Venture photography - are they a rip off? Thinking of for a gift

I used to work for them selling that package. It is a good deal and the picture you choose is great quality and there is a lot of choice. They do bank on you seeing a show of all the images to choose the free one and then being overcome with desire for the rest and they try sign you up for buying more, they offer credit facilities as well to make it seem like a 'reasonable' purchase of several grand! If you are happy to just take the 'free' one, it's a nice gift ?

They do those offers to entice people into buying bigger photos which is very tempting!

When I bought my first Mini, Venture sent me a free voucher for a 7x5 - we did the session and a month or so later went to view the photos. We found it really enjoyable actually; darkened room, cool music and your pictures on a big screen. Anyway we ended up spending a lot of money on a lovely picture. It hasnt got pride of place in our house but its nice to have. I must admit we did regret it for a while because of the cost and it seeming a bit egotistical but I'm glad we have it now.

I now have another free voucher for a 10x8 (I think) after purchasing another Mini - this time we have decided to take our cats and get a picture of them....and just the free one. Definitely not spending anymore money....well I hope not anyway ?

I'm guessing that your friend will be wowed by the pictures and therefore buy a bigger version...if they have the spare cash!

I'd say it's a good idea. We went to the place in Bristol when I was about 16 and I recall my Mum spending a fortune and Step Dad not being overly happy haha, however we had fun and the photos are great.

I got a voucher for free shoot and a free 10x8 when I got my braces off from my orthodontist..

The shoot itself was fun (even if Dr shoes was being a grumpy sod) but....

The viewing of the photos was very awkward - we had gone with a view of getting a photo of me looking glamorous with my new teeth and were adamant we were only going to get the free one..

However venture were insistant that because we had both been at the shoot we could only get the free photo of both of us and if we wanted one of me we had to pay and they were quite pushy with trying to sell us more..

When their cheapest photo was about £500 and the most expensive was about £5000 that was never going to happen but it made the viewing very uncomfortable..

We ended up with a lovely one of the pair of us (free) and didnt get any more but its made me determined never to use them again...

MIL bought one 3 years ago. We ended up buying a deal for 3 pictures on Mr P's insistance, 1 is on his desk at work and the other 2 are hung in the wardrobe as I hate them, none of us look like ourselves (for a start my brown haired baby came out a redhead [nowt wrong with redheads I hasten to add, just my wee lass is a brunette!]).

There was a thread about this on BT just the other day. I think the general consensus was that the shoot is fun but most people end up spending a lot of money on extra pics and so it's not that great a pressie really.

Also someone mentioned that local photographers often do Venture style pics at a much cheaper rate.

FWIW it's not something I would have liked as I'm not into the style of photos, I think they're expensive and I was in no fit state post-birth to have a photographic shoot. ? But you know your friend best, perhaps she'll like it and be strong enough to withstand the selling!

I know some friends that have used them and been happy, although a lot poorer!

Personally I don't think they do anything that a decent photographer with a studio can't do themselves for a fraction of the price. Plus from what I understand there is quite a hard sell at the viewing session afterwards, and not many people come away with just their freebie. But it's a lovely gift idea - I think I'd be happy to receive a photographic gift.

To be honest I would probably look for an independent photography studio near your friends and see if they do gift vouchers. Many do. WIll probably be much better value.

Just wanted to add that personally I didnt experience the hard sell at all. They showed us shots of us together and on our own and the free one could be any of them.

I think they have a certain something about them that I havent seen in other photographers.

Maybe it all depends on the store you go to?

One of my neighbours won a free shoot + 7x5 in a competition run by Venture. She had previously asked us to do it, but since it was 'free' decided to go along. She has 3 small children.

They really enjoyed the shoot and went back for the viewing and liked the images. However, Venture wouldn't give her the 7x5 with the whole family (parents and 3 children) on it, only one of two of the children.

After a long time of hard selling (her words) she signed a credit agreement, which gives her 1 16x12 for approx £900. They started off at £1800 for 1 large and two small pictures.

So if you can walk away with your free gift then I guess it is fine, and she said they enjoyed the shoot itself. She is now quite embarassed that she ended up signing the agreement, and doesn't dare tell her husband the cost!

