My review of Bob Curtis Photography

We recently got a smashing deal off of Groupon for a family photo session.  We recently picked up our canvases and I thought I would put up my thoughts.

The photo shoot went well and we got some nice snaps.  Afterwards we went into a little lounge to go through the photos and sort them out.  We settled on a large canvas with 9 photos.  I felt the price for canvas was horrendously overpriced, but assumed it was to balance out all of the “freebies” we got with our package.  Bob also agreed to give us a photo of Rosie sticking her fingers up my nose.  It was just so funny, but obviously not worth spending money on a photo of it!

8 December, rang for appointment: We could have had out photos taken on the 9th of December to have them for Christmas but that wasn’t possible for us so we did it a week later.

16 December, photo shoot.

Early January, I rang for an update: Once into the new year I contacted them to get an update on the photos.  They weren’t yet ready and so I asked it if was possible to just get one of the small 5×7’s printed as I wanted to give one to a family member who was leaving soon.  They were able to accommodate that.

~7 January, picked up the prints: When we picked up the prints, however, we realised that they’d done some photoshopping to our photos.  This was nice in some ways, but they removed Andrew’s mole and Luther’s scar and red spot. 

8 January, emailed re: mole removal. Explained problems and by the 11th of January we’d agreed that it’s ok to leave off his red spot and scar (apparently it would be difficult to put it back on) but that I would need a reprint of the little photos since Andrew without his mole is not Andrew!  (They WERE able to put Luther’s scar back for the big canvas, which was great.)

25 January, I follow up. Two weeks later I still hadn’t heard anything so I contacted them to see what was going on. They said they were still waiting for the canvas to be delivered and they expected t to be ready in a day or two.

1 February, pick up photos. They didn’t have our 5×7’s reprinted.  Ann thought that we had agreed that it didn’t need done but I explained again it was necessary to have it in the photos.  They agreed to reprint them and we’ll pick them up when we go back in.

When I got the photos I had a few disappointments.  First of all, there were some places where the picture was supposed to pop out from the frame… like the photo of our family in the centre, Andrew’s had was supposed to go “over” the frame.  They didn’t do this in any of the pictures.  They said they tried but it just didn’t look right.  I’m disappointed as it was certainly a selling point.  I guess I expected them to contact us to tell us it couldn’t be done and perhaps send us a proof of what it WOULD look like.

They also hadn’t sent me the electronic nose-picking photo so I emailed them to remind them.  They sent it straight away.

The quality of the canvas is nice, the frame is very sturdy and rugged.  I’m disappointed with the way the canvas is wrapped, however.  (I’d have to take a photo from the side to show what I mean.  I’ll try to do that later.)   The colour of the photos seem a bit off too, like it’s just a bit too yellow… but it could just be my eyes.

So all in all would I go back? No, I wouldn’t.  We’ve had professional photos taken a number of times over the last decade(s) and this time I was just left feeling … blah.  I felt it was expensive and slow service (a month and a half after we went in we got (most of) the photos).

The irony is that we purchased a Groupon for my in-laws too and so we ARE going back in a couple weeks for their photo.  I’ll let you know if my opinion changes.

Photos for you- as always click on them to make them larger:  (apologies for the quality, I’ve just taken some snaps of the actual canvas)