I had a Groupon deal for my sons pictures a while ago and the photographer Ricardo did such a great job! He was patient with my baby and was able to get great shots. This evening when I came in to pick up the pictures and unfortunately the pictures never arrived to the studio... I was being helped by Amanda who was the sweetest most apologetic customer service rep I've ever encountered during the holiday season and if it wasn't for her upbeat attitude I probably would've been in a bad mood. Typically customer service associates during the holidays are burnt out and a little rude but she wasn't. She searched high, low and in between for the envelope and was kind enough to reorder them. I appreciated her "can do" attitude and her professionalism in acknowledging the customers waiting in line as she multitasked checking in customers, assisting her fellow portrait studio associate and assisting others picking up their pictures. THANK YOU AMANDA for your great customer service, great attitude and I appreciate you for your kindness! read more

I don't usually write a bad review but my experience here is the worst thing ever. My first time visit was great. I got what I want but the second visit, I'm very upset. Last weekend, my husband and I with my son went there for holiday portrait cards. After the picture taking, the photographer showed us all the pictures that he took and he also made a incredible job of ENHANCED PICTURES and of course I fell in love that's why I bought the digital downloads for almost $200. I don't mind paying a little much as long as I'm satisfied but when I got home, I download the pictures and found out that all the enhanced pictures are not included and got upset. I called the studio and they said the enhanced pictures are not included of digital downloads, SERIOUSLY!!!!! what's the purpose of creating enhanced pictures and showed you????. I expected that enhanced pictures are included because the first time we went there, they include them and also said in their website that if you buy the digital pictures, you'll get all enhanced pictures that they made in studio. So I called the customer service and she's not very helpful. I told her that if they won't send the enhanced pictures I want to refund all the pictures that I purchased. But she said, she can't because I already download them and of course if I didn't download I didn't know that they didn't send the enhanced pictures. So I told her that is not my fault coz they didn't mention to me in the studio and specific said in they're WEBSITE that enhanced pictures are included if you purchase the digital pictures. So when I visited their website for the next day they change some rules. I'm very disappointed coz I wasted a couple of bucks and not happy for what I got. They just lost one customer and I'll making sure that I'll tell to all my friends that don't trust JC PENNY PORTRAIT STUDIO..... read more

Shame on me for doing portraits here. I don't shop here so it is weird I would go for portraits, but I was in a rush to get new born photos before the holidays and going back to work. The location was a zoo, we had to wait over 30 minutes after our appt time for our sitting. Seemed very amateurish and props were old and cheesy. All of this was fine because it was the holidays, cheap and last minute. But now I want to have the photos I already paid for shipped to me and jcp wants me to send them a prepaid envelope to ship them in! I offered to give them a credit card to charge for shipping but they wouldn't do it! So weird. Mind you this is for maybe 5 photo sheets- they could throw them in an envelope with a couple stamps. Next time I will plan ahead and pay a bit more for a professional. Ps: they charge $70 for a cd with 3 pictures on it! That's way too much! read more

First, I decided to write my review here since I wrote my review a week ago on jcpennys site and it still hasn't come up. It seems they will not post bad reviews on their page. I read all reviews, none of them are bad. Only one was average. Ok. I went a week ago to have our Holiday pictures taken (family pic and my 2 kids pic). We had to wait half an hour. I had NO problema waiting! We know its holiday season, everyone is taking pictures. When we went in, the photographer was nice. Had a lot of patience with my kids who weren't to happy about taking picture. I have an 8 month baby and a 5 year old boy with autism(you could imagine how hard it is on him to stay still). We took our family picture and when it was time to take pic of the kids it got a little bit difficult. And it didn't help that it was about 90 degrees in there and they had nothing to entertain infants or kids. Well another photographer was coming in every 5 min to see if we were done. The photographer had to end the session. At the end I ended up with the family pic, ONE pict of my 2 kids together and a few of my baby girl. I have ZERO pic of my son. I have called today to schedule another session JUST for my son and I let them know he needs a little more time because he has autism. They told me they cant make any exceptions because they are in holiday season and sessions are only 10 min long for everybody. Seriously? So it seems JCPenny thinks that if you have special needs kids, they dont deserve decent holiday pictures. Very disappointed. Oh, pictures are just ok. We've had better pic taken. read more

If you get the coupon on their website you get great prices on the pics and the sitting fee is waived. The woman who took my friend's baby's pix was really nice and got some amazing shots. Nice atmosphere in the waiting area- lots of seating :) read more

