Looking to Get Christmas Photos Made

For cheap I would look to the colleges. See if you can post a want ad on their boards for an art/photography student, someone who needs to work on their portfolio is going to be able to do 'loose' formal shots and not cost half as much as a professional. Then ask them to give you rights to your photos and you can have them printed on a site like www.mpix.com which is the consumer side of a professional photography lab who does really nice work for a reasonable (in comparison to a photographer) price.

Good luck!

1 mom found this helpful

I go with Sears, This time of year you can get good coupons, and not get soaked....if you do not buy the extras. That is the hard part for me, they always all look so good, I can never make up my mind. Good Luck.

I see it's already been suggested but we always use Picture People and heres why.

First of all there aren't any sitting fees. (yay!) Also, as another mom pointed out, you get your choice of a free 8X10 or 10X13 (If you sign up with them you get this "coupon" a few times thruought the year as well.) They take several non-traditional poses and yes you can get your pictures before you ever leave the store. And also you can order more prints or other poses at any time later on. (If you want to save up and get more than planned on.)

And what I end up doing, is taking my free print home, scanning it, and printing off as many pictures and different sizes that I need on picture paper from the store. Great quality professional pictures for only the cost of some ink. It may be a tad ghetto but this way we are even able to get my daughters "Halloween Pics" taken every year in her costume. And lets face it, there are always so many adorable pics that sometimes I break down and buy the Trio-package. =P Good Luck!

We've been using the Picture People at the mall. I'm sure they have them in Austin. No sitting fee and you can pay per sheet for the photos you want ($18/sheet, various sizes). We just went for my son's 2 yr pics. We selected 4 different poses and enough pics to pass out to all our family. It was just over $100. Look for coupons, or consider joining their portrait club for additional discounts.

We use our local Wal-mart. They are inexpensive, even when we buy multiple poses. They do such a good job that people are always asking where we had them done! The key is to ask to look through their backgrounds (usually in a book) and choose ones you like and will look good with their outfits. And if you don't like a pose, ask them to redo it. The lady who does ours has the patience of a saint and will redo a pose over and over...Like I said, we are always getting compliments. Just my two cents.

Try Portrait Innovations. We've had our family pictures taken there for the past couple of years and I hink they have a location in Astin. They are always running a special that for $9.99 you get: one 10x13, one 8x10, two 5x7, four 3x5, 36 wallets and 6 cards (all the same pose). Its all done digitally and you get your pictures that day. There's no sitting fee either. You can buy additional poses for i think $15/ sheet or $25 for a collection(3 sheets your choice in size of same pose).

Portrait Innovations is great. JC Penney also does a good job and you can usually get coupons from the internet or in the mail.

A great photographer who did my son's high school graduation pictures is Danielle Fox. Go to www.danielle-marie.com. I think she charges a $175 sitting fee, and gives you a proof book with 25 4 x 6's.
J.

Get the 8.99 coupon for jc penney. Just dont let them upsale you at the end. One pose but it usually turns out great.

We have used Sears since our son was born 4 years ago. For the first year we did them several times, and at least once a year since then, and I don"t think we ever spent over like 75 bucks.

Here is a friend of mine from church. She is taking picture at the Salt Grass on 183 near Braker. Her prices are good and I don't think that there is a sitting fee. Some of her email is below. Just contact her for an appointment. If you can't make these dates, call and she can do the picture another time and place. She even has a home studio. Call soon!
T. Games

If you are thinking about a family portrait before Christmas, I would love to photograph your family. Weekday, evening, and weekend appointments are available.

The Saltgrass Family Portrait Event offers a unique experience for families to finish their Christmas Cards and family portraits. Jenny sets up inside the restaurant, and you can enjoy one of their fine desserts for free while you wait! Walkins welcome!
Monday, November 17th 5-7pm
Tuesday, November 18th 5-7pm
Saturday, November 22nd 11am-3pm

Jenny Rhea Eisenhauer
Photography by Jenny Rhea
12218 Old Stage Trail
Austin, Tx 78750

____@____.com
###-###-####

Hi K.,

I use Be True Photography. They are a husband and wife team that take the pictures out of their home. They do an AMAZING job and I have always gotten compliments on all the pictures they have taken. The price is $125 but you get around 100 pictures in both color and black and white. They will email you ALL the pictures as well as mail you a cd (which is yours to keep) with all your pictures. This way you can email them to family/friends or make as many copies as you want in any size you want.
Here is their website if you want to check them out: www.betruephotography.com

A.

