Say cheese!

NOTE:  It’s been nearly 4 months since our last and likely final photo shoot at the fine Target Portrait Studios.  Otherwise, this post would contain much more scathing criticisms! 

Ultimately, I wanted to have a cluster of pictures on the wall documenting the growth of my son over his first 2 years.  Based on price and convenience alone, I chose Target Portrait Studios.  We had to stick with them for consistency’s sake.  :S

Yes, yes… I do realize that you get what you pay for… but, seriously?!?  (See his 6-mo. shoot, his 12-mo. shoot, and his 18-mo. shoot.)  Ugh.  It’s a good thing we think he’s one cute kid!

Our first and third turn at Target here in Illinois was decent – nothing too much more or less than I expected.  The second and fourth turns at Target in Mesa & Gilbert, Arizona (just in case you wanted to avoid them) were horrific.  Not really even worth the little amount of money you pay them for prints.  (Because the disappointment from the whole experience will cost you much more than the actual dollars.)  Let’s just say that the white backdrop dirty, white sheet is always disgusting, the photographers are typically about 13 and the only thing they know about picture taking is which button to push, and you’re forced to pick the least terrible of all the shots in about 6.4 minutes while your kid is further melting down from the whole experience.

The loser group of shots:

One of the whole points in attempting this shoot in Arizona was so that we could capture all of the cousins together for the grandparents.  We walked away with only 1 shot of any of them together.  Even though we told the “photographer” to keep shooting through the meltdowns, hoping to capture at least something.  Pathetic. 

At least my sister was able to walk away with some cute shots of my nieces…

The final 3 pictures in this post are the ones we ended up having printed… only because I had to leave with something to give the grandparents.

This is the shot that made it to the gallery wall in the office.  The other shots on the wall are here: 6 – 12 – 18.  Yes, it’s a little “which one of these things is not like the others”, but it’s the best we got!

Like I said, it’s a good thing he’s so cute!