L'Imagerie Photography Center

I don’t like this place. At all. Granted, I should have known that L'Imagerie was not the place to get my vacation photos developed—I didn’t check the website first—but I’m not sure it’s entirely appropriate for them to take advantage of my stupidity. If you walk into Brooks Brothers looking for khakis, they probably point you towards The Gap before they sell you $200 tan trousers. But the folks at L’Imagerie were happy to let me spend twice what I would elsewhere to develop 7 rolls of film and have photo CDs made. I’ll say it again, I should have known better. But that said, here’s what happened.

M- and I went to Italy in October and I wanted to get the film developed to see if any of the photos might make a good Christmas present. And yes, I was actually using good old fashioned film. With all the recent trips up and down Rockville Pike I was excited to see somewhere so close to our house, so I decided to take it there.

I took my bag full of film straight past the jaded mannequin sitting on the sidewalk and was promptly helped by some goofy French guy with a handlebar moustache (no joke) who reeked of cigarettes. He told me that film is normally taken downstairs, but he would help me anyway, and he told me that I could have the pictures by the following Monday. What he didn’t tell me was that I’d be paying 25¢ per print and $7.50 per roll of film put on CD. In fact he didn’t mention cost at all until we got the B&W roll, at which point he told me that those would cost 60¢ per print. When I asked about getting a contact sheet instead, he did not tell me it would cost $6 per print to develop them later. Yes, I know I should have asked for a price list, but I didn’t. When I went to pick up the contact sheet, and got upset about the undisclosed cost, I was told brazenly that I was told the cost (which I would remember, because I remember what things cost), but that if I developed all 37 B&W prints, I could have them for $4 per print as a "special deal." I opted for just 11 of the photos at full price. All told, for the color and B&W film, I spent over $250 to develop my vacation snapshots.

So I’m not saying I didn’t walk right into this one. All I’m saying is that the professionals in this case could have saved me a lot of money and frustration, and I prefer business people who don’t see the need to take every customer for what they’re worth. Luckily M- got me a Casio Exilim for Christmas, so I won’t be dealing with Ritz (4901 Elm Street, 301-652-5646) and CVS (7809 Wisconsin Avenue, 301.986.9144) to see which is better.

L’Imagerie, 8216 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, 301.986.4746

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Comments

[Crack Tail]

There is no need to insult the person running the business by referring to him as "goofy." What does that have to do with how much you paid for film processing? Business reviews are helpful but personal insults are not. How would you feel if people anonymously posted comments about your appearance online?

I have no affiliation with L'Imagerie other than the fact that I have had some black and white film processed there in the past. They do a great job and their prices are reasonable for their professional services.