Check out picturepeople.com

Try www.3littlemonkeysphotography.com

My friend uses her for all sorts of things and I think her pics are great. Not sure of her prices, but Idon't think they are over the top!

Portrait Innovations always does an amazing job and they have a $9.99 special right now that includes:
One 10x13
Two 8x10's
Four 5x7's
Four 3x5's
And 32 Wallets
Plus 6 free personalized portrait cards.
http://www.portraitinnovations.com/index.html

I have been very happy with Portrait Innovations. I believe they are having a $9.99 special right now.

This is who does my photos since I was pregnant with my second one. She loves candid photography and does her photos on site rather than studio. I absolutely love her. Her prices are pretty fair to me, especially considering that she GIVES you 30 shots on a CD for you to keep. You dont HAVE to buy any prints, you just order if you want to. I highly recommend her. Take a look at her website. Please let her know A.Johnstone referred you. Hope you like!
http://www.jessicastrom.net/

i've always loved Portrait Innovations if you have one near you.

My mom and I have been using JCPenney's studio for years. Parenting magazines nearly always have JCPenney coupons for $3.99 portrait sheets, plus a free 8x10 and no sitting fee.

You way want to look in the phone book for THE PICTURE PEOPLE. I have been using them for quite a while. You can receive a free 10 x 13 or an 8 x 10 for just walking into the store. They will take several diffrent poses and then you preview then in the store. You wait another 15 min. or so and then you walk away from the store with pictures in hand. No waiting 4 to 6 weeks to get your pictures done. If you wit until December, it is a good idea that you call and make an appointment. They take the appointments over walk ins.
Hope this information is in good use for you and your family. Best of luck!
J.

I have been getting my daughters pic at JcPenny's every 3 months. It is affordable and professional.

I'm not sure if someone responded this already, but we use Picture Me portrait studio- they are inside Walmarts. They did my beauty pageant photo, my husband's band director press release photo, and my 3 1/2 month old daughters pics and we've LOVED how all of them came out. They have a 30 photo package for just $4.99. No sitting fees. Have a Merry Christmas and God bless!

Portrait Innovations! Not sure if you have those in Austin but that is an awesome place, you pick the package you want!! I don't feel the pressure to purchase all the pics, you do take about 50 or so shots and it makes you want to take all of them, but they make it easy to pic the nice ones and the ones you want!! I also recommend Target studios they are pretty reasonalble and always have coupons! Have a great holiday season!

I had a great experience with a place called portrait innovations... not sure if there is one in Austin.. but you may look them up to see. They have a great package for 9.95 no sitting fee. Just be careful as they (and anyone else) will try to sell you other packages. You can ask if they can just sell you the cd with all the poses on it in addition to the 9.95 package this way you can print out what you like.

http://www.portraitinnovations.com/find_a_location/?state...

I love this place! (I have not been to any Austin locataion but assume they are similar) Looked it up and they have 2 Austin locations. No sitting fee, pics the same day, and you can only make appts up to 2 weeks in advance so there is definately appts available before Christmas. And they do great with my 1 yr old getting her to smile even when she is being obnoxious.

I am sure you have found someone since Christmas is past, but you may visit www.farroutphotography.com in the future.

K.,
I have a friend who is a photographer and will come to your house to take pics. He has done several family weddings, my family portraits and my sisters maternity pics.

I can't remember his sitting fee, but I love that you can create your own packages. His name is Ryan Herring and his website is www.providencephoto.com.

Let me know if you have any other questions.
V. ###-###-####

We have always used Olan Mills or Sears. Look for coupons online. However, I see tons of people suggesting a Portraits Innovations...I think I might have to look into those for next time, HA!

