Scroll down to the bottom for a tl;dr.

Dear graduates, future graduates, parents, and staff at Richmond Christian Secondary,

Imagine it's your graduation year. Your peers are discussing what universities they have been accepted to, your parents dropped $600 dollars on an outfit for Dry Grad that has yet to be tailored, and your final exams are slowly creeping up on you as your high school days quickly pass by. It's been an entire year since the quarantine started due to Covid-19, and you've spent the entirety of your final school year with constraints - you can't hug your best buds, you can't go on the field trips, and you can't live at the school until 5pm everyday playing games and practicing music with your friends until Ms. Contant kicks you out of the building. It hurts, but the worst of it is missing the events meant for graduates the entire year. 

With Covid-19 cases increasing every day, the chances of proposed grad events dwindles. The annual traditions that previous grads partook in for years upon years haven't happened, and the upcoming events are a thousand daily Covid cases away from being completely cancelled. However, there is one tradition that you can participate in though - graduation photos. While not the most exciting of events, it is a graduation staple to help alumni remember the good (or bad) times they had during their school careers. Optimistic, you dress up and put on your best face during your photoshoot, only to find out that your family will have to pay $279 dollars (plus an additional $50 upfront cost) to receive a digital file of a mediocre photo of your own face.

In comparison to its main competitor, Artona, Lifetouch Photography (or "Prestige Photography" for graduation photos) pales for numerous reasons which I will list out below.

1) Mediocre photography quality. As a member of the yearbook committee, I have had the chance to legally obtain and view the graduation photos. The lighting was off, the editing Lifetouch did gives everyone the same skin tone, the photographers failed to tell students to adjust their outfits, and the shadows in many images ruined their portraits and highlighted their blemishes (among other things). For a professional photography company, the photographs Lifetouch took of many of the graduates were absolutely unacceptable. People who weren't ugly looked ugly in their photos.

2) Unreasonable photo prices for prints and digital files. While Artona charges students $50 upfront and keeps it as a deposit for photo purchases, Lifetouch charges $50 upfront to simply take the photo. We have to add this upfront cost to the price of the photo packages or individual photo products. It is unfathomable that the cheapest way a student can obtain a digital copy of their grad photo is by purchasing the Graduate Special at $279, which provides many prints and a CD of your portraits. Alternatively, you can purchase a CD of your portraits for your session for a whopping $249 with no prints. In an era that is centered around the media and a digital life, it baffles me that Lifetouch only sends photographs through CDs from Winnipeg (unlike Artona, which sends photos through their website). My laptop doesn't even have a CD slot, I wouldn't be able to view the image even if I bought it. Additionally, as a student who makes minimum wage, I would have to work 19 hours to buy that package (not including tax). The cheapest package one can purchase is the $63 Intro Package, which provides 8 wallet size prints of one pose. As someone on the media team who has attended events for the sake of taking photos, I can't imagine charging someone that much for a photo and believing it is ethical. Artona provides prints and digital files at a fraction of these costs.

3) Unprofessionalism within the company. While taking graduation photos, I have heard many complaints from students about Lifetouch's photographers being rude during their sessions, as well as photographers refusing to let students see their own photos during their sessions to have an idea of how they look. When a group of my friends called them to discuss the prices of digital files, they hung up on us. For the yearbook team, Lifetouch failed to tell the media design teacher of a waiver needed to be signed even though we alerted them far beforehand we needed the photographs for the yearbook. In the end, we received the grad photographs the morning before the yearbook's final due date. While not essential to the process of photographs, it is unpleasant working with a company that doesn't treat their customers with respect. 

tl;dr 

It's our final year and it really sucks that the photos are so expensive and mediocre when there are cheaper, better alternatives at other schools. The photographs aren't well taken, the packages and products are incredibly expensive, and the company is unprofessional.

Please change up the company, next year's graduates deserve better than this.