Don't Be Fooled!!

Important Information to consider when choosing your Senior Portrait Photographer!

1. Don't be fooled by slick advertising.
Advertising costs money, sure it's neat to hear about a studio on your favorite radio station or on television, but that advertising costs money. And who do you think pays for that high priced advertising? You do!! To pay for that type of advertising a studio must charge higher prices to you. So don't be fooled into believing a studio is better because they have fancy ads on the radio.

2. Don't be fooled by "to good to be true" advertising.
Over the next several months you will receive flyers from several different photographers, many of them promising "to good to be" deals. Take the time to read between the lines and see what you are really getting. We have all seen the infomercials on television, claiming you can purchase a product for only three easy payments of $19.95. Making you think your getting the product for only $19.95, but the really is that you're paying nearly $60.00. So don't be fooled by misleading advertising that makes you think that a cheap price is really all you will be paying.

3. Don't be fooled by hidden charges.
The two main items to look for is, does the studio charge for retouching and do they charge extra for your yearbook print. If a studio includes retouching their prices will seem higher than a studio that does not, but retouching is a very important part of quality portrait photography. Although you may have applied the proper make up to cover those pesky blemishes, the reality is when you enlarge a photograph up to an 8x10 or larger, those blemishes will still show up. And charging extra for a yearbook print, what are you having the photographs taken for in the first place. So don't be fooled by those studios charging extra for retouching and yearbook prints because odds are they will end up being more expensive than those that are including it.

4. Don't be fooled by "bait and switch" advertising.
This is something new that some less than reputable studios are doing. They tell you that the sitting fee is really cheap, but then once they get your credit card number to reserve your time, they add a studio fee. Think this is crazy, it happened to a client of ours. When she called the studio and reserved her sitting, she gave them her credit card number to reserve her session. She was then told that the sitting which was to be $90.00 turned out to be over $200.00, because of a studio fee of $110.00. The sad part of this story is once she found this out, she tried to cancel the appointment and was told she would have to pay a cancellation fee of $200.00. Don't be fooled by studios adding unjustified fees to their sitting fees.

5. Don't be fooled by studios that link their sitting fees to their packages.
One of the newest scams that studios are pulling is to link sessions with their packages or minimum purchases. What this means is that if you choose a studio's highest session to get all the outfits or poses you want, you will also have to go with a studio's highest prices. For instance, there is a local studio that has three different sitting fees and three different levels of packages. How it works is if you choose their lowest sitting, you are then given their lowest package prices. However, if you go with their biggest sitting then watch out because you are then limited to only their highest level pricing. This means that if you decide you want all of the frills that you get with the largest sitting, you will pay more for your photographs. They feel that since you can afford to pay for a larger sitting you should pay more for your photographs. So that advertised starting price of only $200.00 turns out to be $400 or more. So don't be fooled by those studios that force you to higher print prices for the extras you want.

These are just a few of the things to watch out for when selecting your senior portrait photographer. In short, don't be fooled by quick come-ons or to good to be true savings, because chances are they are.