This is just screwed up. Where the heck are parents going to get professional portraits done at a reasonable price? A photographer will charge a lot more and you get stiffed for every darn print that you need.
A picture taken with your phone isn’t the same as a portrait. Studios have professional lighting and backdrops. I’ll have grandkids in a few years and I want nice portraits of them.
This just sucks. I always thought these studios at Sears and Walmart were franchises. Not one company that could go under.
The so-called professional portrait style at Sears & Wal-Mart was always forced and cheesy. I say good riddance.
Private photographers are not expensive, actually, and as for where kiddos can go for their forced, cheesy portraiture, maybe you’ve heard of “school photos”?
I’m frankly surprised that those places were still in business at all. They seem like a relic from a day and age when most people didn’t own cameras, and the fact that they were even still around at the dawn of the digital era just strikes me as bizarre.
I treasure the photo portraits of my daughters as they grew up. Having them helps my wife and I cope now that they are grown and gone.
Memories are so precious. A moment in a childs life only happens once. We had portraits done every year at Sears. A few are hanging on the hallway walls.
It depends on your market and what you define as “expensive.” Around here, a typical session fee will be $200-$300. This will often (if not usually) not include prints or digital negatives. I do families on the side from my main wedding business, but I include the digital negs for $300, as I’m still building a portfolio and, personally, I think more and more people want a session package that includes it.
I’m with you on this one. We just had family portraits done at Sears a couple of months ago, when my son was 3 months old. They turned out great, the photographer was very good with the baby, and we were able to get digital negatives at a reasonable price.
Prices are lower than that in NYC, which I had presumed to be the most expensive locale.
And is that for 15 minutes of your time? Such as you would get at Wal*mart for $50? I suggest it is not. And would you say your photography takes place exclusively in front of “blue sky” and “library” backgrounds? I imagine no. I suspect you actually bring your artistic eye and produce uniquely beautiful, flattering photography. You know, the kind that takes skill. Hence my term “so-called professional” for department store portraits. it’s trained monkey work anyone can do with a couple of lights and a digital camera.
Anyway, never fear, JcPenney and Babies r Us portrait studios are still kicking.
Being an American is confusing. Aren’t we supposed to be outraged when big businesses move in on small local businesses? Now we’re outraged when big businesses go out of business so that small local businesses can move in?
Oh yeah that’s right, we’re outraged when we have to pay slightly more money for higher quality goods and services.
My Facebook feed is bursting with links from friends of friends who have made their own businesses out of taking amazing and creative portraits of kids and families. I don’t think one’s ability to get portraits taken will be diminished any time soon.
No mention of closure. The Walmart studio seems to be run by “Walmart Image Inc”; However, the Sears studio appears to be run by “Consumer Products Incorporated Coprporation” (sic). Is this related to the US company? Good question.
I imagine independent photographers will eventually lease the portrait studio space in Sears and Walmart. Setup a similar service.
It’s in Sears and Walmart’s interest to make this happen. People usually shop once they are in the store. The portrait studio draws customers in to take the photos and they come back for prints.
The photographers I know here in nowhere-in-particular, The Midwest want $200 for a session plus $7 and up for prints ($7 for a 4x6). Digital copies of a shoot are $400.
I don’t understand who can afford that and where their business is coming from. Senior pictures, I guess, because I can’t imagine a family doing that every year.
This is not uncommon. The public has no idea at all of the razor thin margins suppliers and lessees have with Walmart. I knew a successful jewellery company that got the lease to put its goods in a (centre) of all stores, and they could not survive. But that is fine with me. There are always jewellers in every mall who should have had the business anyway.
Many, or most people do not appreciate the colossal damage the demand for “Cheap, cheaper and trash cheap” has had on general merchandise. Our retail world has declined terribly trying to compete with the junk in dollar stores and large chains. And, I today I read that dock workers in Hong Kong are on strike against Li ka Chang’s (Richest man in HK) HK docks (which is most of all docks). One man with a kind of important low management job said after 10 years there, he still makes .91 (cent U.S.) per hour - less than when he started, and living in an expensive city. To supply those places with the cheap junk they sell, many have to take the hit, and dock workers are just part of the soft belly of the supply chain for the giants responding to the absolute obsession with “cheap” in today’s ugly retail environment.
My parents still have all the photos of us kids on their wall, from every year, for each kid. Some woman came to my folks’ door one day and Mom answered. The woman took one look at all the kid photos on the walls in the entry area and said “Oh my! Are ALL those children YOURS?!” and my Mom cheerfully replied “Yes they are!”. The poor visiting woman just stood there for a long moment with her mouth hanging open, not sure what to say. Mom finally put her out of her misery by explaining there weren’t as many kids in the house as the photos indicated.
I always thought these studios at Sears and Walmart were franchises. Not one company that could go under.