Mall portrait stands

[jasevk]

I spent some time looking at a portrait stand at a large mall today, and Must say I cannot believe how many parents were lining up to have their kids photographed after seeing the terrible quality of images being turned out. The display images on the outside of the stand were really bad, over exposed, under exposed, hot spots everywhere, incredibly soft images.... One of the girls working there tried quite hard to convince me' I needed pictures of my son taken, and mentioned that for only $8 for the shooting and one print, I'd be crazy not to get it done. I asked her of the display images were a fair representation of their best work and she replied... "absolutely". When I then asked her if that's why she only charges $8, I didn't get much of a reply.... Fair question??

[I @ M]

I like your thought process when asking the girl questions Jason.

[macmich]

you should have got a photo of her expression when you asked her that it would have been priceless
cheers macca

[Analog6]

You get what you pay for. I've seen some shockers too.

[jasevk]

Hehehe... You should've seen the people lining up, I felt like handing out business cards to the queuing mothers, although I can't match $8

[kiwi]

I prefer to go to a butcher for my steak

[LuzArt]

Priceless.

[Wayne]

Thing is they don't do it for $8.
They sometimes do the shoot for very little and even free, but the catch is they invite you back in a few days time to view the pics, and then they hammer you with the hard sell while showing you all of the edited pics. I know people who have paid $400-1600 for a small quantity their kids pics from these operators. They really do the hard sell, start at the top, and if they think they are going to lose you and get nil for the prints, they will take whatever they can get out of you.

[campo]

[QUOTE=Wayne;704505]Thing is they don't do it for $8...../QUOTE]

BINGO - i have some close friends who had originally asked me to do some portraits for them and I was happy to do it for the cost of printing. They ended up going to one of these Extortion oops, I mean Mall Stands and ended up spending $1500 on a few prints/canvases. They only picked a few images because they weren't happy with the images but they were the best of a bad bunch. I was asked for an opinion on how much it would has cost for the what they got (materials only) and I came up with $100-200 from my suppliers. They've since admitted to learning their lesson...

[Raven]

Thing is they don't do it for $8.
They sometimes do the shoot for very little and even free, but the catch is they invite you back in a few days time to view the pics, and then they hammer you with the hard sell while showing you all of the edited pics. I know people who have paid $400-1600 for a small quantity their kids pics from these operators. They really do the hard sell, start at the top, and if they think they are going to lose you and get nil for the prints, they will take whatever they can get out of you.

Same! Been told I was too expensive by a friend of a friend that ended up spending $600 at one of them

[terrencechin]

I see them everywhere. Shopping malls don't have cheap rent so they've gotta be doing well.
I suppose people are always busy now and rather than looking for a photographer, it's definitely easier to just have a few quick shots taken while you're already out shopping.
In the end, parents want to remember their kids as kids and bad photos are better than no photos.
A lot of these places aren't run by the photographers themselves. It's like a factory and it's designed for volume not quality.
Unfortunately, this is how the market works, people get worse images and photogs don't get to do much about it, assuming those that work at these places even care to begin with.

[para]

my partner had a business in a cairns shopping mall, quite often they put one of these next to her shop was watching one day as the "photographer" was practicing using a kids toy

[huga]

Hate those places with a passion. I am forever getting hassled by them when I have my kids with me and it drives me nuts. I've discovered that if you tell them you are a professional photographer, they back off pretty quickly Just like the Foxtel people do when you tell them you don't have a TV.

[flame70]

i remember seeing an ad for a job as a mall photographer...."no experience needed" need i say more

[Kerro]

That says it all Jez

[Sobriquet]

I prefer to go to a butcher for my steak

We grow our own steak!

[ving]

hmm... this was prolly the equivalent to a pixi or something right? not a private business? and the photographer didnt own the store?

isnt that the same as marching into macdonalds and telling them that thier burgers suck and for twice the price you can get a really nice burger next door in the take-away?
if this place was just a franchise or something you were prolly a bit harsh on them... or dare I say unprofessional.
your "outrage" would be better aimed at the head of the organisation rather than the poor sucker taking the photos...

that said if the tog was the owner of a privately owned stand then fine.

[CapnBloodbeard]

I think you're being overly harsh.

The standard of these images is, in my opinion, on par with many of the images produces by the thousands of wedding photographers that seem to have cropped up in the last few years

[oldfart]

The lines of people wanting photos suggests this is what that market segment wants.
Maybe there's a lesson to be learnt from this business model.

[jasevk]

Harsh? No... And I guarantee you... This particular stand was some of the worst work I've seen. And I've seen and done some terrible work in my time