Dear Lifetouch Photo
You annoy me even more now than before. Not only did you take a wonderful picture of my handsome boys, you got wise to my single sheet purchase and eliminated the option from the school picture order forms! Extra sheets can only be purchased with a package. And then you knew I wanted 8×10’s and made sure the cheapest package including an 8×10 was 35.
Package B for $35.00
1- 8×10
2- 5×7
8 -2×3
8- 1.5×2.5
So here I sit checkbook in hand trying to decide if I want to buy your overpriced portraits or if I want to just go someplace else … like outside with my shiny new camera and take my own darn pictures. Ugh. The frustration of school pictures. At least I only have to decide for 3 kids this year, Ethan was sick on spring picture day, poor kiddo.
If I’m going to pay that much for pictures I’d rather go to The Picture People and get really nice looking fun pictures of all four boys together. Decisions, decisions. What do you do when school picture time rolls around and they bring home the smiling happy picture proofs? Can you resist?!?
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March 12th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I agree with you totally. It seems like my sons school pictures are always perfect and I can’t resist them but they cost so much. I feel like a horrible mom if I don’t get one of those huge packages with all of the exchanges that he can give other kids (to just get tossed on the bus floor). Its just one of the many wonderful decisions that parents have to make:) They really need to lower their prices or give smaller package options.
Leslie’s last blog post..Sick Again.
March 12th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
What really irritates me about Lifetouch is that, at our school while you have to order and pay ahead of time in the fall, in the spring they just take your kid’s picture and send the photos home expecting you to pay for them. Usually I send a note in with my kid in the spring stating that they are not to take her picture since I have no intention of purchasing them and don’t want to waste natural resources by having them developed and printed. This spring I forgot and voila she came home with proofs. So now I am contemplating just keeping them without paying since I never gave Lifetouch permission to take my minor child’s photo. After all, what do they do with all those returned proofs?
March 17th, 2008 at 9:48 am
my kids school makes it an easy choice, one always comes home with horrid photos that look like they are either in pain or mid sneeze. They are a rip off take you shiney new camera invest in a backdrop and some lights you will love your photos much much more
March 23rd, 2008 at 6:17 pm
You could always petition your school to go with more independent photographers that allow single sheet or items purchases for school photos, and that allow people in your local economy to benefit rather than one mega company from Minnesota that has a virtual monopoly in the large markets and does not conduct background checks on the employees that it sends to schools, but then your school would not get the thousands of dollars in kick-backs/computer systems/”rebates”/ PDAs for administrators that they get from Lifetouch.
Just a thought
July 10th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I am not from Lifetouch, but Creative Images, another portrait company and I wanted to offer some insight as well as get some information if anyone wants to share… Any kick-backs offered by any pro photographer is another marketing tool to get in the door. If we don’t do a good job afterward, we won’t be back no matter what we give away. Lifetouch is an easier choice for tons of schools because of their name branding… Smaller photographers are perceived as more of a risk and have to work extra hard to get in the door. We ( as in pro photographers ) are not trying to price gauge at all. Let me explain… we have photographers that have very large areas that they photograph in ( to have enough clients to serve) and wake up way early to drive anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to location, set-up equipment and photograph lots of our little ones with high energy, patience and a great service attitude after traffic jams and the blaring headache we may or may not have…think about your average day at work… ours is in a school or child care where we have to be HAPPY everyday regardless. ( I am the mom of 3 by the way so I see both sides here ). We try to pay competitively so that our photographers stick around more than one season so that next year they know what they are doing and can actually get some great portraits of your children. This is a challenge because we have “down” months where their schedules are very light if any shoots at all.
( Think about end of December, January, first of February even though we offer pictures for every season. ) Prices are set to pay for their time, their expenses… (think about our fuel costs!), shipping, the customer service related to before, during and after Picture Day, etc. as well as costs for office supplies, electricity phones for the office, office personnel to field questions and concerns, marketing and toilet paper … and yes we also have to sustain a certain average to make the “shoot” at all profitable…. thus you have to buy a package and not just a sheet…and then try to stay in the black given the extended dead times. Trust me, school photographers are among the last blue collar road warriors. My husband is a photographer/manager and I am a manager. I know that you can take pictures of your own children, go to snapfish or someplace and get sheets of pictures really inexpensively. But with a school photographer you are getting door-to-door service for the pro to come out and work really hard to take some hopefully great portraits of your children. We offer great portrait products in addition to those sheets that will hopefully have you more jazzed about the services you are getting, but as I tell my kids, everybody is just trying to provide for their families. Us picture guys are too! It is a highly competitive field and photographers have to offer commission programs if they want an opportunity to photograph in schools at all.
