Free chili vs. $300 photos

Last week I was selected for a photoshoot and I was hoping to be able to purchase some good photos out of that. Today I went to view the photos with my mum. I have to say, we were a little disappointed. There were about 50 photos, which were very good photos, I’ll admit, but I guess we didn’t totally love them. Given that they were professionally done, I guess we didn’t like certain bits like the backgrounds of some and the way I looked. Of course, I looked great, as that is what the studio attempted to do, but the photos weren’t completely fantastic. I think what ultimately turned us off was the pricing of everything.

We chose eight photos which we liked and considered getting a couple printed and coated with acrylic, but it all came round to over $2000. Now that’s pretty expensive, when you think about it. We explained to the lady that we just didn’t want to pay that much. She offered us less photos at a smaller price, but it still didn’t seem worth it. When we told her we weren’t ready to pay that much at all, we only wanted to pay half a thousand maybe, she offered us just some prints. Even then it came around to about $300 a photo, which just seemed ridiculous. I asked if we could just have digital copies, and she said that was a bonus item and came with the prints, so we would have to pay the same price if we just wanted the digital copy. /hmph

In the end we just decided not to buy any. I was entitled to a free photo (worth $95) and that’s all I got. Well, we have to pick it up later on. It’s not even a large size, it’s like a freakin’ normal sized photo. My mum and I weren’t really pleased at all… just really disappointing, we were saying that we could probably do a better job ourselves what with my experience in photography and her makeup expertise. I really wouldn’t want to pay $300 for a photo. :( I feel bad mostly because the photographer was a nice guy and he did take nice photos. Then again I had every right to refuse, I wasn’t obligated to buy anything, so that was that. I suppose my mum was right about them being a little dodgy and just wanting us to pay as much as possible. I had a $100 voucher for photos, too, but when I showed that to the lady she did some calculations and still wanted us to pay $600 for three photos… argh. Just really not happy with the price. I mean, I thought my photography course was expensive, what with buying all this paper and shit. I’ve probably spent less than a thousand dollars on the course, the photo paper, the camera, and the film…

Heck, I could buy a new DSLR with $2000 instead of paying for those photos. I really am disappointed, I guess because I wasted a fair bit of time for that photoshoot and everything was just really expensive. Yeah, I may be a cheapskate, but I don’t think anyone would be very willing to pay $300 for one photo. /ehh

After that my mum and dad wanted to buy some fruit and vegetables. Around this time it was probably about time for lunch. My mum asked me to buy her a chicken wrap from Oporto as well as some chili sachets. She loves their chili. I wasn’t sure how much it cost but my mum gave me a $50 note and told me it would come to about $10.

I was really confused reading the receipt when I was waiting for the chicken wrap. I asked for six sachets of chili but I had been charged at $0.00. I was confused and wondered if somehow the lady who served me had forgotten… I kept an eye on her, and, well, she actually put the chili in the paper bag along with the wrap.

I was still really confused. Nevertheless, I popped outside and walked up the road to find my mum and tell her I hadn’t been charged for six sachets of chili. /bounce