Anyone familiar with "Picture People"

I was at a major mall last week and I came across a giant photography studio called picture people. They must have had 50' of glass mall frontage. They had 4 shooting rooms as well as a shooting area exposed to the mall. There were 5 sales computers with 42" LCD monitors and another 5 42" monitors displaying images viewable from the mall and lobby area.

All shooting was done with Canon 20Ds, lighting were Alien Bee 1600s. Each shooting room had one 5' Octobox and one overhead hair light- that's all. Triggering was done by Pocket Wizards.

This place was an absolute goldmine with lots of people waiting to be shot and lots of people purchasing very large framed prints. They held to the model show large, sell large. The store manager told me that they pay photographers $8.50/hour. Surprisingly, the quality of the images was very good. Far superior to a Sears photo, not as nice as a top portrait by a professional in their own studio. No sitting charges.

What they have done well is to produce a very nice quality consistent product with lots of printing, framing, and merchandising options for their customers at a price point that is profitable and still yields high volume.

I contacted them to find out about purchasing a franchise and found out they have close to 200 major mall locations around the country all of which are company owned.

Has anyone else seen this operation? Are there any photo studio franchises that compete in this market?

My wife used to take our kids there when we lived in Southern California. We were always happy with the results and just like you described, they did a high volume of business. We moved out of SoCal 3.5 years ago, so I'm not sure how they're doing today. They have at least one store here in San Antonio, TX, but we have never been to it.

Similar..thread of a similar type company would be about 'Portrait Innovations'
https://photography-on-the.net …&highlight=Pict​ure+People

Personally I'd rather encourage people to go to private Photographers where they can get the highest quality in product and service.

Picture People is very popular with the teen crowds in my neck of the woods.

heh.. they are using some ab's and 20d's and probably some decent backdrops and what not.. you cant tell me some local photog is gonna be THAT much better then a store like that!

Besides, im sure tons of the people that work there are people like me where I'm 24 and would love to shoot photos of anything even if it was for 8.50/hr, and i dont suck imo :P but the assumption is that they do, because they are just 8.50/hr employees...

btw, picture people in my town is all for kids, bunch of kid toys, but the same display that was kinda mentioned.. i would never see teens going in there.. unless they wanna pic of them on a red firetruck..

studio one to one is a more modern chain photo studio here in dallas (at the malls)

The location I was at was shooting everything from babies to adults. One of the shooting rooms was geared towards young children but I didn't get the feeling that their customers where strictly coming for children's portraits.

Sunshine- I'm looking at this not from where to get my picture taken but what is the best business model to maximize profit. This model seems to by far exceed what a single higher end studio will take in while delivering products that customer's would be very happy to have hanging in their homes. They seem to have done a great job defining an untapped market segment- upscale large print images that are priced less than what a typical studio would sell for and much more than a department store package. The place really has a nice look and feel- very well executed in terms of flow and an environment conducive to purchasing.

Thanks for the link on Portrait Innovations. They are not in NY and I'd never heard of them before. Definitely doesn't look as high end but so far this is the only other name brand portrait chain that I've heard of. Are there any others?

I took my son there before I decided I could do it myself and had another friend go there as well. They did nice work but after 3 different milestone sessions (3, 6, 9) they got boring. Always the same white BG and black for closeup. So, I decided to buy my own camera (after the frustrations of my film SLR kicking my butt) and do mine myself. I did hate the whole "show you the pic one at a time in a semi-dramatic way" bit. I just wanted to see the pics, pick what I wanted and bail. The framing was nice though. I liked being able to take pics home and throw them on the wall right away.

RichNY wrote in post #4684187
I'm looking at this not from where to get my picture taken but what is the best business model to maximize profit.

Obviously conveyor belt type shooting is going to do that. If you're in it only for money, you hire a lot of people to work dirt cheap and produce a mundane yet good enough product to push inexpensively and in high volume. No one doing it even needs to be into photography...just set up the lights once, get the camera settings where they need to be, and even a monkey could do it...probably even better than a human could since a monkey can get kids to laugh and smile quite easily. After all, to get kids to laugh and smile, a human has to make a monkey face.

There used to be a Picture People in the mall in my area.. not sure why but they closed it up. Every time you went buy there was a lot of people there. My Mom used to take my niece there ALL THE TIME. I called her a sucker. I think what the major appeal of the place is what someone else mentioned - You get your pictures taken(they always seemed to rush the session) - You come back in about an hour after they print them up and you pick which ones you want - pay for them and your on your way home with them. My mom always ended up spending a lot of money because she hated the thought of the pictures she didn't purchase getting "thrown away". The last time she took her was probably about 2 years ago so not sure if their prices went up but at that time they were $20 a sheet - which I'm not saying is too much for a great picture..
There was some nice pictures - but.........
Their props and background were always worn so for example there would be black marks from peoples shoes all over the floor of the white background... Of course they wouldn't take the time, or maybe even have the ability is my guess, to "touch up" the photos. Just my opinion...