Good luck!

Hi, K.!

I have a friend who has her own photography business, and she takes GREAT pics! Here's her info:

http://www.michelledayphotography.com

Have fun!
S.
SAHM of 7 (ages 2 to 14)

I took my famiel to JcPenny's last year. For 4 people and a dog, the seating fee was 20 dollors and 10 dollor for the dog clean up. Now for the pic. it's up to you on what you want. I got a little over 200 pic for a little over 150 dollors. The pic came out real good. We'er going to go for Easter this coming year.

We just went to take family/maternity pictures at jcpenny. I loved the way the pictures turned out. They have great coupons online, we got a ton of pics including the retouching, collages, and sitting fees, and some free pics, we spent around $150. I have taken my son everywhere, I get his pics taken about every 3 months these have been the best for the price.

My sister is a free lance photographer in Austin. She will take your pics on location, edit 20 pics, and give you the CD to make as many prints as you would like without copywrites for $200! You can contact her at ____@____.com does not currently have a studio, but could e-mail you some examples of her work.

I just asked this question for my son's first pictures and I got lots of responses and ended up going to Protrait Innovations. I am almost positive there is one in Austin. There is no sitting fee and you can have lots of people in the picture. Right now they have a special for $9.95 where you get all of these of your favorite pose 1-10x13, 2-8x10, 4-5x7, 4-2x3, 32 wallets and 6 protrait cards. They let us change our son three times, used multiple backgrounds and the Christmas one has an actual tree rather than just a backdrop. Their website is www.portraitinnovations.com Have a blessed day!

We just took our 1 year old to The Picture People in the mall for his 1 year shots. There is a coupon that you can print out from their website for a free 8 x 10 and 20% off your additional purchase. They're regular rate is $18 per sheet and they do not charge a sitting fee.

Good Luck,
K.

We just had family pictures taken for our church directory. They are professional photos and we received a FREE 8X10 for being in the directory. Check w/your church and see if they'll be doing a directory soon. Also, I've had photos taken at the Walmart Superstores and they've turned out beautifully for a very cheap package price of under $20.

Lesleigh Kelly is an excellent photographer, kind young mother and avid scrapbooker. Her prices are reasonable. She's in South Austin. Her website is www.kellywoodphotography.com

We have always used Wal-Mart's protrait studio. I don't know the name of the actual company, it is not owned by Wal-Mart. The price for the Special is usually under $15.00 before taxes, sometimes as low as $5.00 before taxes, for an 8x10, some 5x7s, some 3x5s, a bunch of wallets, a few "charm-bracelet" sized photos, and sometimes some "extras". This special package is made of the first pose you approve of as the photographer is shooting and then they take about 6 more shots/poses to try to sell you additional sheets of photos. If you ask for it before the session starts, they will put a flippy disk (one of the little, square hard disks) or a cd in the camera and you can email or copy on your home printer the pictures as much as you like (double-check on whether you can copy as much as you like at pic developers, like Wolf, Fox, Wal-Mart, etc.). The disk costs under $10. I always go with package and not the disk since I'd end up paying a lot more to have them printed than it costs for the package. Also, not all of the studios do it, but I always take about $25-$30 when I pick up the photos because sometimes they will have what I call a "sucker" package. It is one or two 3x5 copies of each of the 6 extra poses that they took after the "package pose". When they have them sitting there waitng for me to look at them ("oh we accidentally printed these" or "these are the proofs of the other poses, did you want to buy copies of these? okay, we'll just *throw them away*. weeeellll, we cooouuuld sell them to you, but don't tell anyone"), I am a "sucker" for them and buy them everytime they pull this if I don't buy the disk. If you buy the disk on top of the Special package, then you get copies of the extra poses on the disk, I think. Ask before you commit to the disk.

Hope this helps!

We had some pictures made of my granddaughter for Christmas last year at Target....very reasonable...and they turned out great! They had some nice pictures for family sittings as well....

