The service here reflects the atmosphere: promises sound nice, but follow-through is nowhere to be found. Loyalty and respect clearly aren't priorities - neither in how customers are treated, nor in the culture that seeps through this place. I left with the impression that they don't care much about the quality of pictures, only money making. read more

My son is required to get his senior photos taken at this studio for his senior photo to be submitted in the yearbook. We had a great experience with the general photo session and the photographer, however when we were leaving, my son asked the photographer to be sent a specific photo (he gave him a sneak peek of a couple of photos taken during the photo session) as one of the proofs and the photographer mentioned that if we were not happy with the proofs that were provided, to please reach out and that the studio would be able to provide all the photos taken during the photo session. One week later, we received the 4 proofs and we were not satisfied with the proofs so I reached out to the studio and I did speak with a manager, and she informed me that I would have to pay an additional $20 to gain access to all the photos. I politely replied by stating that this was very misleading and that we were not informed of this during his photo shoot and kindly asked if they could make an exception as we 100% intended to buy the product. Unfortunately, they declined and said that they could not do so, as if they did this for me, then they would have to do this for everyone. Unfortunately, I will now be taking my business elsewhere, as they just lost a customer. read more

Really great experience with your customer service. Also, the photographers they use for high school pictures are young and related really well to my kids. The prices are way too high, and they definitely have a monopoly on graduation pictures. But it's something we have to get, and the quality is great. read more

This photo studio is HORRIBLE! They were contracted by my son's H.S. to take senior pictures. We received the proofs and honestly, there was not much to choose from. My son didn't feel like doing a retake so he ended up selecting a picture for his yearbook from the original lousy session. We paid for retouching of that photo and ordered prints. However, two weeks later we received an email confirming that a completely different photo (a default photo) was selected for his yearbook and if he wanted to make any changes he had one week left to do so, otherwise, the not retouched default photo would appear in the yearbook. What in the word are they doing?! Do they have children running this studio??? I really wish schools stopped using this company! By the way, they are extremely expensive!!! I will be contacting my son's school regarding this scam. read more

9.23.19 DO NOT GO HERE! I REPEAT, DO NOT GO HERE! If I can give them no star I will! The service itself was terrible! I spoke with Angie. We had a family photography session last month, 8.14.19, and we had to wait to buy the digital photos because their price range is so high! We couldn't afford $1500+ high resolution photos which my family wanted to keep! That's a crazy amount! Anyways, Angie contacted me after a month through email and offered a 50% discount. So this time it costs $750 for all photos digital which is still way too high or expensive. The problem was that Angie told me it'll be ready within 3-5 days. On the 5th day I received an email stating the photos are ready for pick-up. When I came in to pick it up, there was a guy and a lady who were trying to help me. First the lady in the front desk asked what name was it under. She couldn't find it. Then she asked for help from a guy. The guy searched it and didn't find it. I showed my receipt from my phone and found out my last name was mispelled to EZANGELISTA. The correct spelling is EVANGELISTA. So I thought that's why they couldn't find it. At this point my blood was boiling because it was taking too long and two of them were looking. The guy and the girl kept asking for my phone to see the order no. which was bery unprofessional. Until I stopped them and told them to write it down on a piece of paper instead of taking my phone away from me! I waited there for a long time only to find out the photos were for my son who goes as a Freshmen in HPHS. I didn't leave until Angie came. Angie said she made a mistake. That means our photos weren't ready yet. She said it's supposed to be ready within 7-10 days because it's a digital print! I even drove all the way to their Evanston location because that's where I should pick it up only to find out it's not ready then! I live in Highland Park and it's about 32-35 minutes drive. Angie replied to come back the next day to pick it up which I refused to do so! So she instead FEDEX it to my house. It was a terrible mistake! Now I also wanted to buy for my other son's senior photos but were so expensive! She offered me 20% but at this point everything that I thought of them were thrown in the trash! The photos were not even of high quality! If you can only see my son's photo it looks like a regular print that I can get from Walmart or Walgreens. The prices were too high and unreasonable! I'm not rich so I guess only rich people can afford such things! Expensive items! Terrible services! Please go somewhere else! Save your $ in your wallet! Save your head from getting headaches! It's not worth your time! I hope this helps someone in the future! read more

