PortraitBug

They’re now Big Apple portraits. Well they’re off to a horrible start.
We decided to try them at the new location by scheduling one of their training sessions & they cancelled our session with NO NOTICE.
We arrived & were told «someone should have called us the day before to cancel».
Would I have schleped my two sons dwtwn had I received some notification of cancellation?
I DID however receive a CONFIRMATION email AND phone call but no cancellation.
To make matters worse all we received was a pathetic apology & weren’t even asked if we wanted to reschedule. When I asked if we could the young lady said it would be for a regular session. Sorry miss but if we wanted to schedule a regular session we would have done so.
We WILL NOT be returning to the new Big Apple portraits.

We’ve had our daughter’s birthday pictures taken here for the past three years and they’ve always turned out beautifully. However, I do have one complaint: they do not cut the pictures. Everything comes in big sheets that I have to cut myself at home. Even the 8×10 has to be significantly trimmed to fit in a frame.
This isn’t a luxury photography studio that charges exorbitant sitting fees, which I appreciate, but the photos are still pricy. I would appreciate not having to cut up (and sometimes mildly mangle) pictures I’ve spent so much money on. Perhaps their scrapbooking customers prefer to do it themselves, but I sure don’t.

This place is great for children and family portraits. I have read some of the other reviews and they do seem a little frivolous. Complaining about the scrap paper is ridiculous. If you want 12×12 paper go to Michael’s. I mean really… lol…If you are a scrapbooker type person then this place is pretty cool, but I can’t say much about that area as I’m not a scrapbooker and if I were I would go to Michael’s.
As for the photography, I can definitely speak on it. They are wonderful photographers and definitely try their best to capture those great shots of infants and hard to work with toddlers. My 2 year son isn’t the easiet toddler to deal with and we’ve been taking him there since he turned 1. His 1^st birthday shoot was difficult (he was being difficult) but they managed and got some great shots even when he was crying. His 2^nd birthday shoot he behaved much better but as a toddler didn’t stay still but they still managed to get great shots. Our family portraits have come out great as well.
I will say it can get a little pricey but there isn’t much you can do about that. Just pick the ones you like and keep them for your memories. If anyone wants a picture then they can purchase one directly from them. If you want the digital copies then you better be prepared to dig deep into your pockets. Besides the prices they are a good place to go to for family and children portraits. I’ve seen other places that offer much less for much more, so they aren’t so bad when speaking of prices.
I will also say that they do need to clean up the toy area for the children and pump the air conditioner in the portrait studio a little more. There have been times where we just felt overwhelmingly hot and had to take a 2 minute break to cool off. I can understand why they don’t pump up the air conditioner as they do have infant shoots and need it to be warm, but when you have scheduled toddlers coming in who run around and can’t sit still then it is best to turn the air codintioner on to cool everyone down. Sweaty customers are not happy customers.
Overall, I like this place and plan to keep going at least twice a year (birthday and halloween for my son). I would continue to recommend them for families and children since I’ve have only good experiences with them.

We really wanted to like this place — this was our first attempt at getting professional pictures as a family — with our 10 month old. Unfortunately we had a mixed experience, from start to finish.
The staff are either Jekyll or Hyde. One really friendly photographer and one who clearly had dropped their coffee this morning. One really friendly editing person, one surly manager.
We did get a good selection of photos to choose from however our daughter did also mange to get a cut on her foot from one of the props used in some of the photographs, which did not seem to be taken very seriously by the staff.
We selected a package of digital prints. On reviewing at home we discovered that one of the pictures had cut the top of my head off! On ‘phoning them to find out whether we could get the raw version of the picture — they explained that this was actually a ‘modern look’, and the original image was also like this (and that we should have seen this when reviewing the pictures in the store). My feeling — photo taking 101 would tell you to make sure you include the entire head in a picture.
All-​in-​all, we’ll shop around for somewhere else next time.