TG

Tbh i think venture is a bit naff now. sorry. ?

its just so overdone...pratically everyone i know with children have these white back-grounded pictures with the family all wearing jeans and sat around on the floor. i don't see the attraction tbh. a few years ago when they were new and original, then maybe...

We had some Venture pics done a couple of years ago - the shoot was great fun, the pictures were absolutely fab and we received no hard sell. We did end up spending almost £2k ? That said, I don't regret it and will treasure them for the rest of my life. Ours are all black and white - so not quite the usual Venture style - and they're spread all over the house (we had a large, framed pic for the hall and 4 x 6 x4") so I don't think you're 'Ventured out' when you come in the house.

However, since then I've met and worked with some excellent local photographers that charge a tiny percentage of Venture. The one I work with deliberately doesn't use Photoshop much - her view is that a fat bride was a fat bride the day before and after her wedding, and will be looking the best she's ever looked on the day, so why impose a view on how she should look? She also refuses to Photoshop children - because all children are beautiful (with the exception of the odd bump or bruise that the parent asks to be removed).

The results are, in all honesty, a bit less polished than Venture, but more real somehow. I can't disagree with her stance. That said, I was a fat bride and eternally grateful for Photoshop, so I can't say too much ?

Honestly? If someone had bought this for me I don't even know if I'd used it. I certainly wouldn't have been delighted.

I felt and looked like sh1te for a long time after birth, I don't think MrR fully got quite how bad and he'd have been on at me to go when the baby was still quite young and if I'd have felt I had to go and get the pics taken and I'd probably have hated the photoshoot and the pics. Or the alternative would have been I would have kept putting it off and not going and the voucher would likely have expired. It would so not have been a great present for me/us.

Also I feel Venture is extremely overpriced for what it is.

But then you know your friend and what she is likely to like and dislike.

WOW! £1800 for 3 photos! Yikes!

We had some Venture style pictures taken on a cruise, bought 3 of them (10 by 8 I think). The price of the cruise and the pictures for the 2 of us wasn't even £1800. ?

As FTG said, you d get similar from an independent for much better value, without the big hard sell (just a small hard sell). the people i know who ve done this all love the images, but say they d never go back due t the selling tactics.

i agree with ktc as well, its a bit 2004 - white backgrounds are one thing, but there is far much more fun (and better images) to be had on location.

I'm with Kieren on this one. I find them so contrived and don't like them at all. One of my friends had some done with her son and they're throwing cushions in the air. I don't like them at all.

My M&S credit card gave me some thing to get a free pic. I wanted to give it to my brother in law but the Venture person said I'd have to go along - I can just see the pics now: him, his wife, their two gorgeous little girls, and me ?

The other thing that occurs to me about the venture pics, is as a rule people do them when their children are very little...friends of mine have some with their toddler son and baby daughter (wearing jeans, and lying on their tummies on the floor, natch)

and yes, they're very nice and all, but you've spent all that money to capture that brief period of their life. whereas i would personally prefer to spend less n the pictures and re-do them every few years, so you have more of a diary of their lives...

I don't really think they are though. They're all very similar. I like natural pics.

well they're not hideous, but i totally agree with what you say. they're kind of striving to be natural (hey, look at us being casual! this is not a tradional portrait shot!) but in some respects they've gone the other way now, iyswim?

some of the venture pics look out of focus to me too, but i'm guessing that's actually some sort of clever photography technique thats gone well over my head ?

About 4 years ago i tried to get a venture franchise - the demands and limits they place on the franchisees are pretty outrageous, and theyre forced to efectively buy everything from venture head office. i couldnt believe it actually, and walked away, and am pleased i did.

We've had 2 vouchers from venture and both times we just took the free photo. The 2nd time, the best one of us as a family had been cut down/shot in panoramic, so we couldn't have it free, and there was an absolutely cracking shot of my daughter 'playing' her dad's saxophone which we had to turn down so we could have a pic of the whole family. I like the shots (naff or not) but there's no way we could afford it, so we simply took advantage of the free picture.

The 'problem' with venture in my opinion is that they run the company like an overbloated corporate company, and that the sales / marketing come foremost ahead of the photography.

I can't deny that their work is quite nice, but from every experience I have heard the sales pitch is so full on, and the prices are incredibly pricey.