Came here yesterday to get my son's six months photos taken. We came early to our 1 pm appointment but still had to wait because they were behind. I was getting nervous because I could feel my baby boy getting fussy. We finally got called in and I believe our photographer was Nicole. She was great. She was able to make him smile a lot and took great pictures. I definitely want to come back and have her do his 9 months or 1 year photos. read more

Such a bad experience! Short staffed, long wait, frustrated employees. And by the time they actually take the pictures, the kids have had it. Never again!!! Two and a half hour experience. There is just no excuse for that!!! read more

Our appointment was at 9:00 AM. We arrived 10 minutes early and still had to wait to be seen for almost an hour (9:50 AM). We were never greeted or approached, no one ever even apologized for the wait. We were about to leave when the woman at the counter stopped us and said we would be next. They never offered us any props to use, though I was told on the phone there would be some for us to incorporate. The photographer seemed unprofessional and rushed. She did not pose us in any way or offer any suggestion. She just stood there and basically snapped random pictures as we tried to figure out what to do. It was very uncomfortable and disappointing. read more

returned to get my holiday cards made and was greeted w a smile as soon as my dog and i arrived. chose two of the newer holiday backgrounds and had ricardo help out a lot trying to get my dog leo's attention and i was very pleased w the turnout. i recommend going in on a weekday like i did because the weekends can get a bit hectic during the holiday season. evelyn helped me pick out my card and was super helpful! 11/10 would recommend read more

We went yesterday to have some family pictures done. We had an appointment for 11:40 a.m. We were not seen until 12:40 p.m. Their excuse was that they had a big group earlier with 15 kids and it took a lot of time. My problem with this is that they should have planned accordingly. It was a cluster in there. Poor customers were waiting forever...many of us with kids. Everyone appeared to be equally annoyed and miserable. Then when we finally were called back, there was no privacy...not even a curtain, between our photo session and the portrait store area. Also, there was not a whole lot of creative input into our photo shoot. We basically just stood there for every picture. Mercifully our three children did pretty well considering. When all was said and done, we were there for a total of 2 hours! Not okay at all! read more

This is my review for an appt I had on Nov. 15th and frankly I should have written this that exact same day. I should've known that the appointment for the portrait would've gone wrong with receiving a voicemail from these unprofessional people begging me to change my sit date. My mother and my daughter arrived to our appt at the JcPenney portrait 20 minutes beforehand as requested. We were told that there was a wait time so we complied and walked around for a bit. Our photographer met up with us and I specifically mentioned I wanted a Christmas theme for my daughter's pictures. The lady interrupted me and said, "we don't have Christmas theme backgrounds so we only have solid ones." I knew that was a whole load of bs because I just saw another photographer give a Christmas background to another family. I told this to the photographer and she rolled her eyes and started throwing and kicking things around to take out the Christmas background. When we informed that specific photographer that we needed to change my daughter she rolled her eyes and told us that she had other people waiting behind us and we had to be quick. After we changed my daughter and were ready to take the photos the photographer was barking orders at my daughter as if she were a dog. My daughter started crying and I got upset and asked for another photographer since she wasn't in a good mood. A blonde photographer took over and she was patient but she only took six photos and said she was done...excuse me? I asked her if the photos came out ok and if I could see some just in case we weren't satisfied and she snarled that she took enough and we could make our way to see them on the computers. When we saw the photos they were a disaster. You could see how upset my daughter was in the pictures. We let the person who was assisting my mother and I know we were not satisfied and he informed us that we weren't obligated to buy the photos and could schedule another appt. He was probably the only nice one there compared to the others we dealt with. We ended up purchasing one photo where my daughter somewhat smiled but it was the best one out of the six that blonde photographer took. My advice is to go to a more professional studio that is private owner so they aren't pushing you to get out just so they can profit off of sittings alone. read more

Drove an hour from home to the outdoor location, photographer was not there and did not call. Waited an hour and never saw or heard from the photographer. 3 hours wasted and we still have to book senior pictures with someone. I would never go through JCPenny Portrait Studio again. read more

