Thursday, June 14, 2007

Instant Gratification


I am Senior Assistant Manager at the Picture People photography studio in Fort Wayne. Upon dealing with customers on a daily basis I have decided that the largest issue facing the annihilation of film photography is the need for instant gratification. Just about every day I have customers asking me why they can't see thier portraits immediately after the sitting, why they can't get thier photos on a disk to print off at home and "when will your studio finally be digital?". I have been a manager at this studio for three years and with the exception of minor machine complications our portraits are out and ready to view in about an hour. There is no other studio in Fort Wayne with this kind of quality photo turn over and yet it is still not good enough for my customers. I often wonder what the rush is, why do we in our fast paced society let instant gratification run our lives? This often bothers me because I see the appreciation and need for film photography dwindle more and more as our society deems it necessary to have everything within an instant.

On the other hand, The Picture People will soon be going digital-at least before the end of this year. Although I have protested digital for a long time I am hoping that this will reduce the amount of customer stress in my job. Once we go digital instant gratification will be securely in place and I will have a new set of demanding questions from my customers on a daily basis. I do not think that going digital will make my job less stressful, but maybe it will give my customers what they are looking for-and fast too!
I have included a link to the Picture People that shows many of the different products and photography that we have to offer. And yes, all items take about 2-3 weeks to process-try to have more patience than my easily angered customers! http://www.picturepeople.com/

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