Around here the school photo business is mostly wrapped up by
Strawbridge Studios. They've been in business for 95 years.
They did all of my school photos from first grade through High
School senior year.
http://www.strawbridge.net/
I remember from my (pre-digital) school daze they used 70mm
Long Roll cameras.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj12FeXCYA0
Of course, everything is digital now.
I know several of the photographers who work there. *IF* I wanted
a J-O-B I could probably get one there. But that would mean
actually having to go back to WORK.
On 2/21/2018 00:24, Igor PDML-StR wrote:
I thought the company was some sort of a franchise with a few local
outlets, but upon digging, I've found that it is a well-established
outlet with one office and a studio in Austin, and just contact
phones (look like cell phones) in 5 more Texas cities, including
Houston (covering Eastern, Central and a portion of Western Texas,
but not North Texas), and seemingly no studios/offices in those
cities.
So, I suspect there are local photographers who are employed by the
"head office" to take photographs at school-age organizations, and
probably some regional home-office-based coordinators who are
answering calls and providing some customer service.
The ordering is done via standardized printed forms (and some
reordering can be done online). I suspect that printing and order
handling is done from the central office. So, I don't know what the
photographer gets.
The company seem to have established relations to schools in many
ISDs throughout large portion of Texas, as well as children sport
clubs and outlets. (From my experience, schools and kid-sport outlets
are very conservative and do not tend to shop around.)
They have a few standard scenarios with schools. With our school it
works as follows: They require parents to preorder the group photo.
(Actually they push "packages", including mugs, magnets, etc. with
the option of 8x10 for $13 buried deep.) On the Picture Day, they
take group photos and individual photos. Then they send an order form
with two individual photo thumbnails (2x3) on it. With some other
schools they require pre-orders of the individual photos.
The prints aren't cheap (and I understand that the "session fee" is
built-in into the packages price). For these individual photos, the
cheapest "package" that includes a 5"x7" (two of them, and then a few
smaller ones) is $31. A package that includes an 8"x10" (one) and a
bunch of smaller ones is $46. The individual photos (as far as I can
tell from the crappy 2x3 "proof"/thumbnail), a head shot, and a 2/3
of a body shot, seem to be of a reasonable quality in our case.
Here is a more generic order from for a different school that I've
found online that gives an impression of their package pricing:
https://www.fortbendisd.com/cms/lib/TX01917858/Centricity/Domain/7977/Photo%20Texas%20Fall%20Order%20Form.pdf
http://www.santaannaisd.net/userfiles/19/my%20files/picture%20forms/doc080116-08012016124701.pdf?id=167
Most of Yelp reviews are negative:
https://www.yelp.com/biz/photo-texas-photography-austin-3
They seem to over-promise and under-deliver. But the quality of
service varies, most likely depending on the local photographer and
his/her skills and ethics>
Ghm.. I see that, indeed the photographers aren't paid much (at least
one of them: $15/hr), - according to Glassdoor:
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Photo-Texas-Photography-Reviews-E886139.htm
Well... Paul, your question was helpful in finding the answer to
mine.
Igor
Tue Feb 20 19:58:00 EST 2018 Paul Stenquist wrote:
Depends on what the photographer was paid. Probably next to nothing,
so the results are proportionate.
Paul
On Feb 20, 2018, at 7:01 PM, Igor PDML-StR <pdmlstr at komkon.org>
wrote:
Dear PDMLers,
I'd like to hear your opinion on this, especially from the point of
view of those who did/does "seating session" photography (if
anybody).
We just received the annual class photograph for my child. (We
usually do not purchase individual ones, but buy group photographs,
as a memory for the kid.)
We've had some photographs from the previous years, and the quality
varies. Most of the time all these photographs are ... ghm ... at
the "OK" level. But it is expected, so, I am sort of content with
that. It was only once that the quality was above my expectation.
And I think it is typical for different times and places: I
remember that most most of my formal class photos were mediocre.
One was so bad that the parents rebelled and made the photographer
to redo the shooting properly (or maybe they got a different
photographer, and forced the first one to refund the money, I don't
remember).
So, here comes my question: On this year photograph, I see two kids
with their eyes closed, and three with their eyes not visible at
all because their glasses were totally covered by the flash
reflection. So, 5 out of 19 kids (and 3 teachers) have their eyes
not visible. Do you think this is normal?
My thinking is as follows: Seating-session photographs (i.e. posed)
is a separate area where one needs to have a skill to have it right
(setting, light, poses, people management), plus some when it
concerns kids. And that's what the photographer gets her/his money
for. I do not expect a masterpiece, but I'd like to see no trivial
problems. Is my expectation unreasonable?
Thank you in advance,
Igor
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Science - Questions we may never find answers for.
Religion - Answers we must never question.
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