote.
There’s also not an insignificant amount of plagiarism at play on the website as well and at least one source of the photos he also took copy from.
It’s worth a look at AEllis’ website to make sure your own work isn’t there as some are collaged and hard to source.
Update 1/12/24 @ 4PM EST:
If you haven’t been on the Facebook Post about this listing, you may want to pop over there first because… it’s giving Billcie vibes.
Then another person that has a history with Ellis came in and posted a link to his Instagram highlight reel on the deep dive he’s done into Ellis and… holy shit. From the terrible interactions with a model (more than one), to him not returning his daughter to the mother on time, to his ex’s restraining order and his eventual probation for beating her friend up shortly before his ex was murdered in a hit-and-run… just a whole lot of WTF.
Ellis has a lot of aliases: Aellis Obtenebrix is what he’s currently going as but he’s also known as Lahlan Rotscreck, Ellis Templar, Jason Bourne (I’m serious), and what his real name appears to be is Ellis Warner. Larry Ellis Campbell Jr.
I’m hoping to pull some of the past screenshots I was sent from his infractions as Seaside Boudoir and add them to the post soon.
Update 2/25/2024 @ 11AM EST:
Well last night I got “served” via email (which isn’t legal in Ohio without consent) by Larry/Ellis.
Since I’m already in the lawsuit, I’m just going to go all in and post everything I’ve got that he’s stolen.
After 7 hours of working on this I’m calling it quits after sourcing around 100 images/text sources from his product photography pages. Tomorrow I’ll dig into the rest.
Update 2/25/2024 @ 11PM EST:
I finished up the boudoir portfolios and in total added 151 new sources to the post and I’m not close to being done. I’ll add more tomorrow.
Update 2/26/2024
I’m bound and determined to finish sourcing all the photos today. I believe this is the most content I’ve ever sourced??
It’s very interesting that many of these images were flipped so that they weren’t easily found by searching online, I had to flip many back to find the original sources for the images.
It’s almost like he did that intentionally…
Update 11/9/2024
If you haven’t been keeping up with the latest via Substack the summary is that the lawsuit is still ongoing, AEllis is currently in jail and he’s still a shithead.
Since I had some time this weekend I decided to go ahead and update the post with the new website, his new names and aliases and the additional stolen images on his current website.
Just in 2024 I’ve found over 250 items on his website and social media that were stolen from another creator – and that’s a low estimate. That doesn’t include the photos he’s stolen when known as Seaside Boudoir which is another massive chunk.
It appears that at least one client is currently waiting for delivery, this review was left in September.
So, he continues to do great things! Scroll to the bottom for the latest images added to his website that aren’t his.
Update 12/31/2024
Updated links to the newest ones, he’s now going by Connor Wylde of Wylde Studios but also still using Jeffrey Bennion (a codefendant in the lawsuit) here and there.
This wall of shame is dedicated to photographers that feel that it's okay to steal others' work and post it as their own. Oh I'm sorry, it's okay to let their "web designer" do it.
