Ultimate Exposures

Had my photos taken with UE at UC Berkeley back in November. My photographer was nice and so was the staff working in the front.
I definitely think they need to work on not making poses look so awkward. The head tilting came out looking like I was a surprised puppy and also all of the photos were flipped the way the front camera of my iPhone does. Out of all my photos, I only liked my standing cap and gown ones, which is better than none. These were also the only ones I was the correct color in… i hope one day school photographers will learn how to photograph people of color correctly.
Finally, I’m not sure if it was a one time thing or if it happens often, but I still haven’t received my order and it has been over 2 months (i actually forgot about them which sucks because the moment is over for there to be spark of sending them out). I never got a reply to any emails sent. Calling in is definitely the best bet; customer service reps are nice.
The stars are definitely for Valerie, the customer service rep I spoke to today after never receiving the link to my order after 2 months, and for the photographer being meticulous and nice and staff being nice.
I didn’t think the prices were the best in comparison to a lot of other places, but you’re paying for once in a lifetime events, so I expected to pay a lot.
Edit: received my download links today. Thank you Chris for replying back to me. I know when it comes to pictures, no place is absolutely perfect for everyone. With that said, the pictures I did order I absolutely LOVED; i would never go as far as saying not to use this company. I’m glad Berkeley switched from their last photographers.

As a school employee and parent my children have been photographed by UE in both youth sports and in our elementary school. Needless to say our school and youth sports league have dropped UE as a vendor due to their outrageous prices and poor customer service. I urge people to use another vendor like White Studios, Life Touch, or School Portraits by Rick. Where they are more affordable, sales associates are friendlier, and costumer service is excellent. Now I can see why most reviews are poor on here. I urge you to use somebody else.

Their quality for custom orders is great, and depending on the time, the value is ok.
I still think $ 32 to download a digital copy of your kid’s photo borders on avarice.

Extremely disappointed with the service. I had gotten my graduation pictures done with them because they were at CSULA.
Sittting fee + actual photo… Super expensive… but whatever… I’m thinking graduation only happens once in a lifetime.
As soon as I get there, I sign in and wait to get seen. The photographer doesnt even introduce himself and tells me to take a board with my name on it and sit on a chair. Okay… I patiently wait and eventually, its my turn. Photographer doesnt even wait for me to get fully seated and takes a mug shot. Whatever, thats not going to be a picture they’re probably going to use anyways but couldnt he have waited? I mean there was no one after me… whats the rush. He takes a couple of pictures… and he’s in a rush for some reason. I take a couple of different poses and then he tells me to put on the cap and gown. I do as he instructors. As I am pulling on the gown, he repeated tells me to zip it up. HELLO!!! GIVE ME SOME TIME! I’m trying to put on the gown without getting my hair messed up!!! DONT RUSH ME! I finally finish putting on the gown. He places the cap on my head and doesnt give me time to adjust. My hair is literally flying everwhere, my gown isnt falling on my body correctly and the cap they provided is semi-​wrinkled. The photographer takes his shots… doesnt even ask if there are certain shots that I wanted.
He immediately tells me he’s finished. I told him I want to do one like this… He rolls his eyes at me and angrily sticks the memory card back into camera. I pose for the pic and felt so pressured to quickly get into place. mind you. there is still NO ONE after me… Before I can even adjust or ask to look in a mirror, he takes the picture and quickly places the memory card to the next staff member.
Im sitting at a computer for a good 10 minutes before the staff member comes to show me my pics. (She was sitting in a chair doing nothing for a good 5 minutes, with my memory card just sitting on the desk). At this point I was really getting frustrated. The photographer noticed and come over and started going over the pricing for the picture packages. UMMM HELLO!!! YOU DIDNT EVEN SHOW ME MY PICTURES YET!!! Finally things get rolling. I view my pictures and am utterly disappointed with them. I let the staff member know. She defers me to the photographer. I tell him, my gown was not all the way zipped up, the collar was unleveled, my diploma was not leveled, the angle of my shoulders were off, there are large creases in the sleeves of the gown… etc etc. The photographer angrily replies that thats just the way the gown is supposed to look… Okay. WHO THE HECK ARE YOU TRYING TO FOOL??? YOU HAVE SAMPLES UP RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME HANGING. AND THEY DONT LOOK LIKE THIS!!!
These people dont care about your special moment. They do the bare minimum; they are rude!
SPEND YOUR MONEY ELSEWHERE… THEY DONT DESERVE YOUR MONEY, TIME OR GRATITUDE.