You'll get much better value going to an independant photographer.

I hate them. The only reason people look blemish-free in them is because they are over-exposed - it would be nice if they left people with more facial features than their eyes!

WTP's cousin booked for them to go for WTP's Nan's 90th. 2 hours later, everyone shoving each other about etc etc. The end result when we went back was ONE useable picture of everyone - on the other group shots, people had their eyes shut, or were pulling crap faces. They were relying on the fact that there were basically 4 different families in the room, adn hoping to sell pics of each family to us.

WTP's cousin's wife also took them to task, because when they booked it, they were told that they could do a traditional portrait (the woman was 90, ffs, she wanted them all sitting down, facing the front!) and that wasn't what happened. In their astounding arrogance, they replied that (basically) people don't really know what they want, and generally like their stuff/style better.

In the end, we were appalled that our share of this sodding picture was £80 - WTF? Seriously silly money.

I really dislike everything I hear about Venture, friends of mine have had shots done and both have had to go back to them with problems. I give them a wide berth any time the saleman tries to stop me in town/in the supermarket. I also agree that this style of photography is a bit over-done and over-rated. We had the same style of pics taken by a local lad just setting up in business, ok he was fairly new to photography so maybe the pics would have been better with more experience but the style with the white background just didn't suit my little girl who's very fair.

If you want to get them something to keep what about a footprint kit or something? We had MissSun's prints done onto a tile and I love it, I get a bit emotional looking at it, it's in the kitchen.

I'm another one who loves the Venture shots but would not part with a ridiculous amount of money for some of the "pieces of art".

I was given a £250 voucher for a Venture shoot so took the girls along. We had a great morning playing in front of the camera. A week later we went to look at the pictures and WOW they were fantastic! However £900 for a starting price? No, i don't think so. The guy tried to offer me a finance option, again no thank you. I ordered my free 7x5 framed print and walked away.

I'd rather spend that sort of money on a holiday and have memories and snapshots from that.

But their prices don't start at £900, so were they saying that you had to spend that much to get £250 off? ie it was a specific range of products? Because they must still sell their 7x5s

L
xx

Oh my! Those prices! Personally I think Venture is too twee for words, a fact reinforced every time I pass its cheesy stand in the local shopping centre. The over-exposure and white backgrounds are dazzling to the point my eyes are fried.

To the OP - I think that in theory, your present sounds really thoughtful, but any gift that would probably entail a hard sell becomes less attractive. Does your friend or her OH have their own camera? Perhaps you could buy them a cool book on how to take photos of children and babies - a gift that will keep on giving!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h__0_21?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=photographing+children&sprefix=photographing+childre

For the £250 voucher I had the shoot was included and either £200 off of a picture (becuase the shoot is £50) OR the standard 7x5 picture. I sure as hell wasn't going to pay £900 which was the cheapest picture up from the 7x5 minus the £200 so £700 for a picture. No way. So I just took my 'free' 7x5.

Everything KTC says about the style is so true. I prefer them to traditional portaits though, but much much prefer properly natural shots or portraits outdoors. The best pictures of our son are all ones where he is climbing trees ?

Our nursery has visits from a 'venture style' guy and he gets some lovely shots, much better than the fuzzy mottled brown/blue background of Ye Olden Days when I were a slip of a lass at school.

So if white backgrounds are on their way out, whats the next new look for portraits going to be?

It's quite weird actually, because we do offer location shoots but we are really struggling to promote these, the studio sessions are a much easier sell for us.
I think it's hard to say Venture are going out of fashion - they have been doing what they do for over 20 years now, haven't they? I think there remains a market not due to the photography but their innovative display options - photos on a slab of Corian anyone?

L
xx

I must admit I can't believe their prices - I recently had a customer who had a cheap shoot with them and walked away with the free 7x5 because they just couldn't afford the prices. She told me the prices and I really was shocked.

I can't belived they tried to charge £900 for a print.
I sell framed images, made by a wonderful professional framer and worked out you could buy about 5 or 6 of my framed images for the price of one of their photos!

But I guess they must be doing something right if they are still getting customers after all this time. I guess they are good at selling themselves and I see stands/advertising for them all over the place. Their studios look glossy and tempting and they help to draw people in.