Pros
Working at Wagner Portrait Group has been a great experience. I started out as a seasonal employee and after there fall season I was asked to photograph seniors in the studio. They kept me the slow months Nov-Jan. February starts there Spring season and lasts through the end of May. You will meet a lot of nice people and make great relationships with them at work and outside of work. The average workday consists of going to a school, setting up equipment and performing your best to get the children to smile. It is not a job for everyone trying to get a child to smile is not the easiest job to do. You usually are done by 3pm unless you are assigned a afternoon school posed sports shoot, which your there till around 5pm because they usually photograph sports when school is dismissed You will learn a lot about posing and the correct way to pose each gender regarding what type of shoot your assigned to. I got many promotions and did so many great deeds for the company.
Cons
Cons A majority of the company schools are in Mid Missouri so you will travel to schools at least 2-3 days a week in Mid Missouri. You need to be at the school 1 hour ahead of the scheduled start time to set all the equipment up. There are very early mornings. For example, if you have a 7am shoot in Columbia you need to leave St. Louis at 4am to get there by 6am to set up. Wagner’s territory is very large covering Hannibal in the North, Columbia in the West, Rolla in the South West and Sikeston in the South. You need to calculate distance, mileage and time to each school. You are not paid hourly for drive time just mileage pay. Also beware they do not pay you mileage the first 20 miles of your job cause management considers that your “commute to work”… Best advice you need GPS for this job or you will be lost very easy! Bottom line if you want a short-term photography job or just getting started into photography or to learn how to photograph subjects this is a great start for you. If you are looking for a long-term position with them forget it. When I was there it was a great experience meeting a lot of nice people and you get to see a majority of the state of Missouri! The best part is being with the children and getting them to smile. If you can do that this is the job for you. While doing that it makes you feel so blessed to work with them every day. They can be so funny sometimes. You have nothing to be afraid of while working here just show up do the work and you will be fine. Just watch and observe what goes on behind the scenes and see if you can see or catch anything that I did. I have great respect for the company and hope they do well in the future by improving there management, communication, and there expansion of hiring people in the rural areas so St Louis employees don’t have to travel 2-3 hours to work. Wager is a decent company to work for. Give it a try for a season and write your review on here and come see for yourself the Wagner way. You will be amazed at all you learn not just being a school photographer, but an influence on a child and that goes a long way!