Worst experience I've ever had at a portrait studio. I wanted a nice portrait of my toddler. Very Simple. I made an appointment for 1 p.m. Monday May 13th. I arrived at 12:45 to change my daughter and have time for checking in. No employee was present and studio was dark. I waited until 1:15 before deciding to find another employee. Finally a supervisor from another department came back and I spent the next hour wrestling a toddler while listening to her call employee after employee to figure out who was supposed to be working. Apparently Tracy didn't show up for work. I drove an hour to get there and an home and wasted over an hour and a half sitting there waiting for no one to ever show up. I was furious, but polite to employees because it wasn't their fault that someone was a no call no show to work. Left my name and number with the supervisor and said the manager better get in contact with me. I was given empty promised about how they would rectify the situation in any way possible. Two days later, no phone call from any manager. I will never return to any JC Penney store for any reason. I've purchased many pieces of jewelry here over the years, including engagement and wedding rings, but that will no longer happen. I'll find a portrait studio that can actually do their job and go to Kohl's in the next parking lot for my jewelry and clothing needs. read more

I went here for the first time to get my sons 9m pic done and I must say I was very pleased.. Before hand I came in to get info about pricing etc and Liz (the manager) was very helpful and answered all my questions, then on the actual day of the pictures I had a lady and I forgot her name but she was great, super nice and made my son smile and took great pictures they were hard to choose from which I wanted to order..they have so many props and poses they do ..so much better then picture people and the pricing is great but must recommend to get the member card..I paid the sitting fee for both me and my son when I thought it would just be me but they said he is a person so he counts.. All in all.my visit was amazing and I will definitely come back here to take Xmas pic and when my son turns a yr old read more

Efficiency accompanied by courtesy is a rare combination in today's world so when it happens, it's truly a pleasure. I had that type of experience today at JCP Portraits in San Bruno because I met AMANDA, one of the managers and she was exceptional. She's extremely friendly and kind and went the extra mile to make sure my daughter's photo session went smoothly. Amanda made the experience enjoyable and although I've been to this location many times before, today's visit was by far, the best because of Amanda. Even with only one operational camera, Amanda remained positive, pleasant, professional and patient. I will continue to be a repeat customer due to her professionalism and kindness. in addition to that, I've always received great photos on each visit. AMANDA, thank you for the excellent customer service. You put the "A" in amazing. read more

We had to take photos of our 6 weeks old baby.. and we got a package of 219$.. it was a worst photoshoot ever!! Bad customer service and photographer was in hurry and she doesn't know how to position the baby. And no props at all.. I really regret investing money which is not worth it.. I don't recommend going here..very much dis satisfied.. read more

i never seen a business ran so unprofessionally in my life its like a circus with tons of kids/ppl running around and if u have a life dont bother making an appointment unless ur willing to wait 1:15 after your appointment was scheduled..probably longer but i left read more

If I can give this portrait studio ZERO stars I would. The service here was so awful I don't know where to begin. First we made an appointment to have my daughter's sweet 16 photos taken in February (her birthday is in April). She told them she would be doing 4 changes and this was documented then with no issue. When we arrived at the studio on April 27th at 1:30pm for a 1:45 appointment, my daughter was told they couldn't accommodate her 4 changes because they were crowded. Next she wasn't called for her 1:45 appointment until 2:45!!! The staff didn't bother to provide an explanation or apology for the delay in service or for failing to accommodate her wishes. This not only lacked professionalism, but was downright disrespectful. We pay for a service and expect the staff to at least be mindful of that. A true waste of time and a stain on what was to be the highlight of my daughter's birthday weekend. If you are considering utilizing the JC Penney Portrait Studio in Northlake Mall in Atlanta, Georgia PLEASE DON'T!! read more

WARNING about portraits taken at JCPenney's!!! We had pictures taken there 10 years ago & the people in the pictures have all turned purple! We had portraits taken around the same time with Picture People & the picture coloring remained accurate. I called JCPenney's Portrait Customer Service & was told there is nothing they can do about that! read more

Had Most AWEFUL experience with them..their concentration is on making money..n not pic.. for 1 hr schedule ..we were running late by 15 min but they said it was ok..n dont need reschedule.. n within 15 min they were like done..and they did nothing to make babies laugh instead kept shouting n clicking so fast that they cried..n just haphazardly finished it somehow and end of it made us pay the charges of CD and photo which were near to useless..u can click a bettr pic @home..plzz avoid.. hate the experience..will never suggest anyone or go again.. read more

Made an appointment to have my grand-daughters picture taken midweek in the morning. Photographer was ok, but what a ZOO when I wanted to look at the pictures to see what I wanted to purchase. There were so many appointments waiting for photos and customers like me who just wanted to view thier pics. After 20 minutes I left and said that I would be back in a few days. I have not had the energy to go back. read more

