Venture photography

jackomdj

We went to Venture when our eldest was 1 & had a fantastic time. We spent £600 & got 2 nice photo's. This year (when eldest DD was 3 & the youngest was 6 months) we went to a similar company, this time we paid £1300 but we got a wall full of photo's which would have cost about double at Venture.

Both times we had a huge choice of fantastic photo's & a great time doing it. We took the dog with us & he was in lots of the photo's. We had friends who went to Venture & he took his whole drum kit!

Nicky

immy

i bought two vouchers to use as gifts, for my sister and also my parents. this was in the run up to christmas 06 and were £35 each for a4 picture.

both my sis and parents had great time whilst getting pics taken, and the pics were so lovely!! neither of them experienced hard sells, and were under no pressure to purchase other pics/larger size of pics.

i'm hoping the offer comes up again so that i can get family portrait including my 8month son.

stevehankey

SkippyB wrote: »

Juicy Tube

My OH is photographer who specialises in 'different' photography. However he only works in certain areas of the country. TBH, you would be better using a smaller company, it's cheaper and you can tailor everything to suit your needs. These companies are good at what they do but I cant believe their prices!!! Local photographers are just as good!

If it helps at all please feel free to PM me and if he cant help you, then he'll know someone who can!

Hi Skippy any chance of your OH's details or anyone in the northwest maybe? ive no idea where you are but im near manchester/stockport
thanks very much
Steve H

darich

Ripped off 42

I'm not saying you weren't ripped off - but photographers while expensive are by no means theiving bstards as you put it.
I'm an enthusiast and my equipment is worth more than many people's car. Professional's equipment is worth more than mine. Add back up gear, studio (purchase or hire) and high end computers with Adobe photoshop licences and you're comfortably into a five figure sum of money.

Expensive, yes.
Rip off or theft, far from it.

And I'm not a pro - far from it - but i know what it takes to buy quality equipment.

photoperson

In all honesty, I'm surprised to see a discussion about Venture in a money saving forum!!

The fact is, everyone puts different value on photography. Some people love and appreciate amazing photographs, whereas others will be happy with a mediocre snapshot of their newborn taken on a camera phone. It's the latter group of people that tend to complain about the cost of professional photography.

In Venture's defense, the reason they are particularly expensive is because the quality they offer is very high - make no mistake, photography that good is not easy to replicate. That's why it demands a premium price. Someone earlier asked the question "Can the Venture look be replicated with Photoshop" - the answer is "Yes", provided the original photograph is of a high enough quality. Even Photoshop can't make wine out of cat wee.

It's the same in any market - a car buyer with £3000 to spend is missing the point if they complain about the cost of a Ferrari. At the end of the day, £150 for a photograph is only ridiculous if good photography is not of value to you.

The reason professional photography is so expensive is because pro photographers have, first and foremost, the knowledge & skill to produce stunning photos of a fleeting moment on demand. The equipment is secondary - a talented pro could take a much better picture with a cheap point & shoot camera than an amateur could with a £4000 top-of-the-range slr camera.

In the end, I can only re-iterate the money-saving tip from earlier posters: high quality is expensive - if you want to save money find a local photographer within your price range.

Dan_Thunder

Funnily enough our local Venture studio has recently shut down, it was only open for a couple of years. I guess the people of Carlisle aren't ready to spend vast amounts of money on photos!

The thing that a lot of people would be wise to remember is that, providing you don't live in the a*se end of nowhere, a lot of local photographers now offer services similar to those now synonymous with Venture and at considerably better rates.

To my mind it is a complete rip-off. Let me try and justify my view. In real terms the photography involved isn't technically hard to do, Venture have a certain style that people can easily be trained to conform to. The lighting and set-up's are pretty generic across all their studios so, again, not difficult once you know how. The expense for them is most likely in terms of time i.e. post-processing. However, there will most likely be a stock selection of filters and value settings that they employee so that there is conformity across their photographic range. So, though it may take a little while to 'correct' the photos that were taken, it's feasible that a lot of it can be done in the likes of Photoshop using pre-set commands. To my mind then you're probably looking at a total of perhaps 3-4 hours to get to the point where you have your viewing and pick out your picture.

Now compare that to a Wedding photographer. On average you're probably looking at between £800-1000. For that you often get 5-6 hours of the photographers time on the day including travel to the various venues plus a quality photo album - which can be pricey in their own right - plus all the photos that go into that album, which is usually 30-40+ pictures, usually including a significant number of 8x10 prints. Then if you want reprints they're normally charged at between £10-30 each dependent upon size.

I appreciate that something is only worth the amount you'll pay for it but, personally, I don't see how Venture can qualify the prices they offer for the effort they put in.

kle87

Venture is a rip off waste of money. As a photographer I can tell you all to stay well clear they charge well over the odds for basically saturating colours to make it look modern. Just to give you an idea we charge £40 for a 10x8 in what ever style you want and in what ever moulding you want, with or without a mount. I have had so many customers come to me gutted that they paid £200 for their picture because they were 'bullied' into it. Stay away and find a good local photographer who isnt a rip off!

uggstock

I have to agree with kle87, venture are a rip off, hard sell which i hate, did not enjoy our 'experience', went to a newish studio, Lincoln Studio, in the lincoln area, at least with them I can afford to go again!

DonnaP

Hi

My husband is a photographer and doesn't rip people off.

He does weddings, portaits etc and has a portfolio of work to show anyone who is interested.

If anyone wants any info, please pm me. We live in North Warwickshire.

Donna

Kez100

We like the look of Venture so took my two to a local guy who took similar but not quite as arty pictures. We had a whole hour and a half sitting with him. Minimum order was £30 which consisted of a pack of six pictures (same print). I was buying for family for christmas and for my office wall, and the total was £85. No hard sell - he sent me the CD to choose from (with his copyright over, of course) and my order went in the post. They were lovely shots.