I don't know why my son's high school changed from Lifetouch to Stuart Rodgers this year. Why mess with something that's NOT broken? My complaint is with the customer service dept that responded to my email inquiry. All I can say is RUDE! Very condescending tone. They obviously need training in how to deal with customers. BRING BACK LIFETOUCH!!! read more

Awful, just awful! If I could give 0 stars, I would! Historically terrible throughout my three kids' middle school-high school photos... A 'big box monopoly' for what should be sincere and memorable photography! My last one just graduated so I no longer have to deal with these people. read more

Carly was great taking my daughter's senior portraits. She took creative and fun shots. She was professional and personable. My teenage daughter is happy with her pictures. read more

Photographer Scott got some of the best and most natural photos of my teen son that I've ever seen. Our son looks so relaxed, he's even laughing so hard his eyes are closed in one of them (one of our favorite shots!). No red eyes, no forced smiles, no awkward poses. read more

My daughter is tough to photograph. She has a significant facial scar that can sometimes appear prominently in photos, and she's a self conscious smiler. Her smile in last year's school photo was an unnatural, chin up, lips tight pose that she has been doing lately anytime someone asks her to smile for a picture. We rarely get a nice picture of her when she is aware that her photo is being taken. Stuart-Rodgers Photography did her school picture this year and it's absolutely terrific. I am so impressed. Her smile looks natural. She looks happy. I don't know how they did it. The fact that she is happy with it is the most important thing. She knows she is beautiful inside, but Stuart-Rodgers Photography made her feel beautiful on the outside too. My other daughter also had a lovely school photo with Stuart-Rodgers this year. Thank you! read more

Love the pix!!! The photographer even made the session fun for my 17 year old boy (hard to do)! Somehow they had some water damage from the mail and I called them and they are sending me new ones!! Great company, pleasant people, fantastic pix! read more

My daughter had her senior high school photos taken by Stuart-Rodgers and it was a great experience. She is not comfortable in front of the camera. Despite that, her photographer managed not only to take beautiful photos, but was able to put my daughter at ease so her true personality and smile showed in the photos. I am very happy and grateful for this positive experience! read more

I had three kids took high school senior pictures here. It was unfortunate for us that we had to use this studio three times. The oldest one's pictures were OK, but printing was very expensive. The second kid's pictures were too dark or too much shadow. The third kid's pictures were reasonably good, but some of the pictures were out of focus. The prices were unbelievably high and has gone higher every year. The cheapest package was $96 for only 6 small pictures for one pose. The CD for all hi resolution images were $625. 2 pictures (4x6 or 5x7) were $45. They serve for all the high schools in our area, but they don't offer any discount for any schools. read more

I have two children and they attended different schools. So when our daughter graduated we used a different studio and I was completely happy with the session and the photos. But we went here since this was the studio the school used for the yearbook photos. The photo session was similar to taking them for photos in the mall when they were small. Which I stopped doing. The quality of the photos were poor, color, centering, lightning, focus, we have taken better pictures with camera phones. When I complained about the quality and my disappointment I was offered no discount or a free reshoot. I only order wallets to pass out with thank you. Even the edges on these we not smooth, it was as if they cut them with scissors. Take the yearbook pictures and schedule a photo shoot with a more professional studio. BTW the prices are not inline with the quality. read more

My son's preschool has consistently used Stuart-Rodgers Photography for the past few years - and our most recent order was exceptional in quality. I have also experienced great customer service with them. For example, there was a year where final prints were delivered with a distracting piece of lint on my son's collar. Upon reaching out to Stuart-Rodgers, they promptly digitally removed the lint - free of charge. That kind of response was much appreciated. My family has also used Stuart-Rodgers for two private photo sessions - one indoor and one outdoor. Their team works very well with kids. I treasure the shots taken. I highly recommend! read more