Hey there,
Try JC Penny's. I have been taking pics there andthey are great! They also do make all sorts of "occasion" cards. They are much more "modern" and updated now. Walmart studios are also another place to look for inexpensive sittings.

L.

Hi. Have you tried Walmart? They have a portrait studio. No sitting fee and they are cheap but good.

Even though your in Austin , I use brenhamportraitgallery.com
Of course located in Brenham. Its about an hour from where we live, well worth the drive.
1804 W. Main
Brenham Tx 77833
800.888.7056
They do family, holiday and even Santa photos. Very affordable.

Kiddie Kandids is great, they are in the Babies R Us stores. Our pockets are tight this year too and we can't really afford to splurge too much on pictures and find that we always overspend. However, going to Kiddie Kandids is good because you don't pay a sitting fee, you can buy just one single photo if you wish or many of them and they usually have really great specials. We're going to get our holiday photos there because they have a special now like 12 holiday photo cards you can personalize for $20 and 24 of them for $40 which is a great price. Last time we went there it was to get my daughters birthday pictures and we only paid for three sheets (around $43), one big birthday one, one full of wallets of another pose and a third "special" they had was $10 that included four poses on one picture. I like that you can get what you want, you don't have to get a whole package and if you want more then you can always order online later because they keep the prints for 60 days there. Good luck!

Hi K.,

I really like Portrait Innovations. They have locations all over TX and are really good. The best part is that they are so cheap. We got a ton of pics for 9.95. I thought it was crazy at first but check out their website.
Best of luck.

JC Penny's does a fair job and their prices are not that bad. Or if you know someone that takes good picture's with a digital camera see if they would be able to for you, you would have some informal photos that you can enlarge and frame or can go onto Christmas Cards. Good luck and have a wonderful Christmas.

I had my daughter's done at Walmart a few years ago, and they turned out really nice. Not terribly expensive, either.

Portrait Innovations!!!! It would even be worth the drive to SA if there isn't one in Austin, but I can't imagine they wouldn't have one.

They take pictures with a camera they hold, not on a tripod so it makes the pictures a little more fun. They have a $9.99 package that has TONS of pictures. Also, if you add to the package you can get the CD with all the pictures on it (and they take 100 or so) and then you can use them to make your own cards (don't tell them! Ha!)

You will be soooooo happy. They have the pictures ready to review immediately and then have them printed in an hour or so!

Good luck!

Target takes great photos with packages starting at $4.99! How's that for cheap? If the staff works great with children then I would take that route but you will have to wait longer than going with a porfession photographer like 2-3 weeks.

Try Shutterfly Kisses. Tiffany is a fellow mom and does a wonderful job. She did my maternity pics and my daughter every 3 months. I have suggested her to many friends and they have all loved her work.
She is very reasonable, $55 for your half hour session and you get to pick which photos you want on a CD with full printing rights.

www.shutterflykisses.com

You will not be disappointed

Portrait Innovations does a great job.

The picture people are great. I took my family there last year and they were great. I had a free coupon and that all i took. They also make christmas card. But what i did was that i download my picture to HEB pictures website and i made my christmas cards. there is no pressure in buying other pictures you can just take you free picture and go. There are also no sitting fee. You can check then out at there website www.picturepeople.com. you will love then. i have taken my little girl there and they were excellent with her. good luck.

If you have a digital camera, get a friend to take a picture, and then go to walgreens.com, and have them developed. You could take a beautiful picture in front of the fireplace, or in front of the tree. You can even do a border around it if you choose.. I just had an 8x10 developed and it costs $2.99-- now-a-days the digital camera is so good, I don't bother going to a professional. This year, I even made calendars for my mom and my mother in law using walgreens.com and our pictures for the past year for Christmas presents.. It only costs $20 and they will both love it!

Hi,
check to see if there is a PORTRAIT INNOVATIONS nearby. You get a package for 10 bucks that has an 11x13, 2 8x10's, 2 5x7, and like 30 wallets. You get to pick the pose you want after you see the pics on a computer. If you want to buy more it really adds up, but if you only take the special it is very affordable. And you get them the same day! good luck