I’ve read from a local parenting forum that Studio Loft was having an Easter Promo, which we can have Darius’ photos taken at their studio with an Easter Day setting at only S$25 with two edited digital photos.
By the time I knew about the news, it was already 23rd March so the only available date left was today. Having been wanting to give Darius a try at a studio shoot, I took leave today and drove down to the studio with Catherine and Darius to Chinatown, where the place was located.
Before that though, we drove down to the MacDonalds beside Ang Mo Kio West Park, and had a brief but enjoyable breakfast there. It is a drive-thru branch but we had decided to have our breakfast in the outlet itself instead.
Bringing Darius to the toilet there proved to be an ease, as there was a handicap-cum-baby restroom, where a baby changing station was present. Good initiative by MacDonalds for a family friendly environment!
Kudos to MacDonald's thoughtfulness!
We then reached Studio Loft at around 10.45am, after spending quite a while to locate the place despite knowing their address, as it was situated above a long flight of stairs (thus the name ‘Loft’) and its sign was barely visible due to its size and positioning.
The studio was pretty crowded, since we were certainly not the only one attracted by this walk-in session. We were the third in queue and we waited in another room as the main area was already quite packed with parents and children. The room we were in was their working area, where several employees were doing their work (photo-editing etc) in front of their PCs.
Either they were very focused on their work or it was their working culture, as I had not seen a single one of them interacting with one another throughout our 30-minute stay in that room. Nobody even looked up or greeted one of their colleagues when he walked in, having just reported for work.
Anyway, when it was finally our turn, we were ushered to the studio area, and the setting mainly consisted of several painted Easter eggs and artifical grass. I was told to help hold the grass up (well, since this is a promo I’ll have to do my part of the bargain I guess) while Catherine acted as the ‘distractor’ for Darius.
We had tried to make Darius smile or laugh throughout the whole session but weren’t successful, as he was mostly in a confused look, wondering where he was and was more interested in fiddling with the grass.
So in the end, all the photos taken didn’t have Darius’ smiles in them. Still, they turned out to be pretty nice in my opinion, especially since this was Darius’ first studio photos.
Out of the 30 shots taken, we picked 3 and paid an additional S$10 for the extra unedited photo. We will be expecting to receive them via email by next Tuesday.
As for the overall experience, we can’t say we were very satisfied, but probably it was due to the crowd for the promo, resulting in the staff being less than patient and eager to move on to the next customer.
Catherine was mentioning that one of their purposes of having such promotions should be to promote their services and offering a satisfactory experience for first-timers like us, and hopefully entice us to be back for a full package at a later date (e.g. when Darius is one year old). However, we don’t think we were yet convinced to return for a full package soon.
Still, I’m glad we turned up for the photo shoot, and gained some experience on what to expect. Hopefully the final edited photos will turn out nicely. ^^
Darius on a mini sofa while we waited to browse and select the photos