Went there with a Groupon ($80 - 1 print), but I've been wanting to find a photographer that I can go back to, periodically, with my family. I was hoping this could be it. Convenient location (for me at least), nice interior. Pictures were terrible! Dim lighting, not in a good way. I have a DSLR, but I could have done better with my iphone. It took me a few months to order the "free" print, because all the pictures were so bad. Anyways, eventually ordered the print and some wallets to send around to family. Several weeks later, print arrives, no wallets. How hard is it? Oh, did I mention insanely overpriced (especially for the quality of photos). I'm at a loss how my experience could have been so bad. I'm guessing we happened on a bad photographer, and they've swamped themselves with Groupons (though it didn't look busy). Either way, sad we don't have a good picture (pretty hard to find time for this with two kids), and irritated with the whole experience. read more

Not happy with the result of my daughter's 8th grade picture. My daughter is beautiful and yet the lighting is such that it looks like she is wearing a half dark/light colored mask or something. They do this every year with their terrible lighting but I found it to be more prominent this year and for them to do it with such an important picture (the 8th grade pic!) is shameful! I left a message with my number and they never called back. My daughter didn't want to do the retake and really why the heck should she, these doofuses should get it right the first time since the majority of all they do is probably school photos! These days they don't even do a couple poses, just one shot is all you get and they rush the kids at that! One star is all Stuart rodgers gets from me. As I said, their lighting techniques or whatever you want to call it are horrendous. They make a ton of money off of school pictures and they don't care about the quality or about the customer, it's my opinion. Another thing is that you have to pay extra for retouches and then you don't even know how the final product is going to look. read more

Super experience! Session was great and resulted in so many lovely photos to choose from. (I had even emailed a question about ordering online, and the owner answered immediately!) Great people and beautiful photos. Highly recommend! read more

What a disappointment! My kid's school uses them so we had to have 2 retakes because the pictures were so bad. If the photographer was at all conciencious we would not have been in this situation. So the last retake we had to drive out to Evanston on a Sat. Morning at 8:00 am! (We live in Elmhurst) and they actually took a much better photo. Here's the problem... Even though they promised they would put the new photo in the year book, many months later we come to find out in print it was the old bad retake put in the yearbook. All that effort and aggravation for nothing! I will be contacting the school next so they are aware of the unprofessional business they are trying to run. read more

I went to Stuart-Rodgers to take my Senior Portrait last fall. The photos were okay, but when I received my yearbook yesterday, the photo I did NOT select was in there. I am totally mortified as well as disappointed in this company as this unflattering photo will be in the book for people to look back on for many years to come. The photo package was expensive and the lighting was way too bright for portrait photographs. Apparently, my situation is not the first for Stuart-Rodgers. A friend of mine who is a former employee of theirs said they are disorganized. This type of behavior shows they do not care about their customers and if this is true, they should get out of the business and stop wasting everyone's time and money--and stop ruining high school senior's final yearbooks. I will not be recommending them to anyone. read more

Our jr high in Northbrook has used Stuart Rodgers for school pictures for all three years of my daughter's jr high experience and every single one has been AWFUL. Terrible quality--they only take one photo when they could take several with everything being digital--and give you choices. My daughter is extremely photogenic and if they can make her look bad then no one has a chance. I definitely would not hire them for school photos ever again. read more

Photographer from this studio was hired by my kids kindergarten. I would refuse, but kindergarten teachers were saying that "its a great opportunity to have a picture made with all kids and teachers together". Well then something changed, and only individual pictures were made. We paid $25 for a digital photo, and got a Horrible blurry image, just 1 ! (wtf ?!!! digital photocameras were out of memory or something ?), can't even select from several. Pictures were taken in September and were "processed" till December!!!! What exactly the processing was - I don't know. Not even unsharp mask effect was applied. Though my cell phone would make better photos. Stuart-Rodgers Photography is Unproffessional clickers with hands growing out of their lower back. I wish you choke on my $25. read more

My daughters Highschool used Stuart Rodgers for their Senior yearbook picture and the graduation pictures. Both were extremely disappointing. We requested a re-take of the yearbook photo ( which was supposed to be free, but they charged us anyway, since we waited to long.) but it didn't turn out much better than the first. In her graduation picture my daughter has red eyes from the flash. Even if you hire a bunch of kids to do the work, red eye is easily digitally corrected in this day and age. Why would a professional photographer even send out pictures, that do nothing for their reputation? If you are simply looking for someone to press the shutter, you might be ok with Stuart Rodgers, but if you are looking for service or quality, look somewhere else. read more

