Venture Photography

deanos

Good for you, not the experience from others on here or what my friends have told me

Ivrytwr3

Venture do some fantastic pictures, however they are very expensive. I cannot believe you paid £25, they normally tout this offer free. "Come in for an hour shoot and get a £25 pic free".

I really think your experience was down to the pushy family who no doubt encroached onto your snap time, whilst you had the patience to wait for the first family.

I know several friend/colleagues who have gone with them and they said the whole experience was laid back and fun and although the pics were expensive they think they are worth it (1 family spent £3k there!!)

gibbyni

We did the Venture one last year, we have done some photography ourselves so when they said when they cornered us in a shopping centre with our wee one we just went to see what it was like. It was something like do you want to enter a competition to win a free photo shoot and a £25 picture. Its to qualify you to see if your likely to spend money with them. most people win.

The photo shoot itself was fun and we enjoyed it, photographer was good with our little one (1yo).

A week later we got the call to say the photos are ready to proof, we went up knowing we where going to get the hard sell, we went into the room and where shown all the photos and we dwindled them down to a few and then given the options for them. To be honest the prices where in my opinion stupid prices. they are nice but you can get the same quality from local companies doing the same thing for a lot less.

When it got to the end we said that all we anted was the £25 quid one you could tell the where not happy but to be honest we didn't care. The photos where good but in my opinion not brilliant. Again I think a local company would spend more time processing each picture.

So in my opinion I wold stay away from them and go for a local company offering the same service for a lot less.

Also with Venture we where told if we didnt order on that day and came back to order later the pictures would be more expensive, that was also something I wasnt happy about, but again all part of there hard sell.

As for the actual price list if they are open and honest about them they would make it easy for you to find them on there website or handed out before your shoot. I for the life of me couldnt find there prices anywhere.

Lip_Stick

I got stopped in a supermarket by these guys. I asked how much a pic they had on display was, and I was told about £300. It was a very long landscape, and I thought that price was reasonable, so gave my contact details. I later found out the price was over £1.5k. Needless to say, I didn't bother going.

bubblegumcola

I would never use Venture again. I got sucked in by filling my details out at a stand for them which was a 'prize draw', and won a family portrait with a one free photo. Turned up with my kids but we only wanted our kids in the photo, not us, which they were not happy with - supposed to be a family portrait. The manager was called and we stood our ground, he came across very aggressive for something that was billed as an enjoyable experience. Eventually they did the shoot of the kids which went ok. We looked a the photos and thought the photos were very expensive but bought a couple of small ones, unframed. What I didn't like was the wording of the contract that you have to sign. It said they could use any of the photos for promotional purposes. We scored it out and said there was no way my kids were being used for free promotional photos. In my opinion it was just a con to get free promotional material!! I've later been told by a relative who works for trading standards in England that it is an unfair contract Venture use. She got photos done by them and realised the contract was unfair, she refused to sign it I think.


We have since had photos taken by a local guy and his photos were far cheaper, I wouldn't use Venture ever again.

mr_fishbulb

I don't agree with their methods of getting people into the sales pitch (bit like the - you have won a free makeover and photo shoot con).

The photos are expensive, but they are good.

PeteMc

Used Venture about 6 years ago and had a fun photo shoot which was very different and professionally handled. Quality of the pics/frames were excellent though prices were expensive. No hard sell at all and the pictures I bought are still on the walls today.

AdrianW2

trumpton wrote: »

To anyone thinking of spending £300 on a photo session, I would say get yourself a digital SLR instead. They take fantastic pictures, and can be set so that even a novice can take a good pic. They take far, far better photos than compact digital cameras - there is no comparison in image quality.

Hmm. A lot of people have marked this comment as useful, but there's a lot more to photography than the camera. Some, most even, of the modern compacts are very competent. You should be able to get decent pics out of a compact if you keep it on its minimum ISO and shoot in daylight. No camera in the world is going to sort out a poor pose or shadow across the face.

I'd suggest trying something like this blog post (nothing special about it, just first out of a Google search) with whatever camera you've got. Make the reflector out of some kitchen foil or a white sheet. You can see the effect just by moving the reflector about. Remember to focus on the eyes.

Of course if you want the over-exposed, high key, Venture look then you're probably going to need decent lighting - get yourself off to your local photographer, or even tap up some amateurs wanting to practice.

Mark_Tinger

deanos wrote: »

Best deal we had was from Olan Mills who have now gone bust, 30"x15" Wood Framed Montage, 3 10"x8" Prints and Photo-Shoot copyright free CD of the shoot for £135

Legal obligations stop us from making statements of certain kind; but we would like to hear from every employee, ex-employee, customer or future customer

Mark_Tinger

bubblegumcola wrote: »

I would never use Venture again. I got sucked in by filling my details out at a stand for them which was a 'prize draw', and won a family portrait with a one free photo. Turned up with my kids but we only wanted our kids in the photo, not us, which they were not happy with - supposed to be a family portrait. The manager was called and we stood our ground, he came across very aggressive for something that was billed as an enjoyable experience. Eventually they did the shoot of the kids which went ok. We looked a the photos and thought the photos were very expensive but bought a couple of small ones, unframed. What I didn't like was the wording of the contract that you have to sign. It said they could use any of the photos for promotional purposes. We scored it out and said there was no way my kids were being used for free promotional photos. In my opinion it was just a con to get free promotional material!! I've later been told by a relative who works for trading standards in England that it is an unfair contract Venture use. She got photos done by them and realised the contract was unfair, she refused to sign it I think.


We have since had photos taken by a local guy and his photos were far cheaper, I wouldn't use Venture ever again.

Legal obligations stop us from making statements of certain kind; but we would like to hear from every employee, ex-employee, customer or future customer of Olan Mills again!