If I had the option to give no stars, I would. I had an appointment for my daughter's 3 month pictures for 3:20, but because the 3:00 appointment started late, we waited until nearly 4:00. There was only one person working and he had to take the pictures, set everything up, help others buy their pictures, deal with pick ups, and answer the phone. Needless to say, it was way too much for one person. The pictures did not turn out nice at all. The photographer really didn't know what he was doing and that showed in the pictures. He kept stopping in between pictures to look at them on the digital camera and missed almost every smile from my daughter because of this. The angles of the pictures were really poor and did not show her face well. I also found it rude that he kept referring to my daughter as "him" and "he", despite the fact that she is clearly a girl and was wearing a pink dress! read more

Terrible place, bad pictures, tried to overcharge, put some session fees $29 per person, just crazy. Just hate them!

Never again! 45m after our scheduled appt time, we get rushed and photos done in 10-15m then wait another 30m to review. "2nd string" staff were confused and unorganized. Took customer that was told they were after us first, almost took someone that just walked out of photo room before us to review. read more

Fast Food Photography... you have ten minutes of their time and even if their equipment isn't working they want to move you out of line and get the next group in. Everyone wasn't looking? Well that is just how it is... You then get to spend thirty minutes or more with the sales person. Over $100 later you have a bunch of photos you are not happy with. read more

I had a great experience getting a business headshot several years ago at a JCPenny Portrait Studio in Chicago, so I never considered going somewhere else for an update. After this sitting, while reviewing the pictures, I commented that the first picture was unacceptable because I had a big wisp of hair sticking out on the side of my head. Before seeing the other pictures, the photographer commented that they were all like that. I was shocked. Since she had obviously seen this problem while taking the shots, why didn't she say something? All I would have had to do was pat the offending bit of hair down a bit. All professional photographers that I have worked with before have made suggestions when something didn't look quite right. I managed to pick out the three least offending pictures, but they are not the ones I would have selected if this had not been an issue. Now I am going to have to figure out how to photoshop out the hair problem. A very disappointing experience. read more

First I want to say that I never write reviews and feel bad even giving this place a negative review... but I was so disappointed in the photo session I had for my 5 week old. We purchased a groupon for the photo session and I'm not sure if that's where we went wrong Bc I've never been to a studio for photos. We spent $40 on the package and received a 16 by 20 canvas with the package (which was the only plus). At the end of the session we were looking through all the pictures and we opted to buy the digital copies for $89.99!!! Seemed like the best deal because we were told we would receive all the pictures that were taken. Sounded great until we received the pictures. One of the pictures was literally a picture of the blanket not even with my daughter in it at all. So we ended up with only 14 pictures when I thought there would be more than that. For $90 I would hope for atleast 30 pictures. Just feel like we wasted our money and could of done the same pictures ourselves. Lesson learned. read more

Had a pretty bad experience here. Our actual photos turned out all right (hence not one star) and our photographer was nice and patient with our toddler son, but the customer service was TERRIBLE. First, the appointment we scheduled online somehow didn't make it into the system, even though I received an email confirmation. According to the manager, this happens a lot because "you have to push confirm lots of times." Uh, ok. So rather than squeeze us in, we had to schedule a new appointment for a week later. Strike one. Then, we had purchased their membership at a different JC Penney store (great experience, great studio" and because the system is centralize, supposedly, they couldn't look us up. Not that she tried, mind you. So I had to call the other store and get all the information myself- she was too lazy to take that step for her customer. Strike two. Next, the person who "edited" our images (not the photographer) did a pretty shoddy job choosing which ones to include in the composites. I'm not even sure she actually looked at the images. Plus she had bad BO. And lastly, literally the day after we placed our order, I got an email that conveniently offered a discount on the exact same thing I had just ordered. Would they honor that coupon? No, and when I went to pick our order up and asked about it, the woman manager was incredibly rude (including accusing me of already calling and talking to her... which I hadn't). Strike three. We'll go elsewhere next time. read more