I went for my senior portraits, I haven't seen the final result yet but the experience of being there was wonderful. The photographers are incredibly nice and make it fun and relaxing, would defend nicely recommend! read more

Such a refreshing take on school photos! Gone are the standard blue/gray backdrops and forced poses I grew up with. Stuart-Rodgers did an amazing job capturing my kindergartener's smile outside in a mug more natural way, with real sunlight and trees as the backdrop. Her photos turned out gorgeous and we had two shots to choose from. Great choice for our school! read more

My son and I went to SR Photo for head shots for our Linkedin profile. Kurt, the photographer, was very professional and he listened to our ideas but also had many recommendations for poses, backdrops and lighting. We ended up with very nice head shots along with some additional portraits. We purchased the rights to our photos and they mailed them to us on a disc. I would use SR Photo again and highly recommend them. read more

Stuart-Rodgers have done my daughter's school pictures the last two years. (She's in junior high.) The pictures are fantastic! No comparison to previous school pictures....I would highly recommend them! read more

Very disappointed. My daughter's junior year picture is very dark. I do not know why JHHS use Stuart-Rodgers photography. It is time to find a different studio. read more

I've contacted Stuart-Rodgers six times over the past two and a half months to try to resolve an issue with the photo I ordered, and not once has someone reached back out to me. I'm appalled at this complete disregard for customer care. Frankly, your work isn't nearly good enough to blow off the people buying from you. read more

Blurry pictures. Wasted my money. Could've done a better job myself. Completely unprofessional.

Wow, to say that I am disappointed in this studio is an understatement. We had to use them for my daughters senior pictures. 1st - never a word about how much pictures/prints would cost and shame on me for not pushing to find out more. 2nd - I nearly fell off my chair when I saw the cost of a hi def digital print DVD, $525.00, yup, that's right, FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS. Now mind you, we are not a print off 100's of pictures. We're talking grandparents and aunties, so maybe 10 pictures tops. So for the standard 5 x 7 it would be $250.00 again, seriously. I understand the word overhead but that is just ridiculous. SHAME ON STUART RODGERS, what a rip off. read more

If I could give .25 of a star that would be my rating. Disappointed every time. This is the photographer that my school uses for Senior photos and graduation. When I got my son's senior photos the entire casual set was unusable. I think the photographer had no idea how to manage lighting and actually put the students in a good pose. As we were waiting for our turn, I stepped in to fix other students collars and shirts that were gapping, etc. --because the photographer didn't notice. My son was taken out in the hall in front of a white wall in a pale blue shirt and no additional lighting for his photos. It was dark and my cell phone could have been better. Now on to the graduation photos. First off, where they were standing the students to take their diploma photos was on an angle -- so the kids were standing sideways up hill. And the photos show that. There was no effort to crop the photo or have the photographer in a place where the photos don't look up hill. The diploma receiving photo -- the kids are all looking down, as I assume they were told to look at the photographer who was standing in the pit! The photo is off centered and the lighting is just ok. This is to be expected, as I am sure they can't accommodate the lighting in this fast paced environment. But the school really should be choosing more wisely. The photos are NOT cheap. For my son's half usable senior photos I have to pay $150 alone for 1 pose of digital download -- $500+ for the entire package. If I could download them cheaper -- I could fix the issues myself and help make these usable. So disappointed that this is the memories offered for such an expensive and amateur service. read more

I really wanted to like this photographer. Unfortunately, the photographer rushed us through the session. The resulting photos were shot at poor angles, blurry, and had shadows. As a result, we did not have photos for the holiday. I cannot recommend them. read more