I hate to update with a negative review because I think that the owner (and her Dad, who often works the register) are sincere, hard-​working, and lovely people. But since my first review two years ago, this place has dramatically changed for the worse.
What used to be a wonderfully detailed and thoughtful supply of material has become a haphazard and sparse collection of pre-​mades and staples for novice and baby-​centric crafters. I used to always prefer this shop over Michael’s for the quality of its papers and its higher-​end merchandise, but now I only use Michael’s (despite its many drawbacks) or an online retailer for my projects because there is no longer anything interesting here in terms of art journalling and scrapbooking for people with less mainstream tastes. I can’t stand the trend of preciousness in journalling – all the giant rhinestoned «Princess» stickers and «We love vacations!» ready-​made captions and all the other twee designs/​templates/​flourishes. I shouldn’t blame PortraitBug for catering to the trends and focusing on their photography business – it isn’t an art supply store, after all – but, still, as a boutique, I wish they stayed true to their original vision.

Just reposting — saw that unlike most of the negative reviews, mine had disappeared — hmmm — Unilocal what is up with that?

I took my 5-​yr-​old daughter to have her picture taken during a training session. I understood that training on new equipment & lighting takes time but, it actually went quite smoothly. The photographer had some great ideas & wonderful props & let me be a bit of a stage mother by not making me feel uncomfortable when I adjusted my child’s clothes or made suggestions. She was easygoing and the pictures turned out better than I expected for someone training. When I went in to view the photos I was surprised that they could adjust the focus. I was there a year ago & felt most of the pictures looked blurry. This time the person who was showing me the pics adjusted the focus & the pics were no longer blurry. I wish they had done this on the pics from last year as I would have purchased more. Maybe it takes more time to adjust it on every picture taken but, they would definitely sell more.
My child had fun and we chose some nice pictures. I’m looking forward to picking them up this week. when you go in to view the photos be sure to have them adjust the focus.

Although my 3 children are exceedingly adorable and it would be darn near impossible NOT to get amazing pics of them, the photogs and staff at this store deserve some of the credit for the wonderful Easter pictures we now have hanging on our wall.
Others have mentioned the PoppinsPerk pictures-​with-​chicks deal, and that’s what brought us in. Of course it was a madhouse because it was a really great deal and a really cute concept, and while the staff was a bit flustered, they seemed to have things basically under control. I had my crew in and out in 30 minutes and had 20+ pics worth keeping (if only I could afford it!).
Everyone was personable and professional, and the photographers that I had were great at getting the kids to smile, even my 9 month old.
I don’t do scrapbooking, but they had a ton of stuff for it in their storefront. Really cute stuff, too.

I am a long time resident of the Upper West Side and I have with much sadness seen Broadway turn into a mall more or less with Mom and Pop businesses closing and regrettably replaced by national chains. In short, I would love to like Portrait Bug.
Background: I thought of using them for photos many times and finally decided to in response to a groupon like coupon. I have used several professional photographers in the past and for the price thought I couldn’t go wrong.
What I liked:
–They were cheerful and acommodating in scheduling my family’s photo session, moved me off a waiting list to my preferred day and time and called the day before to confirm.
— There was no attempt made during the photo viewing session to «upsell». There were no threats to destroy the images as occurs at some lower budget photo studios.
What I disliked:
— Once we arrived for the photo session and thereafter, constant confusion. No one seemed to be in charge or know what was going on. No one introduced him/​herself and after repeated interactions with the same staff members and owner, no attempt was made to learn or use my name.
–Staff/​owner bickering with each other during our shoot.
–When I went to pick up the prints, the employee at the counter didn’t know how to find them and could not answer the most basic questions (I wondered if she had started the job 2 minutes earlier, but no one was training her).
–No response to multiple voicemails and emails to owners with questions about online proofs.
–I also agree with earlier posts that for a business that wants to market itself to families with young children, they need to put in some serious effort to clean the shop and studio.
Bottomline:
I think PB is trying to hit a sweet spot between expensive professional photographers who spend anywhere from 30 min to 8 hours with you in a variety of settings of your choice (studio/​home/​outdoors) and cost upwards of $ 500 — $ 2500 and the suburban mall store option (i.e. Sears, JC Penny and Target photo studios). While the photographer I had did a nice job given the time constraints (30 min session), the follow up customer service I received was so poor I can not recommend this business.
Seeing as they solicited this Unilocal feedback from me, I hope they will use it to improve so they can survive and thrive in today’s market.

