Thurston Studios

Not disagreeing with the overall opinion of Thorton, I wish they were better but they are the ones with the contract. Sometimes, life is playing the hand you are delt not the one you wish you had.

We are in the middle of putting together a photo album, that covers our Mids 4 year experiiece at the Academy. We intend to give it to her at graduation in May. I too grumbled at the cost of downloading those photos 4 years ago, but 4 years later I'm so happy to have those 10-15 photos and DVD's that cover a very unique part of her life. We live on the West Coast, so paying for some photos seems like a small cost to pay with some hind sight.

I actually used Thorton a second time as my Mid was a detailer for Plebe summer. Again, not thrilled about laying out the money but got those 10+ photos that hold those special moments in memory.
 
Point well made MIDNDAD..:thumb:

Makes me realize that I'll probably be using Thornton again this Summer when my Mid is a PS detailer (1st set) also.....hoping the USNA Facebook photos extensively cover PS...:thumb:
 
Long time since I started this thread!

I had forgotten that I started this thread last year. I was mistaken in the name of the photography company (sorry about that) and am now very familiar with them and their work. A great deal of people are obviously not pleased. I am in the minority. I agree that they are very expensive and it would be nice if there was some competition to drive the prices downward. I was satisfied with the pricey prints that I purchased and I loved looking at the site for my Plebe last summer. There was one photo in particular that took my breathe away when I saw it on their site. It was an up-close photo of my son with a smiling smirk that told me he was just fine. It powered me through the summer and I ordered a print to place on my night stand. It is still my favorite.

In addition to the few candid pics that I ordered, I had the company take formal photos of my son on the Yard in the fall. I had not planned to do so until I received the proofs of the school photos. They were average to me and didn't capture my son at all. I figured that he was only a Plebe once and called to schedule a sitting.

The day that the photos were taken I talked to my son and he said that the photographer was really funny and he actually enjoyed the session. The photos are amazing! All of them are absolutely beautiful. The colors of the leaves and the buildings, Herndon, etc in the background make the photos priceless. The paper is high quality and the processing is professional. I was thrilled with these pics. The grandparents each received photos for Christmas. I think that this portion of their work is their area of expertise and I would hire them again in a second to take formal photos.

That's my two cents.
 
MIDNDAD said:
Not disagreeing with the overall opinion of Thorton, I wish they were better but they are the ones with the contract. Sometimes, life is playing the hand you are delt not the one you wish you had.

We are in the middle of putting together a photo album, that covers our Mids 4 year experiiece at the Academy. We intend to give it to her at graduation in May. I too grumbled at the cost of downloading those photos 4 years ago, but 4 years later I'm so happy to have those 10-15 photos and DVD's that cover a very unique part of her life. We live on the West Coast, so paying for some photos seems like a small cost to pay with some hind sight.

I actually used Thorton a second time as my Mid was a detailer for Plebe summer. Again, not thrilled about laying out the money but got those 10+ photos that hold those special moments in memory.
Click to expand...

Good point, but I have over 20 high quality photos of my Plebe during PS that didn't cost a penny, thanks to some wonderful local parent/sponsor photographers with amazing access to Plebe summer---new 2015 parents, join the usna parent listserve, and you will have PLENTY of where's waldo opportunities for free!
 
I agree that this photography site is extremely costly and that there are issues. But, from my perspective, the few pictures that I purchased for downloading at the beginning of the Plebe summer ended up being priceless. My son broke his ankle 17 days into the training, so these are the only pictures that we really have of our son with his company doing things that the others Plebes did. The rest of the pictures I managed to find posted by other sites included a few far away pics of DS on crutches! Yikes! I guess you just never know.
 
Wow, lovethenavy...was it really only 17 days in that your son had that nasty accident? It seemed like an eternity, and probably more so for our Plebes than for us!
 
Yes, and thank goodness for all of you who kept me sane. I cherish the pics of DS on the rope course and in his company pictures, smile a mile wide. :smile:
 
Just to follow up: The foundation called me and explained they are reviewing "relationships - including with Thorton"

:thumbdown: Bad news: Because of contractual reasons, Thorton will be used for this year's incoming class of Plebes (Class of 2015).

:thumb: Good News:The foundation printed out the complaints from this board and will also collect the complaints they received from Mid parents who bought their services in prior years. The Foundation will use this in their evaluation for next year's selection process.

I discussed using the Navy Exchange, and was told USNA also has a media center and they will also be evaluated. The point was bought up they may use a competitive bid process for other local photographers.

Hope this helps future Mids & their parents!
 
greeneagle: I had totally overlooked the idea of signing up for Thornton's for my Mid's "2nd Plebe Summer." Thanks for the idea! Still, there won't be quite the same intensity in this summer's "where's Waldo sessions" :biggrin:

Sorry if this repeats an earlier post, but I found Thornton's to be worth the minimum $ charge just for the ability to do daily where's Waldo-ing. It helped that there were several excellent photos of my then-Plebe. (I think they took lots of pictures of her because she was usually smiling, even during PS). At the end, I purchased the digital files for several photos, which I printed at Walgreen's. That was pretty cost effective, since we wanted many copies of 4x6 photos.
 
Not endorsing Thornton here, but something else to think about before you decide against signing up with them: they do publish a daily activities list, by company, so that parents can at least see what their plebe did during the previous two days. It is not real time, IOW, they do not post what your plebe is doing that day, but at least you can see what they did during the previous two days. I think it was broken down into 3 sections: morning, afternoon, and evening. It covers everything from briefings to uniform fittings to the various physical activities above and beyond morning PEP.

We found this information useful when our plebe made the three phone calls home. We were able to say things like, " Looks like you had Sailing last week. How did that go?" or "Saw you were supposed to do the confidence course the other day. What was that like?" They have so much information that they want to share in the course of a short phone call that we found it helpful to have this information on-hand so that the conversation could be a little more structured (and informative) rather than the quasi-stream-of-consciousness thoughts that come spilling out of them.
FWIW.
 
"like" ^^^^

That was one of my favorite parts about Thornton's website. I LOVED having some idea of what DS was doing.
 
Agree w/ Wilson73 and MomoftheMagik

The best candid pix I have of my son's 4 yrs by the bay were from Thornton. I have lots of complaints about them, but they have access to plebes that no one else gets. Be irritated, complain about their prices, but don't deny yourself this opportunity to see your kid in his element.
 
Thornton should have a table set up on I-Day morning under the big white tent located on the corner of the parade grounds, across from Alumni Hall (where your incoming plebe will report). If not, or if you are not going to I-Day with your plebe, their website from last year was www.plebesummer.com.
 
Got the Herff Jones today. Great Pictures of the 1/C. Ring and sword and all.:thumb:
 
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