I agree with the majority of yelpers on this one. They take the photos at my girls' school. First takes were okay, but I had retakes to compare and select the best ones. The second ones were horrible. My daughters' photos were taken so far back at a distance that you could see in the photo where the backdrop ended. So unprofessional looking. And the lighting they used the second time was terrible. I could tell the difference from the first to the second shots they had taken. I ended up having to order the photos online to crop the ones that were presentable (their online ordering site stinks as well). I give props to the school for trying to rectify the issues, but Angie at Stuart-Rodgers wasn't any help. Wouldn't budge to give any kind of courtesy discount for the inconvenience/hassle so I ended up canceling my order, minus the group class photos. Was trying to save some time just ordering shots of my girls here, but honestly not worth it. I'll be taking my girls elsewhere for photos... read more

If this place was burned to the ground, the world would be better for it. The worst thing was how long it took us to find this place. You can't choose where your school makes you go, but you can for other things. Find someplace else. read more

Stuart-Rodgers has done the school pictures for my children's school for the past several years. I had serious reservations about the quality of their work after hiring them for a family photo shoot that was a total disaster. The lighting was terrible as was the color. The pictures were ultimately unusable. I would advise extreme caution with this photographer. If you have the ability to select a different studio for personal pictures, I would strongly advise you to go elsewhere. The school pictures are generally of reasonable quality and the pricing is fair at ~$40 for the midsize package. I was stunned when I received the proofs for my 8th grader. The price of the $40 package had been increased to $300 for nearly the same package as the pictures were considered graduation photos! The ~$40 package price still applies for my younger child. I would deem this pricing to be incredibly predatory. I hope other Yelpers vote with their wallets and go elsewhere! read more

The last of my three children just had a high school senior year sitting. It was truly pleasurable on every level. We had the best, most congenial photographer. My son had a midday appointment so presumably she had been taking these standard shots all day. But when we arrived, he was greeted like he was the first and only student they might have all day. The photographer really worked to capture his personality, and she really did! High school boys might not be known as willing photo subjects but our photographer really made the experience fun and it is reflected in the quality of our resulting photos. read more

First impressions mean a lot. This studio was awarded the contract to take my son's school photos this year. Their forms must be from the 60's..they are completely unsecure with no regard to privacy or security. The payment information portion is completely exposed-it is not detachable to include in the self sealing envelope, nor does the flap enclose such private information. The full credit card number, 3 digit verification code as well as expiration date were to be written on the outside of the form, clearly visible for all to see. Am I to willing to give a free ticket to credit card fraud to their staff, photographers and any of their employees who handle this form? As well as to my son's high school staff who may be overseeing the process? Or what if my son were to drop that form/set it down? In a high school of 1700 students? I think not! All other studios we have worked with in the past have had a detachable form to fill in such personal financial information, and enclose it on the inside of the self sealing envelope, with a box to check off that I am paying by credit card and the information is enclosed. After calling their local number and explaining my frustration, I was abruptly and tersely asked if I would like to speak with a manager. I was then put on hold for 13 minutes, until my call got dumped to a nameless automated voice mail box. That was an hour ago-I was very clear that I was looking for a call back to address the issue. Let's see how long it takes for them to contact me back. (after a call to their legal team perhaps?) I obviously did not personally choose this studio, and I can only hope that the photos that come out of this experience are exceptional-although my expectations are getting lower by the minute. read more

I ordered graduation picture for my daughter, paid for it. So after a month I received an email to proof picture, but it was wrong pose. So I called them....they didn't have my daughter picture. Sorry won't give me a picture. Explanation was: " we don't have the picture you ordered, would you like to buy the other one?" No, I was able to take a picture of my daughter and her diploma, I wanted picture of my daughter receiving diploma, sorry won't be on my wall. Shamed on you Stuart - Rodgers Photography!!! read more

If I could give 0 stars, I would. SR is used by the preschool, elementary, Junior High and High School in our district. The pictures are awful, quality is abysmal, lighting is off, poses are stilted and contrived. A few years ago, I even discovered hat they charge our district more than other districts because of our demographics...unbelievable! When they were confronted with this - they barely changed their package prices the following year. There seems to be no one in charge who cares about the quality of the products offered by SR. Don't understand why we use them. For 8th grade and senior pics, I choose the most basic package for a yearbook pose and then have my kids photographed at Classic Kids Photography - that's a business that cares! read more