( Which with everyone talking about needing more $$ for education, if we can help out, ok… we just do not want to give moms and dads sticker shock! ) We offer fundraiser and non-fundraiser programs to our schools, THEY CHOOSE not us… and we offer a proof program so we only print what you want as you order it…so we have to take good pictures or you do not buy…
Why do we do it? We honestly love kids. We love the tradition of the school portraits and we love to create memories for tons and tons of families. Hopefully, this comes through the portraits we create for you and that is what tugs at your heartstrings. Just to illustrate my point, I am an upper manager here, I drive a 6 year old Ford Windstar
( uggh I know! ) and am a real, down to earth mom. No beamer, no nannies, no “Coach” purse…I shop at Target and JCPenney… just working hard to try to make it, like you. So if you have any suggestions on how we can not be perceived as the villains, I would love to know…because we are honestly in it for the smiles.
God Bless, Tabatha Wilbert, Creative Images
tabatha@portraitday.com
September 12th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I think Tabatha did a very good job defending her position and I also understand the moms’ views as I am in the same situation. It costs a lot and I can’t bear the thought of the Spring pics getting shredded. Of course it is much cheaper than going to a high profile studio (which we do as well). I think for us it’s the school portrait tradition - which has improved greatly from the plastic combs and goofy expressions. My son is very photogenic so the pics are hard to resist. It would be nice if you could just order one sheet. You can always order the smallest package now and go to the Lifetouch website with the code and order a single sheet - maybe that would be more affordable. I tried that this year so I would not have too many pictures.
September 26th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Yes it seems Lifetouch strikes again, and here I thought it was only in my little corner of Long Island. All I want is a class photo and a sheet of wallets but that’s not an option. For my oldest, I just want wallets, but that’s not an option. Somehow I can take advantage of the “buy for 2 kids, get the 3rd kid free” this year, as long as the packages match. So far my middle school kids package offerings do NOT match my kindergarten kids package offerings. And their prices have gotten outragreous, it is no wonder they are losing business. If we’re forced to use them, they should at least make their prices affordable. Heck, I’d buy the CD for $12 and be done with it, if only it were that simple.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I don’t mind paying if the pictures are decent but this falls were awful! Of course you have to pay ahead for something you don’t know how they are going to turn out. well not me again after this years.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
I wish we could all refuse to have LifeTouch used for school photographs. My daughters pictures were taken and paid for back in August and I have yet to receive them. Not only that, somehow they ran through an electronic debit on my checking account today (Oct.
for the same amount as the check which had cleared in August. So now not only have I not received the pictures, I have also been charged twice for them. I’ve tried getting though to customer service and unless you want to reorder pictures you are put on hold and will not get anyone to help you.
October 19th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
A couple items:
1. Did you know that your school has a major part in the price of your packages. Yep. Base prices for packages is really pretty low, but Lifetouch gives schools the option to use picture sales as a fundraiser of sorts. If you package is more than say, $10, its because your school or district upped the price and is retaining the commission/profits for school use.
2. If all you want is small ‘ala carte’ items rather than a whole package, have your child’s pic taken and then call the 1-800 number for customer service. You can order ala carte after the fact… just not on picture day itself because of the way the cameras are programmed.
3. Believe me, as someoneo who has worked for lifetouch many years…. we work hard as heck to do everything every parent wants and to avoid problems, but unfortunately they arise. Trust me though, no one is out to get you.
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:30 am
I also work for LifeTouch, but I work at a few of the physical locations (studios). I am not part of the division that goes to schools for portraits.
You can opt to go to the studios to have school photos made, and you can come in with a nifty coupon to get a free 8×10 and $3.99 traditional sheets coupons. You can also bring in all of your little ones and have group photos if you so wish during one sitting.
The proofs are sent back to the company and are then destroyed. We are not out to exploit your children.