My recommendation is to use your own camera for recording your family’s life day to day, and then save to have some really great portraits created occasionally at a professional portrait studio. People say going to a professional is “too expensive” but how on earth can it be more expensive than what you paid?

Good luck!

PortraitsByDarton.com

I also really dislike those coupons that enable you to buy pictures for $5 or $10 because no matter how beautiful the photos turn out it makes an excellent photographer feel like they aren’t capable of taking high quality pictures that are worth buying. It also brings the sales average of the studio down and it makes it hard to keep our studio in business. If we don’t make money off of pictures how are we supposed to keep our studio going?

Anyways, the bottom line is… Don’t bash all Sears Studio’s because you had a bad experience and were treated unfairly in your local one. =)

What I had to do was hand them everything I purchased (hand over everything even if they say it can’t be refunded), ask for a refund and accept whatever pitiful refund they offer. It won’t be the full refund because even though they use Sears receipts, they are a separate company. Keep the original receipt and the refund receipt, make copies of both sides of both receipts and file a “charge dispute” with the credit card company as soon as possible. On my dispute I wrote that despite a full return of merchandise I was not given a full refund and the policy on the back of the receipt does not say anything about a partial return for the type of purchase made.

I finally received my full refund. It took a couple months and it wasn’t from talking to Sears, it was through my credit card.

I went to Olan Mills (in K-mart) to get our next set of photos done. There isn’t a sitting fee, so they really work to get the best possible shots. I was MUCH happier with my Olan Mills photos and prints.

I about stroke at the register…I look over to my family and can see that they are more than ready to go…(our appointment was at 10:30 a.m….it’s almost 1:00 p.m.)
I decide to go…let’s get lunch and look over them. Maybe I will be more objective once we are out of there. (Maybe I’m getting irritated…am I being too picky?)
We walk across the street to have lunch. We begin looking at the photos and discussing the photo shoot. I can’t get over how badly we are posed. My husband asked what I ended up with and about fell out of his chair when I showed him the receipt. I call Sears and explain my disappointment. I offer to walk back across the street to cancel my order and discuss my options. The manager Kim, tells me there is nothing wrong with the photos and she can only offer another sitting. Could I come back tomorrow? I explained I couldn’t because my step son (16 year old) is only here for the day and he lives 2 1/2 hours away.

I go home and call customer service and ask for the district manager’s contact information. Sorry, we can’t give that information out. I explain the entire situation to customer service rep who states that is Sear’s policy. I can only get a refund for $40 (some prints) because now my disk will be $120 and they are not refundable. The disk with these horriable pictures cost me $120–what happen to the $39 dollars I was charged. Oh, well that was with your portriat purchase. Now, I will pay full price. Don’t you think someone should have told me that? It wasn’t a secret that I didn’t care much for the photos when I was selecting them, again I was trying to make the best of it.

No one has contacted me from Sears. I asked customer service to have a district manager contact me. I am extremely disappointed in my photos and their customer service. Let me say it again…I have been going there for years…and had great results.

If anyone would like to see how badly we were posed, shoot me an email at mcklatt2007@aol.com and I would be happy to show you. I guess I own these miserable pics so I intend to use them to detour others from Sears.

This was a learning experience for me. Don’t ever worry about hurting the photographers feelings. Don’t worry about being too difficult or putting them behind schedule because guess what…they don’t care about your happiness!Customer Service means nothing to them. And by the way…my receipt says I can have a full refund with my receipt and I intend to get it! Buyers Beware!
Laura
Bloomington, Illinois

I know that taking photos of a mobile baby isn’t easy which is why I was so forgiving about the so-so shots that were taken, but the prints looked like crap. It has nothing to do with re-shooting and everything to do with poor quality. I told the manager I would pay for the photo shoot, but I refuse to pay for the prints. I don’t see anything on the Sears portrait site, the receipt I was given, nor the papers from the photo shoot, which outline a 50% return policy so that is total bullshit. I should get a full refund for those prints.

I worked at two studios in Bergen county during the summer, and I can honestly say that there’s a difference between GOOD studios and BAD studios (I worked at both). Some studios train their photographers a lot more than others, and some studios are a lot better organized.

The Good studio (in Paramus) should be a LOVELY experience for ANY customer. Now some of the coupons CAN be mis-leading, but after researching other studios, I have found out that Sears prices are actually tremendously lower than most professional studios. At our studio we greet everyone extremely politely, explain to them thoroughly what they should expect, offer them a plethora and backgrounds, and then ask for any other questions.

It is the customers responsibility to mention wardrobe changes, or any special request.

As far as the “jundice” on your daughters face…..there probably was a rash on her face, no? If not, then that’s an unusual occurance as most studios (at least the one I work for) would fix that kind of problem, or simply re-shoot. We do not offer flat out refunds, thats true. But we always offer to try again, offer free photos for a future session etc.

Mothers HAVE TO LEARN THAT THIS JOB IS NOT EASY!!!!!!!!! You say your kid “wasn’t the easiest to deal with”…..when I hear that, I hear “my kid was crying and moving and did not want to do it”. Sometimes there is VERY LITTLE the photographer can do in certain situations.

Yes we do get trained pretty “half-assed” but during our employment our manager and the veteran workers always offer advice on how to improve the photographs and different techniques on getting a child to sit still and smile.

Personally, I get offended when I take a variety of funny, cute, and original photographs and then a customer presents me with a coupon which only allows them to take 1 photo. You ARE getting professional photographs so do not expect to leave spending only $10. If you DO NOT WANT TO SPEND MONEY, take your OWN PHOTOS.

But listen, I also worked at a BAD STUDIO where our manager was never there, never organized her appointments, and always cropped/edited pretty poorly, so Im’ sorry if you ran into one of those stores…but the store I shoot in is run extremely efficiently.

While I wasn’t excited by the pictures that were taken. I was ok with what I saw on the screen. It wasn’t until I AFTER I paid and saw the prints that I had enough.