In 2003 I bought a portrait plan from a national photography studio. I had purchased the same plan years before and with the plan, you get six free sittings and a free 8x10 picture with each sitting.
On the last sitting, you get an outside sitting. We LOVED our portrait plan and I used them to get pictures of the girls with their cousins in fun pictures for some and family pictures for others.
We used up our first plan and I purchased another. With the girls going on missions and at college, we just never were in the larger city where the portrait studio was located at the same time.
The last time I used the plan was in 2006 and it was just a portrait of myself which I never even got the 8x10 of since we never are in the town to pick it up. I guess since then, the company went under and sold their client plan list to a local photographer.
The girls asked if we could get a family picture taken over the holiday. I hadn't asked anyone for help to take them so I called the number on the portrait package and a man answered and said the place had moved and changed names but he still honored the "plan."
We all got ready and went to the new location and it was set in an office building in a horrible location and he had an office upstairs. He had 1, yes ONE wall that didn't have a window or door in it and it was painted with a huge grey and white chevron. He had no backdrops and the one solid colored wall he had was bright PURPLE!
He had turquoise with white stripes, gold with white which reflected the flash and a reddish leather wall with staples in the middle. Every wall had windows, light switches, and some of the pictures we took in an arch since there wasn't anywhere but ugly colors that wouldn't match my house had the light fixtures of the ceiling in the room behind it showing just over our heads.
He never turned the lights on us fully because the rooms were so small so we had shadows in every picture which made the girls have a black eye on one side and a colored eye on the other side making them looked possessed. I was so upset when we got the pictures. Everyone on the left side near the light is highlighted and everyone on the right side is in shadow.
We left knowing it was bad since it wasn't a "real" studio and had my sister meet us and take some pictures at another sisters house. These are the results but it was dark and cold so we did what we could but I felt sad that we wasted the entire day not wanting to enjoy being at the party knowing we had pictures later and then to drive and find the place, waste our time getting them taken just to have them turn out horrible. I think we would have done better to have my sister take some cute one's of us at the skating place in the ball pit or something. 
Live an learn, check out a photographer before you go, ask to see their web page or get referrals, it is a horrible waste of time and disappointment otherwise. They pictures are closer to $100 for an 8x10 and I am so disgusted with the pictures, I will NOT be ordering anything! Sad to waste the photographers time as well but some people just weren't meant to be artists. I learned a lesson and I know my girls did as well.
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