I generally don’t take your word for it. I have to find out myself.

A few years ago I took about 5 different wedding images and traveled to Sam’s Club, Wal Greens, CVS and Wal-Mart, I also took those same images and had them developed at my professional service that does all of the work for Lisa Nikole Photography.

What happened surprised me, not because I did not expect much difference, I did, but what I did not expect was the amount of difference between my images from each of the consumer locations.

One of the places developed my purples as grey, another place blew out the reds to a hideous color and yet another made my images practically so off color they did not look like the original.

I show these images to my couples to show them what can happen when they don’t use a professional company. If you want the details of this, please ask and I will tell you how these companies fail in color correction and more.

So, I wanted to check one more thing out..

I got a coupon in the mail for a free 16×20 from Wal-Mart. I had to order online, so I grabbed an image, uploaded and ordered. The process was basically easy. I got a notice later that day my image was ready for pick up (WOW, huh)

Problem was, my image was not at the store I designated. I called the store later that day to see if my image showed up. I talked with a woman who acted like I was wasting her time, she wanted to look up the order by my name and kept telling me the order was not there. I kept saying, “I have the order number, can we try that.” She responds in a short tone.. I’ll try that in a bit, you’re order is not here. Again, i ask.. “then why do I have an order number with your store address telling me my order is ready for pick up?”

She responds with “You want to talk to a manager or something?” I reply “NO, I want you to check the order number.”

Finally with some convincing…she takes the order number, places me on hold and in a few minutes she comes back and says: “umm, seems your order was here, well, it says it was here, I’m not sure where it went.” “I’ll print you another one and let you know when it is ready…”

I’m still waiting on that reply.

As a professional photographer I know a lot of new photographers and a lot of customers who get their images on disc use Wal-Mart as a developer. I’ve honestly never liked their developing or the calibrations on their machines but now I have a new issue.

WHERE DID THAT IMAGE GO? WHO HAS IT AND WHAT ARE THEY DOING WITH IT?

How can I entrust an image of a client or that of a loved one to a company that can’t keep track or worse yet has employees that could care less what happens to my image.

If you are a person aspiring to be a professional I stress you use only professional developing and be very careful that your images do not end up in someone else’s hands or Facebook or worse then that.

If you hand your client a disk or digital negatives…tell them my story. Or better yet, create your own. I’m sure it’s not just a once in a while occurrence.. whose behind that desk? It’s not a person dedicated to photography or the advancement of yours. It could be the person from shoes taking over while the other part time employee is on break.

Test the waters. Create your own facts and then let people know…
Educate the ones around you… make a difference!