A month or so ago I received a coupon from Picture People in the mail, featuring fun and festive pictures and introducing their new holiday props. I wanted to do special Christmas cards for Landon's first Christmas, so I thought it was perfect timing. The props were beautiful and the coupon mentioned there were tons to choose from. I also wanted to get some shots to mark Landon's six month birthday, so I made an appointment.
Last weekend Landon and I ventured to the mall for his photo shoot. Although our photographer was pleasant and patient with my suddenly whiny son, it was beyond disappointing. We were taken back into one of the photo rooms, where they sat Landon in front of the white backdrop. She snapped a few pictures and the issues began almost immediately. Landon likes to try to walk, so we did one shot of him standing up with me holding his hands from outside the frame. I specifically mentioned that I didn't mind my hands showing, but since I was wearing it's-a-lazy-day, I-have-an-infant, un-festive, not-cute clothes, I didn't want me sleeves to show. "No problem," I was assured - "they are out of the shot."
We take a few more pictures before I realized that we weren't going to get any props unless I specifically asked for them. Our photographer looked around and told me that all she had were some (shoddily) wrapped Christmas presents. She arranged them behind Landon and took a few additional shots. I asked if the Christmas trees and mailboxes and sleighs I had seen on the coupon were available and I received a very curt "no" in response. Whatever, I thought - they had to have some cute props for baby pictures.
WRONG! I changed Landon's clothes for his six month shots, and the photographer looked at me expectantly, so I asked if there were any cute props for baby pictures. She dug around and finally came up with a snowflake. Yes, a snowflake. How a snowflake correspondes with a baby OR a birthday is completely beyond me. Where were the rubber ducks? Big washing tubs? Stuffed animals? Toy blocks?
By this point Landon is really starting to fuss. He didn't like the camera, he didn't like the photographer and he didn't like the fact that he hadn't eaten in an hour. (The boy has an appetite that would put a teenager to shame.) So despite my misgivings about the props, we went ahead and got the remaining pictures out of the way.
Eventually, the photographer asked if I was happy with the shots. I told her that since I hadn't seen exactly what she captured (God knows things look different from behind the camera!) that I wasn't sure we had enough, but if she assured me there were plenty of cute pictures to choose from, I trusted her judgement. She promised there were "tons" of great pictures and asked me to come back in an hour to see my proofs.
As we walked out of the studio to head to the food court, we passed the first picture room. Imagine my surprise as I saw all the wonderful props I had been expecting - a four foot Christmas tree, Santa's mailbox, beautiful gifts, huge Christmas ornaments, Rudolf, a sled. Obviously, not all of those props can be used at once - so telling me that nothing was available was nothing more than a blatant lie.
When we finally came back, I sat down to view my pictures. I have never seen a sadder collection of "holiday" pictures. In addition to lackluster props, my sleeve from Landon's standing photo was clearly in the shot. In other shots, a Boppy we had used to prop Landon up in previous pictures was still visible and that stupid snowflake was in pictures where it shouldn't have been, either. The employees seemed shocked that I requested those items been Photoshopped out so I could actually use the pictures - I guess they are used to passing off unusable photos to unsuspecting customers. And although I was assured there were plenty of great shots, my disc including a whopping 15 pictures - 4 of which were off-center or unusable even after being edited.
Long story short, I won't use Picture People again. Ever. We use them sometimes at work, but I've already told my boss that I won't patronize them even for work purposes. They didn't deliver on so many different levels - a baby's first Christmas should be special and memorialized, it's part of the job as a photo studio. Not having sufficient props available is inexcusable. Making customers request unwanted items be Photoshopped out of photos is inexcusable. Over-promising and under-delivering is inexcusable.
Cali, I am so sorry we cheated on you with Picture People - please forgive us and let's make a date for Landon's nine month and 1 year pictures!
I forgive your indescretion lol we will give Landon the photos he deserves!
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