I will never again even think about going to any Sears Portrait Studios again!
As a Christmas gift my husband and I received a gift certificate for a large package of pictures at any Sears Portrait Studio. I was excited because we just welcomed our new baby to our family and would never have been able to afford such a package on our own. I researched as much as I could, side stepping all the negative reviews I seen for other locations in my area. I went into the studio in person to make my appointment, I wanted to meet the photographer to insure they could work with children. I met a nice lady who was happy to make an appointment with us. She explained that it was pretty much the luck of the draw of who will be taking the pictures for you when you come in, but she gave us her name and said she was a manager there and that we could just ask for her by name when we came in. I was very happy with this arrangement, and was even more excited to get our first family photos (which we were going to give out to our family as Christmas Gifts). However when we arrived I was told (with an eye roll) that that manager I spoke of "no longer worked for the company". This young man said nothing more and ushered us into the lil area to take our pictures. Now keep in mind I have a 2 year old and a 3 month old baby, so I knew it was going to be challenging to get a good picture of all of us at the same time, but I thought the photographer was going to at least attempt to try to get a good shot! It was obvious from the start that this young man never dealt with children (or didn't like to) because he was very annoyed with us and our children. My poor son wanted nothing to do with this guy, but we were finally able to calm our son (the 2 year old) down enough to get him in the shot with us. However this photographer did not want our son to be holding a lil clamp he had found and proceeded to argue with our son and us and very nearly snatched the clamp out of my sons hands. Of course this caused my son to get upset all over again. So the guy moves on to take pictures of my daughter (3 month old). I have seen photographers work before with children before and they were always upbeat and happy faced with squeaky toys in hand kind of people. Not this guy, he took many pictures (all from the same angle) of my daughter without saying a word to anyone. I think the whole photo shot wasn't more then 10-15 min long! After the picture taking was done he up loaded the pictures to a computer so we could pick out which shots we would like to keep. He very poorly mortified maybe 2 or 3 shots (our package included any mortifications to pictures such as black n white ect). He walked away and didn't come back to help or ask if we needed any help until I told him I was done. I was allowed 17 sheets in my package, I could not find 17 shots I even wanted. I ended up picking doubles of shots (with slightly different frowns of my son). The guy even tried to sell me on taking pictures that had us blinking in, saying "it's not that bad". To add insult to injury they guy had very poor hygiene that was very offensive. Needless to say I do not recommend anyone go to this location at least. I was very disappointed in the whole experience. read more