If you want a mediocre photographer mixed with a slimy used car salesperson, Pooja Photography is for you.
Background
We bid on a photo session during a charity auction. We hadn't had professional photographs of the family in a while and thought it would be great to do this photo session while donating to a great cause.
Win/win, right?
Not so fast. It turned out to be an absolutely miserable experience dealing with Pooja from start to finish.
First, she didn't reach out when we won the bid. I had to call the charity auction host to get contact information for her to initiate the conversation.
Would usually expect better, but no big deal.
Then, before she would schedule a session, she insists that we host a discovery call so she can get to know the family. I tried to get past this discovery session, but she refused to schedule the photo session until we did it. The first of many pressure sales tactics.
So she sends me her calendar link. She has like 3 time slots available in the middle of the day like 2 days a week as the only available times. Mind you, my wife and I both work and high demand jobs, so getting us both on a phone call at 2:00pm on any given day is nearly impossible.
When I explain our busy schedules to Pooja, she refuses to schedule unless both my wife and I can be there. I've experienced this sales tactic before as a newlywed sitting down to a timeshare presentation in Hawaii. Gross.
Months of talking past each other go by. She finally relents to letting me get on a call alone.
When we get on the phone, she launches into this fanciful soliloquy about capturing my children "in their essence" and starts asking a bunch of questions about my kids. I tell her I am happy to talk about them, but don't want to share things like name, birthdays, or anything like that. She pries. I say I don't feel comfortable with it. She pries some more. I divulge ages and genders and tell her that we will share names on the day of the photo shoot.
Then, when my call with her was over, she insists that we find time for both my wife and me to be on a call. Again. Another one. I told her that this isn't a possibility, so she asks to speak with my wife 1:1. I tell her I gave her the information she wants and that we just want to schedule to shoot. She refuses to schedule unless she talks to my wife.
You may be starting to see a pattern here.
We get my wife in a call with Pooja. Wife shares much of the same information that I shared.
We've checked the boxes. Time to schedule the photo shoot.
Photo session
The photo session itself went pretty well. Definitely the best part of the experience. Pooja didn't seem to use much of any of the mountain of information she requested from us about the kids. At the same time, I will say that she did a good job engaging them. Our youngest in particular can take a while to warm up to new people, and she got some genuine smiles out of him.
Nice job. Not easy to do.
The venue itself was ok. It was a public park with quite a few people around, but it worked. From the photos that I've seen, her studio photography seems to be her stronger skill set.
Post-production
After she finished editing the photos, she wanted us to come in person to see the photos as well as the various media that we could have the photos printed in. Canvas, paper prints, we live over an hour away, and she initially insists, again, on both of us being there together. Again, no chance.
After some back and forth, we finally get some time to do a Zoom call. We even found some time that worked for all 3 of us to be on the call together!
We were informed before the call that there would be just one chance to see the photos, and that we would need to make the order. Otherwise, we would need to pay an extra fee to see them again. Another pressure sales tactic.
When we get on the call, she had put together this montage of our photos set to music. Create the buying climate. More hard-closing sales tactics.
When we had a chance to look closer at the photos, we discovered that they were good, not great. She added some clearly fake leaves on a few of the photos and did weird things with the lighting on others. Overall, pretty run-of-the-mill photo shoot. With the pricing that she charges (will discuss later) and all of the pre-shoot shenanigans, I was expecting to be blown away.
After all, why go through all of that for a mediocre result, right? It couldn't have all been some elaborate sales tactic, could it?
Anyway, she continued to pressure us to make a decision about the photos on the call. Par for the course. We end up getting two prints and opting out of the photo album. We likely would have bought the album in most other circumstances, but we were so fed up with the sales tactics that we opted for the smaller package.
If she spent half the time honing her craft that she did working on her sales tactics, we would have a once-in-a-generation talent. Alas. read more