I agree with above^^ I liked what I got, wasn't too worried about them throwing the ones I didn't away (they actually use some fro displays and training I guess). But, they shot film in my area and RUINED the most adorable pic of my son with a huge in the negative across his face. They wanted me to come back in a few days to see if their "retoucher" could fix the negative. I politely declined as I didn't want to make another 3 hour trip.

cdifoto wrote in post #4684684
Obviously conveyor belt type shooting is going to do that. If you're in it only for money, you hire a lot of people to work dirt cheap and produce a mundane yet good enough product to push inexpensively and in high volume. No one doing it even needs to be into photography...just set up the lights once, get the camera settings where they need to be, and even a monkey could do it...probably even better than a human could since a monkey can get kids to laugh and smile quite easily. After all, to get kids to laugh and smile, a human has to make a monkey face.

The perfect business model. When it comes to earning money I'm really surprised more photographers don't operate their businesses this way. These type of places can be up and running for under $100k.

The site that I visited was pristine in condition and post processing is a profit center. They call retouches "embellishments" and provide two free per session and charge for additional PP.

RichNY wrote in post #4690055
The perfect business model. When it comes to earning money I'm really surprised more photographers don't operate their businesses this way. These type of places can be up and running for under $100k.

I'm not surprised. There are a lot of photographers who actually care about their product and while they do want to make money, they refuse to whore themselves out just to make maximum dollar. Some make the same amount of money by working smart rather than hard...ie low volume high profit with lower overhead. Walk-in Retail locations are expensive. Working from home and/or an appointment-only studio less so. Picture People/Sears/Wal-Mart Photo/etc is only the perfect business model for some, not all.

I'd rather make $100,000 a year putting out product and providing service I can be proud of than $500,000 putting out cheap quality work that I'm ashamed to admit is mine.

cdifoto wrote in post #4690122
...

I'd rather make $100,000 a year putting out product and providing service I can be proud of than $500,000 putting out cheap quality work that I'm ashamed to admit is mine.

Are you nuts!? Give me the money!!

Ray Marrero wrote in post #4690236
Are you nuts!? Give me the money!!

No, I'm not nuts. I don't want to be known as a hack who's just out to make a buck. I can live comfortably on $100,000. $500,000 wouldn't make me any happier knowing I had to give people inferior product than I'm capable of giving to achieve it. I have a conscience.

Besides, to bring home a half a mil personal salary, you'd have to have many retail locations and do a LOT of volume...and I mean a LOT. Overhead is insane with a retail situation. $100,000 with minimal overhead isn't that hard...you can do that much by yourself.

Not only that, but by the time you're bringing in half a mil for yourself in personal salary via franchising, you're so disconnected from the actual photography that it would be no different than owning a couple of McDonalds'.

cdifoto wrote in post #4690252
No, I'm not nuts. I don't want to be known as a hack who's just out to make a buck. I can live comfortably on $100,000. $500,000 wouldn't make me any happier knowing I had to give people inferior product than I'm capable of giving to achieve it. I have a conscience.

Besides, to bring home a half a mil personal salary, you'd have to have many retail locations and do a LOT of volume...and I mean a LOT. Overhead is insane with a retail situation. $100,000 with minimal overhead isn't that hard...you can do that much by yourself.

Not only that, but by the time you're bringing in half a mil for yourself in personal salary via franchising, you're so disconnected from the actual photography that it would be no different than owning a couple of McDonalds'.

Different strokes for different folks. $100k isn't a lot of money these days and $100k even with minimal overhead isn't even $100k. At least in the greater New York area buying even a modest home wouldn't be possible at that compensation level unless you got a mortgage. Even a townhouse would require a mortgage at that income level.

Don- I'm not suggesting that you go out an botch someone's wedding and give people inferior product. Think of it as you are delivering decent images to many more people who would not have had that quality print of themselves or their children. There are a lot of people who aren't going to afford the top end in photographic services but who still have a desire for something far better than their local Sears can provide. Even if you aren't doing all of the shooting you would still be responsible for ensuring quality by properly training and mentoring your staff.

You are totally correct in your analogy to running a successful McDonald's operation. By the time you grow any service business you are no longer involved in providing the deliverable but rather running a business. Don't sell earning the big bucks short- it will give you the time and money to shoot whatever you like for pleasure or to do things outside of photography.