Sunset Studio

I had family picture there. It sucks!!! Horrible customer service!!!
Terrible picture!!! Every picture show the height adjust of the office chair.
Also, my baby was sitting on old antique furniture. There is so much dust. The photographer says.” It is not dust!!!” What a good sevice!!! and the dust was shown on eevery picture!!!
Nevr Never go there again!!!

We had our son’s first year b-​day photos at sunset and will never ever go back there. Photos came out ok (just ok, not excellent) but the entire staff was very rude, and not friendly at all. No smiles at all and the lobby was very disorganized and dirty.
And their packages are over priced. I am going to have my son’s second b-​day photos later but won’t go back to sunset.

Although I have come here a few times before, the last time was the worst.
First of all, their lobby/​waiting room is filthy and unorganized and always was. Looks very unprofessional. Second, it seems like they don’t even want me in there. They never smile and say anything unless if I ask them questions.
I recently had a few pictures taken from here and it went okay. It was just for one 11×14 photo. Then they told me it’ll take about a week for the proofs to come out. I wasn’t able to go back there just to look at the proofs since I live almost an hour and a half away so I insisted them to email the proofs to me. A week has passed and I haven’t heard from them. So I gave them a call and they told me the photos didn’t come out so well and they had to fix them. Fair enough. Another two weeks have passed and still no word. Gave them a call again and they said they were at a meeting. Waited for a while, but still no call or anything. I’m pretty disgusted how they’re treating their customers. They make promises they can’t keep and do not know anything about time management. I’m surprised how this place is still up and running with how they manage their business. If I don’t hear from them in the next day I’m asking for a refund.
I went to this place only because my parents insisted me to, but I’m never coming back here again.

We had a new addition to the family so I was looking into getting a new family portrait done. Since our family has gotten photos taken here in the past I decided to go to the place I was most familiar with. Unfortunately the customer service has gotten really bad. We got the $ 295 package which includes one 20×30, 4 wallets, and 10 proofs. AND you must pay in full in advance. On the day we took the pictures the photographer said the proofs would be ready in 5 – 7 days. I called on the 8^th day and was told they were having trouble with the colors on their printer. So I thought okay, then you need an extra day to fix it. Fine. So I call back on the following day, Wednesday. Now the guy tells me they are still having issues with the printer and need someone to come fix it and that won’t be til Saturday. WHAT?!? Printing photos is your business! How the hell can you run a PHOTO business without having someone to fix the problem immediately? SMH. anyhow so they said they would call me as soon as the proofs were ready. So it was the following Tuesday and still no call. So once again I had to call them first. They guy was like «oh yeah, we were GONNA call you, they’re ready» So we chose from the proofs and the guy said to give them 10 business days for the portraits to be ready. Fine. So I call on the 14^th day, giving them more time so I don’t have to keep calling back. It was a Saturday. They said, the photos are ready, we just have to frame it for you. It will be done by the end of the day. I wasn’t able to pick it up that day so I called on the following Tuesday and asked if they were ready NOW? The guy told me they were ready but when I said I would be there to pick it up within the hour, he started stuttering and said «Today? You want to pick it up today? Can you come tomorrow?» And when I asked why, he said «Uh, we still have to frame it» WHAT??? You just said it was ready?! WTH?! They ended up having to frame it on the spot for us that day. Anyway, what was supposed to be 3 weeks to get our pictures turned out to be a month. I hate it when businesses take money up front not for good faith but to take advantage of customers for their sh*tty service.

I’m a horrible, horrible bride. Or it could be that I’m not a girly girl. Anyhow, I can’t remember how I found Sunset Studio but I met with them back in December of 2007 to take my wedding pics. We set up appointments for our engagement photos and for our wedding and reception.
Engagement Photos: We were convinced to take our pictures at the Trump Golf Course in Rancho Palos Verdes. The venue was perfect. The pictures came out great and we used one of the pics to get a 20×30 framed portrait that our wedding guests signed at our reception.
Wedding Day: It wasn’t the same photographer as our engagement photos which disheartened me a little. Lancer, our initial photographer, was great. To be honest, I don’t even remember what the name of the photographer was that took my wedding day pictures. He was okay. I think Lancer would have done a better job. But I digress…
A few weeks later I received a call that my proofs were in. I picked them up and that’s where the laziness set in. I had some awesome proofs and I still had a third sitting to do. Initially, we were going to do a shoot in Downtown LA in our wedding gear. That was going to require my husband to re-​rent his tux. And since he was going to have to do that, we put it off. And put it off. And then I called many months later and he told me that we could do a studio sitting or we could wait until we had our first anniversary or our first child. SWEET!
And our first anniversary came and went. And the second. And no baby. Soooooo… it got to where it was sort of embarrassing to call. But I finally mustered up the courage to go down there and tell them to forget the third sitting and just give me the albums with the pics I already had.
We show up and the guys were sort of amazed that we were NOW coming in, but were very nice and helpful. They made the experience much less embarrassing. We went through our pictures and have placed our order for our digital albums. :)

