Wagner Portrait Group reviews

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!

I got many raises in job responsibilities, as high as I could go (senior photos & families). But never an increase in wage. Those that did ask for raises were generally let go. I was thankfully advised to copy my time sheets by another new hire. Checks were never correct, always under the amount due. I'm great at math and I had a difficult time getting the "accounting" department to understand how my check was wrong. Those who were salaried worked 60-80 hours a week without a change in pay. Hours are crazy. Sometimes you may get to work at 4am and not get home until 10pm. You only get 30min for lunch. No communication. Some people were fired then hired back the next week. During slow times they may just not give you any hours with out any warning. I did well because I laid low and just nodded my head when someone yelled at me. Everyone got yelled at so we tried not to take it personally. Tough times experienced together make for good, lasting friendships.