I needed to get potraits for school and I found this place online. It took me seconds to make an appointment and I was in and out and happy. The photographer took more than enough pictures, even ones that I knew I would never buy but were nice to look at. When it came time to purchase they gave me exactly what I wanted and didn’t pressure me into anything else. It is nice to know that they are there should I ever need them

The store does have its short comings — most of the staff seem to be miffed by the customers and not the most personable folk. It has gone through its ups and downs with management as well. With that said, there is always room for improvement.
The 12×12 paper is specially selected at the Craft and Hobby Convention and is high quality unlike Michael’s. Some of the creative staffers are willing to assist you with specific questions and have also crafted most of the projects on display throughout the store. They are more than willing to walk you through the projects and give you pointers.
I give them the benefit of the doubt because they are a mom and pop store that is still waiting for the big wave to ride.
PS — Be sure to bring your own bag to carry out the scrapbooking items
PPS — Check out the
art, music and movement classes hosted at PB!

These people are a mess, literally and figuratively. I’ve bought supplies here, used their studio services, and enrolled my toddler in one of their classes so I’m very familiar with what Portrait Bug is about. And I think it’s icky.
The staff is rude, the props in the photographer studio are dirty, and the classes are unorganized. For a place that caters to infants and toddlers, it really should be cleaner and more child proof. And, by the looks of the sloppy staff, I can guess that the space hasn’t been cleaned in years. It’s just not a priority.
I want my toddler to attend fun classes with fellow toddlers here, but I’m not sure if the risk of MRSA is worth it.

This is a family-​owned business with good intentions, but lacking execution. I live around the block, so I’ve been in and out of this store for the past year (I am trying REALLY hard to like it!)
The owner’s phone is constantly blasting its classic t-​mobile ring and he never uses his inside voice as he paces around the store on his phone. It’s hard to browse around without being bumped or attacked by stuff laying around (store layout a bit odd) or if you are looking for something specific, you probably won’t find it in the place it used to be last week. For being such a small store (studio itself is pretty big), there is WAY too much going on. Rather than being inspired, I always end up leaving the store flustered and irritated.
As much as I would like to support a local family business, take your time and money and go to Michael’s a few block uptown.

I had a terrible experience with Portrait Bug when I took my 6 month old daughter in for photos. Though they might have a lot of scrapbooking supplies, I was completely unimpressed by the «Portrait» side of PortraitBug. The photographer was obviously stressed due to my daughter’s crying and snapped at her a few times, which made her cry more. The photographer’s assistant had no idea how to actually assist; she was so close to my daughter that she showed up in most of the pictures. Only a few photos didn’t have the photographer’s assistant in them.
Moreover, when I called to schedule my appointment, I was specifically told digital versions of the photos were part of the photo package I was purchasing. What they didn’t tell me — you only get a DVD of lower-​resolution images and have to pay approx $ 100 per image for the high-​res version. I felt deceived — how would a lay person like myself think to ask if the «digital versions» I was purchasing were the high or low quality images?
Though they claimed the photos would be ready the next day, when I came by 2 days later for pick up, I had to wait an hour for them to finish things up. The only redeeming aspect of the experience was that they had a cute play area for kids in the back while you wait. For this and the one decent photo of my daughter, they get 1 star.

A scrapbooking boutique that also has portrait photography as well as scrapbooking classes/​demos. This store is fairly new since the Fall 2008 which I’ve heard from my Scrapbooking Meetup. It is indeed the only scrapbooking store in Manhattan. While I was browsing for 12″ X 12″ papers the sales associate was yip yapping full steam ahead with a customer about their career ambitions and personal interests for the entire duration of my shopping experience.
I rate it two stars due to lack of selection of 12″ X 12″ papers. Portrait Bug is certainly no Michael’s Arts & Crafts or A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts but it is the only dedicated craft store in Manhattan.