I used to go to the Studio in Cupertino with Roy DeMarco and he was great - creative posing, took the time to get the great shots. Now that store is closed so I went to Tanforan for our annual Christmas photo. Big mistake!! They have changed their entire system and have hired people who don't know photography at all. First, you can't get a Christmas background anymore. Second, you can't see the pictures as they are being taken anymore so you have no idea if you smiled or have your eyes open. I showed up early for my appointment and they were running late. Then they rushed us through our appointment "because we didn't have little kids" as the manager said. These were the worst pictures I have ever seen. There were photos with eyes closed, photos that looked like mug shots (several of these) with no smiles, photos with my daughter's dress gaping open in the front -- yes he took the shot even after I told him her dress was gaping open and we needed to change the posing, one photo had the kids lined up like Russian nesting dolls (you're supposed to have your lines moving to the center of the picture not to one corner), another had one kid putting his arm around the neck of another like he was strangling him, yes he took that shot even though the pose was ridiculous. He had a Charlie Brown Christmas tree that reached their hips -- this was their "Christmas prop". It looked pathetic so we skipped it. He kept putting the person in the middle in a full frontal position like he was posing for a police line up. After 10 minutes he was done. We viewed the pictures and I couldn't believe the shots with eyes closed and not smiling were included. There was not one shot in which all three kids had a nice smile. How hard is that? You say one two three, they smile then you take the picture. They had great smiles on the count of three, so why did he actually take the pictures on the count of two? There were no closeups of three of them - everything was full length. I asked if they could take a few more pictures close up and we were told we had to wait. So we waited 15 minutes and then the manager told us to come back next week. The worst part is they charged us $30 for the 10 minutes and we didn't get any pictures. read more

Do yourself a favor and go anywhere else. Manager Samantha has horrible customer service and white backdrop is stained which shows in the pictures. I had booked an appointment about a month out so that I could get 2 consecutive time slots in order to make sure I was able to capture the milestone pictures I was there to take for 2 of my kids. They only book sessions in 10 minute increments which I knew was not enough time to get any sort of decent pictures taken of 3 kids. About 20 minutes before we were about to ahead out the studio called us and informed us that they had given away one of our time slots to another family on the wait list because they had too many people trying to get pictures taken. She told I was being disrespectful to the other families that did not have appointments and were trying to come in last minute even though I was the one who had an appointment for weeks. If I wanted more time to make sure I get pictures taken I should try coming in during the week when they are less busy and can spend more time trying to actually take decent pictures as opposed to being rushed through so they can get in as many families as possible. Samantha was clearly less concerned with honoring the appointment of a portrait studio member and was just trying to get as many people through the door as possible, who cares what type of quality pictures they are getting. I have never been treated with less respect and will never go back. If anyone over there at JCPenny cares perhaps you should retrain your managers and review your procedures. Family coming in with a lot of people clearly need more than 10 minutes. Maybe this way you wont have a 30-60 minute wait time and a lot of annoyed parents. Also think about washing your backdrops as the white one is stained in many places and shows in the pictures we are paying you to take. read more

I had an appt for Sunday at Noon, but happened to be in the store so stopped by to check on a few things at the counter. The lady told me to be at the door at 5 til 12 and wait for it to open (OK)...then she preceded to tell me be waiting...we are very busy that day and our appts are booked every 10 minutes!! Really! I have a 12 month old and a 5 year old... I can only imagine how shuttled I would have felt to get my babies photo, esp if they weren't cooperating. Then she preceded to tell me not to be negative because of the rapid booking that the children would feel that and not be at their best. I left and went and called another portrait place and they told me my sitting could take 1-11/2 hours and they allowed for a change of clothes for the little ones if I wanted. I cancelled my appt. And ... I'd like to add there was not a single person in the studio the entire time I was in Pennys which was about 2 hours. read more

I went to the Greenbriar JCP. They suck. Our appointment was for 4:40 pm and we got there at 4:30 pm. We did not get out of there until 6:35 pm. This with a 2 week old, a 2 year old, a 3 year old and a 6 year old. Then we we do get called back it is to this little dark room that barely fits all of us.The photogrpher was not engaging with the kids. He did take about 40 pictures but maybe 3 of them were decent. Then when the session was over, we were told nothing about what to do about reviewing the photos. I finally asked someone and they took us to the computer and said just right click on the ones you like. I had to ask about what photo packages they had and someone came over and did a few pic enhancements. The only package she showed us was 250.00. Well the pics were not good enough for me to spend that much so she said to buy the disc and take them to Walmart. Which I did. However I did not realize I could not pick up the disc for over a week. I will get my disc this Friday and hopefully I can piece some together to maybe get a decent 8x10 as this was suppose to be my husband's christmas gift - a Portriat for Grandpa of the grandkids. I would not recommend JCP to anyone wanting have way decent photos. The experince sucked and so did the photos. read more