Thank you for your patronage over the past several years as Erica and I have worked to rebuild this department to provide for your poster printing and portrait photography needs. This past year has been especially difficult—while we are grateful for the increase demand, our limited staffing has hindered our ability to meet that demand and provide you with the quality service that you have been accustomed to in the past.
Our department of two will be limited to one staff member by the end of Fall Quarter. Erica is slated to return by Summer 2025. As this will become a one-person shop until then, we are making some immediate changes now to ensure we have a clean slate going into the new year.
We will be canceling all portrait sessions for the rest of the quarter.
We have a large backlog of portraits that need to be edited and sent out. However, we have not been able to approach them due to the increased demand in posters compared to previous years, and limited staffing. The only way we will be able to work through our current backlog is to have a dedicated period to editing, and to stem the flow of requests.
I am aware of how inconvenient this is for new providers, and I apologize for that. I also want to apologize for those that have been waiting for their portraits and ask for a little bit more patience. We will be temporarily closing the poster shop by the Thanksgiving holiday, which should allow us enough to time to get everyone out the door.
Adjustments to photography services.
To keep up with demand in the new year, we will be reducing some of our retouch services in exchange for expedience. Portrait appointment slots are currently closed while we assess the current schedule and will not reopen until January 2025.
We will be temporarily shutting down the group portraits form as the large influx of portraits creates a bottleneck which slows down the editing process. We will also not be accepting any on-location requests until further notice. Whole body/grid photography services will be discontinued indefinitely as we no longer have the time or staff to accommodate this specialized service.
If you have any questions regarding portrait appointments, please reach out to uwphotos@uw.edu. If you have any comments regarding these changes, you may reach out to Jason Lindahl (jlindahl@uw.edu). Thank you for your understanding.
Sincerely,
Kari
UW Poster & Photo