Venture Portraits (Darlington), Darlington

Venture Portraits Away from the conventional

We have wanted a family portrait for years and being in our 60’s now we probably could have gone for the conventional portrait but we wanted something that reflected our personalities. Choosing venture portraits for this very reason. As you get older you tend to surpass those days and grow old gracefully, but we were very adventurous in our earlier days so we wanted to reflect that in our venture portraits experience.

When I look back now at the day with Venture portraits I just sit and smile, we both do as we also purchased the Valencia which really shows off the day well and brings out our personalities. In fact there pieces of art, but our pieces of art capturing our expressions in a natural, unforced way.

We will treasure these for the rest of our time, thank you to everyone at the Venture studio in Darlington.

There is no doubt that Venture really is unqiue and produces some beautiful photos. It’s quite tricky to find though becuse it’s up a little side street - it’s best to ask for directions if you can.
The whole place has a lovely feel to it and the staff are all rally nice. Not just anyone can walk in either you need to buzz on the right of the door to announce you’re here for a session or a viewing. The photographers are really nice and come and chat to you while you’re sitting in the luxurious waiting room - decorated with pretty much every style of photo to get you drooling after particular arrangements and a TV set. Anyway they chat about what you want with your pictures, when we went we opted for half silly and half more romantic and ended up walking away with the more moody romantic shots.
The one thing is, no matter how much the photographer tried to relax me, I felt silly all the way through just because they get you to do some crazy stuff and you think I wouldn’t do it at home, why am I running round doing it here? However I tried to ignore the silly feeling and found it quite amusing and fun - we took space hoppers which were quite fun - though I wasn’t able to master the spontaneous laughing they asked me to do all the way through!
The viewing is deliberately set out to make you want to buy ALL the photos. They give you a hot drink first - nice hot chocolate for any particular hot chocolate lovers out there and then you go to the room. They can be quite pushy with sales so you have to be ready to stamp your foot down as the prices are really really high. However it still is hard to prevent yourself from buying all the photos, I’ll warn you now! Just make sure you set yourself a reasonable budget before you head out!

It’s definitely worth it though.

We visited Venture in Darlington, after being given one of their packs as a gift.
The shoot itself was wonderful and the photographer was excellent with my 3 year old son and really made it fun for him.
The photos are very very expensive, which came as quite a shock to us but we still ordered some prints at the viewing, as they were so lovely.
The staff are very friendly and helpful and answer any questions you have.
A great experience for all the family.