My experience with Sunset Studio has been horrible. I should have known it was going to be bad when the photographer called me 3 times on the way to the venue because he couldn’t find the place and he was late… he was calling while I was getting ready in my WEDDING DRESS! Who needs to deal with that when getting ready for a wedding?
It was a house with a garden. The formal pictures in front of the house turned out well, except there’s some pictures where there are group shots where you can see the whole bridal party except you cannot see anything but the head of 2 groomsmen! They say it’s OK because I have other pictures of the wedding party (more formal) where you can see every one so that I have no choice but to choose the more formal pictures.
Then I had a full my side of the family shot in front of the garden. People had come from Germany and Korea to attend the wedding. Family is important and this was a rare gathering. The photographer stood on a white folding chair in the middle of the aisle (and there are white folding chairs that were there for the wedding) and I thought for a second that perhaps those white folding chairs would be in the picture but said, nah — he’s a professional he can see what’s in the picture and if he could see those chairs, he’d move them… well guess what? THE WHITE CHAIRS WERE IN THE PICTURE! IN NUMEROUS PICTURES! This is his job to see that they are there and he didn’t even ask for them to be moved. Those chairs cut off the bodies of my little ringbearers in the bridal party shots! This happened for both sides of the family shots also. And you couldn’t see every one’s faces. When I went to complain, they said that that’s excusable because it’s outdoors. HELLO — THIS IS A POSED PHOTO WITH A PROFESSIONAL USING A DIGITAL CAMERA! He should’ve taken numerous pictures of this family photo and made sure every one was looking and could be seen by the camera but he only took a couple and in my set of proofs, I only got 1 shot.
Not only that, in the 250 proofs they gave, which are considered the BEST SHOTS, are pictures of the DJ, the videographer, the string quartet, people I paid to work the wedding and very few photos of family and friends that came to the wedding. Also about ¹⁄₃ of the stack is dancing photos from my first dance and dances with the parents, but none of them are good. Some one always has a funny look or the other person is turned away. He never came up to us saying look here… But as a service — they say they’ll give me more proofs. If the set they gave me is the best, then why do I want more pictures with white chairs he can’t photoshop out or pictures of people paid to work the wedding?! And because I got their $ 999 basic wedding package — they say it’s really not something he had to do. BE WARNED apparently their $ 999 package includes poor photography.
Now I’m trying to get this $ 900 album refunded because we wanted an album with family pictures in it. I’m still willing to go ahead with little albums for the parents on both sides, but they won’t take responsibility or even say sorry. First they said no way, that the album was ordered. This I knew was untrue because it’s one of those albums with the pictures attached to the page and I hadn’t picked any pictures for this.
Every time I’ve called to inquire they say it’s not their policy for refunds because I signed a contract. Apparently I signed a contract for poor photography. Then when they offered me $ 900 credit, I said, I’d like a refund of my money — why do I want more photos taken by these people? They tell me they are providing great service — and always go back to the fact that they will give me more proofs as a service. The workers say no refund maybe only credit and that they need to speak to the owner — whoever that is and that they’ll get back to me. I never seem to be able to talk to the owner. The workers just give me excuses and tell me they’ll get back to me. I went in on Friday, heard nothing back, called back on Tuesday, heard nothing back, and will try again tomorrow.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS COMPANY FOR ANYONE! I’d give a zero star if I could. That’s how disappointed I am.

My baby reached his «100^th day» celebration (about 3 months old). My mother in law called Sunset and made an appointment for their $ 99 *special promo. Includes 12 proofs, 4 wallets and an 8×10 enlargement.
The photos were cute but standard. Anyways the bigger issue I had with them was that their sales lady used some low tactics to increase our price point.
First she told us they don’t have a $ 99 special– that all packages start at $ 195 even though we insisted about the phone call. So we went with the 195 thinking the framing made it worth it– She comes back with our credit card and has charged an extra 50 saying framing is extra. I asked her to cancel the charge for that dishonesty but she said she would give us a cash refund next week if we changed our minds after seeing proofs.
Following week we went back for proofs. My mother in law found out what happened with the special and called in advance. Of course they had a $ 99 special all along. The clerk had lied to us. My mother in law gave them a mouthful about their inconsistency and practice.
The sales lady never owns to the deceipt– instead says she’s doing us a huge favor, says we never mentioned the special, says the special includes 10 proofs instead of 12 (we insist its 12), she tries to refund the difference with store credit (no thanks we won’t be back) and now says she’ll speak with the owner about the form of our refund and will get back to us next week.
I thought they had a solid reputation as a professional photo studio. Never expected to encounter such trickery and low sales tactics even in this economy. Just be wary if dealing with them. I’m more inclined to try Babies R Us or mall portrait studios the next time to get some more contemporary shots — I’m not really into the gilded rococo furniture props.

eeh… they were «OKAY.» Pretty pricey… I paid about $ 800+ for my son’s baby session which included 25 5×5 shots, 1 5×5 album, and3 10×12.
I thought they’d take more shots but they didn’t…
would I have paid $ 800+ if i knew that they weren’t going to take more pictures? HECK NO!
But, I’m glad that my son got his pictures taken, professionally.