The photography saga continues

So last night Vicky and I went to Walmart with the boys to have some portraits done. I have to admit, before I go into my rant, that I had been warned... I had heard about most of the things that I'm about to complain about. That being said, it is still REALLY irritating so I must vent and thereby try to warn you all about this ridiculous policies.

So we just wanted some portraits done and we were going to get the $14.95 package. To get this package you only get one pose - that's fine. The ridiculous part is that you have to decide if you're going to take a picture as soon as it'd been taken. So, the photographer takes a photo, it's ok, but you're pretty sure you can get better. So you have to say "delete that one and we'll try again". If it turns out that the photo you had her delete was in fact the best one, too bad, it's gone. And that's pretty much what happened... Kiernan had some ok photos but I was pretty sure we could do better. I say "delete" and he starts to cry. We only have so long to get a good photo and in the end we got an ok photo but the corner of the toy I was trying to use to get him smiling and looking in the right direction got into the shot. By then he was starting to really lose it and we were running out of time so I just took it. If you get a copy, please ignore the tiny orange thing in the bottom left corner ;)

Then I had this coupon that I had found online that gave us a free 8x10... well for that one photo we were allowed to take 6 different poses and I could choose from those! This was after the point where Kiernan was starting to lose it so it was really hard to get a bunch of options... had I fully understood I guess I would have started with those.

So, I just don't get Walmart's policy on this! Wouldn't it be better business sense to let you get a choice of photos for this package? I can see that by letting you have a choice in the more expensive package section that they would make more money, BUT, based on their policies I will never go back to Walmart to have portraits of my children done. Had she taken a bunch of photos and I'd really liked more than one, I might have upgraded and gotten a second package or just bought singles of those photos and they would have made their extra money. Instead they just irritated me by making me delete photos I might possibly want.

THEN (if only it ended there eh?) I find out the photos won't be ready until December 13 (what's that, 2.5 weeks?) and the printout she gave me that showed the photos I chosen (which I wanted to show Eric) was horrible. The printer was obviously out of toner and instead of replacing it, she was giving out printouts that were useless. And I'm not even going to get into the fact that the photographer didn't really have the skills needed to get a fabulous photo out of a baby (because I know this is walmart and not a professional place)

Anyhow, don't go to walmart for photos, it was ridiculous. I would much prefer to spend the $30 that Loblaws charges to have the options I'm told they let you have. We have an appointment there on December 15 so I'll be able to report back properly then. Maybe I should go to Sears and have portraits done there too to be able to give a better comparison of all these places. hehe