School photo price hike irks parents

Blair's switch of official photo vendors this year from Blanton Studios to Lifetouch has drawn parental complaints of poor quality, high prices and discrepancies in the ID database.

Yearbook adviser Jake Lee, Business Manager James Funk and Principal Phillip Gainous said that Blair had many problems with Blanton last year, which motivated the switch to Lifetouch. They said they had no complaints about the new vendor's performance.

The school portrait service is a fundraiser, as the school gets a commission from the sales of photos. Gainous said that most of the money raised is used to cover yearbook costs.

The confusion surrounding the production of IDs this year was due to a combination of problems, such as misplaced barcodes, Funk said. A switch to any new vendor creates confusion, he added, so Lifetouch is not at fault.

Blanton blues

Lee said that after Blanton's unreliability and "unacceptable" photo quality last year, he, Funk and Gainous decided to make a change. He said that Blanton Studios, which serves only Maryland and Virginia, and Lifetouch, which has locations across the country, are the only two studios that he and Funk knew about when selecting vendors that can handle the volume of photos that Blair requests. Lifetouch provides ID, yearbook, senior, sports and school dance photos for Blair, as did Blanton.

Lee said that he and Funk did not know about Carl Wolf Studio in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, which can also provide the services Blair requests. Michael Durinzi, president of the studio, said that Carl Wolf used to provide photo services for Quince Orchard and currently works for the University of Maryland. Carl Wolf's prices are also lower than Lifetouch's.

The problems with Blanton began last year when they did not send Lee the list of photos he needed to submit to the yearbook printer until mid-January, about a month and a half after the deadline. When he did receive the list, Lee said he had to make 171 corrections before he could send it to the printer. Even then, there were still students who approached him after the yearbook was published to complain about mismatched names and photos.

Switching to Lifetouch

Lee said that Gainous made the final decision to switch to Lifetouch. Gainous said that he had not been satisfied with the quality of the "flimsy" ID cards that Blanton provided. He would not disclose the other problems because he did not want to hurt Blanton's business.

The only problem with yearbook production so far this year was the grouping of students' photos by academy instead of by grade level, which occurred because the new academy-specific IDs required Lifetouch to catalogue students by their academy. Lee said that Lifetouch is not to blame for the error, which has been resolved, but he admitted that it is still too early to tell if Lifetouch will ultimately do a better job than Blanton. "It's hard to say because they just started," he said.

Higher prices

Parents' biggest complaint about Lifetouch was the studio's higher prices. Lifetouch charges a $22 sitting fee, which is required to have a picture taken, for senior portraits, compared to Blanton's $10 fee. Carl Wolf Studio does not charge a sitting fee.

Gainous said that he was not aware that Lifetouch's sitting fee was higher than Blanton's.

Lee said that fewer seniors had their pictures taken this year than last year, but he was unsure whether this was due to the higher costs or other factors. Seniors who do not have their pictures taken do not appear in the yearbook.

Many parents were unhappy with the additional expense. Elissa Lichtenstein, whose daughter is a sophomore, said that for the price Lifetouch charged for photo packages, the quality of the photos was not what she expected.

Revenue recipients

If every student orders the least expensive photo package, Lifetouch's revenue would total nearly $80,000, including over $16,000 from senior portrait sitting fees, based on prices listed in Lifetouch's photo package brochures. The revenue from Blanton's cheapest packages would have totaled under $60,000 based on price ranges provided by Blanton employee Dave Jackson.

Not all of that money goes to Lifetouch. The contract that schools sign with photo vendors includes a commission for the school, Gainous said. Funk would not release the details of Blair's photo contract with Lifetouch.

Gainous said that most of the money from the commission covers yearbook production costs. Silverlogue is cheaper than other MCPS high schools' yearbooks because the school uses the fundraiser money to reduce prices for students, Gainous said.

Some of the revenue that is not used for yearbook production pays for the production of Silver Quill, Blair's literary magazine, which comes free with the purchase of a yearbook.

Gainous said that this year some of the money generated by photo sales might also be used to offset losses from declining vending machine sales.

Lee said that while Lifetouch's photo package prices are higher, the price of the yearbook will not be.