Between going to the site where my daughters soccer pics were taken and it being totally disorganized, employees sitting around chatting. They did not even take time out of there busy conversations to greet the parents who came out to have the pics taken. I was filling out the form and had to ask another parent to help me with a question I had. None of the parents were ever greeted by an Ultimate Exposure employee once to help with «customer service» it was gross! Out of nowhere there was a young girl that suddenly started yelling loudly at the girls to form a line. These were 7 and 8 year olds you would think the employee would be a little nicer and more child friendly. ugh! It was not at all a pleasant experience with this company at all! I hope that they recognize there very obvious flaws and change things within this company instead of placing blame on their customers!

Wish I could give zero stars. They took one bad photo of my child but happily charged me for a full package — which I had to contact them repeatedly before I received. Their packages are all very overpriced and their customer service is terrible.

My child’s elementary school uses this company. His pictures were TERRIBLE and we’ve scheduled a makeup session. Had I not contacted the company about my dissatisfaction and asked @ a makeup session within 48 hours after receiving email proofs, they would have picked one of the bad photos and charged my account! I’ve spoken to other parents who were also VERY unhappy with their kids’ pictures. I «get» that they need to move kids through quickly, but not sure why the photographer couldn’t have done something to get a better result when he/​she saw that the pictures sucked. Working on finding out if the company has a contract with LA school districts and what our school’s other options are regarding photographers… I will say that it was easy to reach their customer service dept and they were responsive re: putting my purchase on hold until after the makeup session. I will post an update if there’s anything worth commenting on after the makeup session.

I’ve used Ultimate Exposures on several occasions with little notice, and they’ve always been responsive, courteous and professional. I’ve hired them for special events, corporate shots and portraits. They also have photographed my son’s soccer league (picture day) with no problems, and that’s a tall order. I would not hesitate to recommend them. I’ve always been pleased with the quality of the photos and service.

If there’s less than 1 star, I would’ve given that.
They charged me 25 dollars just for a sitting??? – That’s like a lot of money.
No pics you can take home.
You have to pay like a lot of extra money to order the pic, it was like $ 50 /​pic.
That’s ridiculous.
For next yr Grad, plz don’t waste your money for the graduation portrait!!!

WOW. just wow. So I had photos taken for graduation and they are insanely expensive! 35 for a single 8×10… and that is the cheapest… I wanted to buy 3 photos as a surprise for my parents but that is over 100 dollars and I do not have the money for that. They gave me a 10 dollar off coupon which is pathetic because the cheapest print is 35 and packages go up to 250…
Also when I tried to order photos… it would not accept payment through paypal… when I would go back to pay through their website it said my session expired and I had to re-​add all my prints to the cart… this has already happened 3 times and I still have not gotten through to be able to buy the prints. But hopefully the photos will be worth it if I can get through to ordering because they must be printed with unicorn tears based on the price!
This company is a horrible ripoff and charge obscene amounts of money because they know we students cannot get these photos elsewhere and they are a memory we want.

this company is a ripoff!!! do not buy!!! received email for my son’s graduation and they mention that there is a 20% discount if ordering within 48 hrs. the proof they have are not complete. many other proofs was not included with the first email i received. because of the 20% discount, i had to order pics that was not the best. i felt i had no choice but to order what they had. after ordering, i received another email for a second set of proofs that was a definitely improvement than the first one set. i immediately called and left a message, which took them 4 days to call me back. i explained my situation, and was took that the second set of pictures had a different prices and it was too late to cancel the first order. had they call me back with the first two day, i could have cancel and order from the 2^nd batch of proofs. needless to say, all they want is your money!!!
do not buy!!! rip off!!! poor service!!! rude customer services!!! what kind of company will send you two different emails with 2 different set of proofs!!! let alone, they did not indicated that a second set of proof will be email to you later. so after you pay for the first set, you get the 2^nd set. get you for the first batch. and then on the second round, they entice you with better pictures, hoping you will buy more pics because they will not give you a refund for the first set!!! !!!
beware!!! do not buy!!! horrible!!!
i cannot stress enough how upset i am with this company!!!

Got my pictures taken for my graduation… I ordered the basic blemish fix (?) and stray hair removable. Omg… I looked so photoshopped! I was laughing so hard. Who fixed the photos? High schoolers? It was horrible. It’s very expensive for the Triumph package… (2 8×10, 4 5×7, 16 wallet) $ 244 (plus shipping)
The sales associate was very rude too… the photographer was friendly.
:(
I should just have gone to the mall or something and have my photos taken there…
Beware!!!
update:
Got an apology email… Still not satisfied … And asked me to remove the one star! What?
He reprinted only the proofs on a regular paper. Very tiny.
I’m not sure if they’re still in transit.
Shady.
The photos In the website are pretty good with the lomo effect. But mine was plain and boring.

