am i being tight here?

wymondham

Not sure if this is the right board, but just wanted to guage opinion on something. We went to a photography studio to have a session - great laugh and really nice people - we were given a voucher for this for our birthday (worth £125). Given the price list to take home and decide what we'd like and here's the shock....

prices start at £249 for 1 x 7" x 5" photo, with most costing around £1,000-£3,000 for single photo's, or small multiple photo framed ones :eek: . I'm finding it hard to justify this sort of money for ONE picture, but as I've not had this done for years is this the going rate these days - am I being unreasonably moneysaving?? :rolleyes: Do people spend more on photo's than holidays, and even buy on 'purchase plans' ??

If we go back for the presentation we will come out much lighter in our pockets as these guys will be laying on a movie presentation with drinks/large screen etc and a professional to help us spend, i mean decide!.... If we see the pictures it will be hard not to have them as I'm sure they will be very good ... tempted just to call and cancel and go elsewhere??

I can 'afford' these prices (gulp), but in this day and age I think they are way too steep for what they are...

your opinions would be valued!!

wwp8

thats sounds pricey.
but having said that my brother had his photos (yep plural) about 10 years ago,.
his reply?! "he wants a pic now, cos he won't become younger and wants one at his best"

my answer to you?

Sell the voucher :rotfl:

Lip_Stick

That sounds really expensive and a rip off! I was in a supermarket the other week and a company called venture were doing a sales pitch. They are a professional photographer and you spend an hour there, playing with your kids or animals, or whatever. They can mess about with the pictures giving them a really modern feel so it's not just a point and shoot thing. I got told by the woman that a large photo in one of those thick clear cases was £300. Not exactly sure if the case was included, but even if it was £300 for the photo, it's a lot cheaper than what you've been quoted.

Also I went to Portrait Place with my ds, and spent £80 on four 10 x 8s and four 7 x 5s. Admittedly some of the pics could have been better, i.e. lighting, but ds was a bit upset when they were taking them so it was hard to get a good shot lol.

wymondham

thanks for the replies, it was Venture where we went...

really pleased nobody has yet said I'm a tight wad!!!

Lip_Stick

Really??? Ohhhh that woman was a bit of a fibber then!! If it's £249 for a 7x5 there's no way it's going to be £300 for the pic that was on display! Just wait until I see them back doing their sales pitch as they've been at the supermarket a few times! Glad I never bothered going then.

For a multi pic in a large clear case at portrait place it was about £200. Think it was about A2 size. I would have thought venture would be more expensive, maybe double the price as they're a more professional outfit, but sounds like they're 5 times more expensive!

PasturesNew

It's a marketing ploy. I used to work for one of these companies. What we did was:
- cold call people from the phone book offering them 4 sittings across a year; one of the sittings had to be a family shot of grandparents/parebnts/children.
- the cost of the 4 sittings was just £16 and they would get one free print from each shoot (this was a 10x8)
- pay now by credit card (£16), book your first appointment now over the phone and we'll get the voucher book out to you today

They would then turn up to the first shoot, have the pics taken, then be invited back a week later to go through the photos to choose their free one. This was where the money was made. So many looked good that people would invariably be convinced to buy some. And some in frames.

Over the course of the year the company would phone them up to book their next three free sittings. Remember one is a whole family shot. Few people can say "no" to buying a nice "all the family" framed print for the grandparents!

So from one simple £16 sale for 4 sittings allowing 4 free prints, they'd usually end up with a £1000 sale over the year. But at least they DID get the 4 free prints over the year if they had the b4lls to sit through the sales presentation/going through the proofs with the sales person without buying anything more.

However, I did find out a backdoor way to getting all the photos for free. I did hear that with that company if you phoned up and said somebody in one of the photos had died, they'd send you the proofs of every shot, free.

That wasn't the company you're dealing with. But it might be worth a shot. Once you've got the proofs you can print them off yourself.

As for an alternative method, you could try buying the smallest print only/no frame. Something that equals your £125. Then take it down to a good quality local printer and get it scanned in at high resolution, blown up and printed out.

If they REALLY want £249 JUST for one tiny tiny pic... then they're real chancers. Real crooks. Tell them to stuff it. You can book a full professional shoot with some prints included cheaper.

Scout

I don't think you are being tight at all. It's all about whether you can afford to spend what to some is a ridiculous amount of money on a picture.

I was given a voucher to a local Venture studio, which entitled me to a free 7x5 framed pic. We all duly went along and had the pics done, then went back a few days later to select some. To be honest, I wasn't impressed with most of the pics (although I think we just got a poor photographer as I have seen neighbours' pics which are lovely)

Prices started in the several hundreds.... and there was no way we could afford them so we looked interested then said "no thanks, we'll just take the freebie" You should have seen the look on her face ... she almost threw us out of the door :rotfl:

What makes me laugh is the price of the pics. We had ours about 5 years ago when the "freebie" was worth £25. A while later I saw them in the shopping centre and they were giving away these vouchers where the 7x5 was "worth £75". Pick a price, that's what I reckon they do. Maybe you could do some good old fashioned MS bartering and haggling

PasturesNew

Here's a thread where Venture and some others discuss what they got/were charged.

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/173276/venture-voucher-offer-25-venture-ph/

You say it was a gift. Tricky one this. They might have bought the voucher for you, or they might have obtained it as a freebie... you could try finding out from them (if possible, nobody wants to admit the great gift they gave you was a freebie they didn't want) and see what they thought they were buying.

PasturesNew

Oh, original question: Are you tight?

NO.

This is a moment when voucher needs to be introduced to bumh0le!

You didn't want photos. It was a gift (maybe a freebie). You are going to be sold something you never wanted and at greatly inflated prices.

Yes, the pictures will look nice. This is the business they are in. They are selling by pulling your emotion strings. But if you don't want/need photos, then don't be emotionally blackmailed.

wymondham

Thanks for the replies so far, feeling better about thinking maybe it's a wee bit expensive!

Looking through their brochure it does in fact look like an interior design mag - the pictures seem incidental on the walls.

vikingaero

Loads of companies like this. And no you aren't being tight. Most people will baulk at the prices of prints and not buy anything. The ones that do are the type of people that get suckered in an feel guilty - it's a marketing ploy. The high cost covers the time for people that don't buy prints.

I would enquire at a local photography studio for a sitting. We paid £75 for a 90 minute sitting of our two monsters, about £60 for a couple of mounted A4ish sized prints and a further £80 for a DVD with unrestricted contents of the sitting. We took the DVD to Costco and made A4 prints for £1.20ish per print for relatives!