Picture People

So, I wrote a really critical review of Picture People in the Deptford Mall location and I stand by that review. This time our experience was a bit more positive at the Buy Buy Baby location. The store wasn’t as busy. The staff was friendlier, and the photographer was more skilled. Still, if you can afford a real photographer, you’d be better off. I don’t know why photography is so expensive in this country.

I am very disappointed. We chose the Picture People to document our daughters 1^st year of life. We come every three months faithfully even buying the portrait club. This time we made an appointment for christening AND Holiday portraits and had 3 outfit changes. We were very rudely told over the phone that it was under new management now and you could only accommodate two. So from the get –go we did not receive a «warm and fuzzy». We arrive on time for our appointment and were greeted by Kira who told us she was new, still training and would start with the Xmas portion since our 8 month old was dressed in her holiday dress but she would then turn us over to someone more experienced for the christening photos. This statement did not give me much confidence in obtaining good holiday photos. We were intending on purchasing the cd and sheets since we were taking 2 important pictures. Kira did not lead the session. She is supposed to be a representative of your company, the professional with the knowledge. She continually asked us how we wanted her posed. I said you are the professional, as far as posing what are the options. I have always had a pleasant experience, let the photographer do their thing and help out with smiles when needed. In this case it was the opposite. She asked us what kind of holiday photos, which props we wanted but never explained what was available. Finally she asked if we wanted the tree. We said ok and she asked if she would sit in something. I said sure. She brought out the Santa basket which we started to put her in, looking to her for guidance but none was offered. I figured I would try to sit her Indian style in the basket and Kira stated that we should put her rear in 1^st with her feet sticking out. There was no support under her rear so the baby just sunk in and commenced crying since she was now stuck in the basket. We took her out and decided to move on as obviously that was not going to work and this girl was not trained at all on how to use the available props. Throughout the holiday portraits many smiles were missed as Kira was not quick or camera ready. She was spending so much time trying to make the baby smile which was never going to happen. Finally I said to her we will make her smile and you worry about snapping the pics. Even then the baby would smile and no pic was snapped. So many opportunities were missed. After rummaging around we saw the 2014 when asked what else we wanted. Once these pics were taken she told us to change her into her christening outfit and she left. We were waiting and waiting, our daughter getting fussier by the minute. After 20 minutes I went to go find someone. I found another associate (Chelsea) and explained the current situation and also mentioned that Kira had said someone else would be shooting the christening portion. She was very dismissive and not helpful. She said she didn’t know why Kira said that, we would have to ask her and walked off. Kira’s finally came back after we had been waiting another 10 minutes. I don’t understand why we were told we could only do 1 outfit because the appointments were booked every 20 minutes but here we were sitting in a room waiting for an eternity with a fussy baby in a christening dress in the middle of our session. she attempted to take christening photos on a white background. Again she missed all of the smiles and didn’t even take any good non smiling pics. I asked her when the other girl was taking over because we were getting nowhere. We waited a few more minutes for Jessica (whom we had seen before) by this point although our daughter was not hysterical she was whining and her face was red so even if she was smiling the pics were not good. We then waited an eternity to view our pics. In the interim the people before us had their session lost by the computer. Needless to say they were unhappy. In the end we only opted to buy the Xmas cards and $ 18.00 bundle. Then we were told we would need the $ 18.00 coupon. We had never needed in the past as club members. Everything was an obstacle or hurdle and did not flow seamlessly. We now have to come back and have her christening photos done again because they were only done on one white background so you could barely see the dress and our daughter looked so washed out. We were not satisfied with the customer service, the knowledge of staff, or the portrait quality. I expect this of any portrait studio and I don’t feel it’s too much to ask.