Fraud? Bait & Switch? Employee lying?
I am in the middle of trying to resolve a mistake that was made on UE’s part. Typical bait and switch, as well as catching CS Supervisor Melissa Young in a lie about what they do and don’t do.
If they resolve the issue, I will update my review to a positive. If they do not, I will file BBB and SAG complaints, post my negative experience on
and
, and start my campaign to contact the sports league (AYSO) and lobby them to kill their contract with these people. Thankfully, technology helps victims in these situations.

This is the worse customer service ever! Unfortunately there is little a person can do about it and this company knows it. This company took pictures for my daughter’s college graduation. We picked out 2 poses and I called their customer service to see how to order using 2 different poses. Though it was during business hours I was told to leave a message and they would get back to me. The next day I still had not heard from them so I tried it myself to place the order on line. Unfortunately, one set ended up Black and White which is not what I wanted. I immediately called and again was told to leave a message. I then used their email and told them what happened. 2 days later I received an email back saying the order was fine. I emailed them back and told them it wasn’t and was trying to change it. They emailed back saying they can’t do anything but I could reorder and pay 50% of the cost. They called me today in response to my email and they repeated the same thing over and over, 50% off of reorder. They couldn’t do anything about the original order even if I had been able to reach them right away. They said they can’t contact the lab once the order has been placed. I find this strange since most photo labs have the technology to receive calls and emails, especially from their sales office! Again, worse customer service, if you don’t have to use this company don’t!

Beware… Do not do business with this company. I thought it would be a good experience until they made a mistake on my order. On top of that no one had the courtesy to call me back. They have no regard for customer service. They are only interested in getting your money. To make matters worse, they NEVER pick up the phone. (IT’S CALLED A RECEPTIONIST GET ONE!) I hope they go out of business. They do not deserve to have any customers ever!

They charge $ 12 or $ 18 dollars for a sitting fee that is non-​refundable. Please make sure you study them up before you sign on for a graduation picture appointment. They charge much more for the pictures.
Cont. However, they contacted me after reading this post and reimbursed my sitting fee. They also gave me a $ 15 dollar credit towards my grad pics. I found it fair especially after having a bad experience over the phone with their customer service. I am assuming that they are working harder on their customer and aim to improve their overall business. For this I have to give them a better rating. Not all companies would react in a positive way to online posts, but they should.

Did the shoot for my doctoral graduation. After scrolling through the entire 10 pages of «my proofs» I found there were only 3 pictures with me in them, including the group photo. Furthermore, they shot the diploma/​handshake photos from 3 – 4 steps below looking up… Now I’m not a professional photographer, but I am one of the skinniest guys I know and when a picture makes it look like I have a double chin, well, something has gone horribly wrong. The sets are way over priced, there doesn’t appear to be any option to select 1 – 2 photos only and the digital copies are outrageous. Also, don’t know if this holds true for the other ordering sections, but under the graduation one if you look closely at the green screen correction before and after photo you’ll notice that they photoshopped the background over the girl’s lei, making it look like she’s wearing the background around her neck. Really? That’s the «finished» product you want to show people? Man, if that’s their «best» work I’d hate to have paid for any of the standard fair.
Piece of advice: Stay far, far away. If you’re the person responsible for finding a photographer for some event, please do everyone there a favor and find someone else.

This company is a scam. I ordered photographs and soon found out that they would not be delivering on their promise and that I would be getting nothing at all. I contacted customer service and told them to cancel the order and not to charge my card. But they charged me [fraudulently] anyway. I sincerely hope that this review saves other folks from the hassle and frustration that I went through.

Ok, I’m totally suspicious of the first review here.
Recently Ultimate Exposures photographed a work-​related event and let me just say thank goodness it wasn’t my own personal money that was being spent, or I’d have hit the roof.
As a graphic designer I’ve had contact with a lot of photographers, but in this case I’m really disappointed. Among other things, the photos I received were supposedly already color corrected. If that’s the case, they were corrected by someone going blind. Also, customer service acted as if they were doing me a favor by deigning to answer my questions.
I can deal with some attitude if the product is good, but in this case, both were a complete disappointment.