Students UBC Graduation Photos - Evangelos & Artona

milquetoast · Jan 18, 2011

I stumbled onto this article in an archive PDF of the Ubyssey while looking into how to book grad photographs and thought it was pretty funny.

(FYI: Who you book with is department specific rather than faculty specific. If you're like me and never got any notices or emails detailing the process , check to see if your department is listed on the Artona site here: http://www.artonagroup.com/schools/UBC. If it's not, you're likely with Evangelos.)

GRAD PHOTOS: Controversy develops around studios by Stanley Tromp
UBC graduating class representatives are criticizing the business tactics used by two Vancouver photo studios, calling them over-zealous. Accusations have been flying since last summer, when the competition between local photography studios The Artona Group and Evangelos for composite photo contracts grew increasingly intense. Graduating class representatives are usually responsible for choosing which studio receives the department’s class composite business for the year, although sometimes the society’s president makes the choice.

The 1995-96 English department undergrad class representative says Artona offered her complimentary photos after she decided to award them the composite photo contract. “I told my society executives about this and they didn’t mind, although I don’t know what the students thought,” she said. The 1995-96 History representative says she was also offered free pictures after signing a contract with Artona. “I’ve done the work of bringng the business over thereand I suppose that’s their way of thanking me,” she said.

Both insist that because the offers came long after the contracts were signed, however, they cannot be considered as “incentives.” Artona’s UBC representative, Mary Wong, said she was sorry if the studio’s actions appeared inappropriate, but rejected the idea that the studio was guilty of any wrong-doing. “I don’t book saying you’ll get free pictures if you come to us,” she said. She says the free offers were simply intended to recognize the hard work put in by grad representatives. “I get very close to grad reps because I talk to them so much,” she said.
“It almost becomes so that you’re not a client but a friend.”

Wong says the Dean of UBC’s Medicine Faculty did investigate Artona two years ago after allegations that she had bribed a Medicine student. She says the investigation cleared the photo studio of any wrong-doing. “That got investigated and showed not a penny was ever given to students, or anything,” Wong said.

The English and History undergraduate representatives had complaints about Artona’s competitor, Evangelos. While the History department was shopping for a studio last October, Evangelos’ UBC representative, Denis Beauvais, wrote a letter offering the undergraduate class reprersentatives a complimentary portrait sitting to test the studio’s “Quality and Service.” “‘Complimentary’ implies ‘free’ to me, and it sounds like an incentive,” the History representative said.

Evangelos owner, Manuel Espinosa, says the offer was intended only to provide a sample, so grad representatives could study Evangelos’ work without having to hire models. “We just show the proofs and that’s it. We never, ever give away free pictures.” On October 11, Espinosa wrote to the same grad representative, offering to donate funds to the History Students Association (HSA) for scholarships or to fund the society’s dinner dance or “any other HSA endeavor.” “Such assistance would range between $750 and $1,000, based on the number of HSA members using Evangelos Services this Graduation year,” Espinosa wrote. The English department received a similar offer from Evangelos.

“I found [the offer] a bit of a turnoff,” the History rep said. “I haven’t had much experience with this before, and I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate.” Espinosa says the offer was perfectly proper because it was made for all History students, not an individual. He says he knew the two departments already planned to take their business to the competition and were “lost causes”; Evangelos, he says, was “just testing the waters.” Both offers were rejected and no funds paid.

Vandalism has also been a problem. Last December, someone scrawled “Cancelled” over Evangelos posters for Political Science photo appointments, and Political Science students say an Artona poster was subsequently pasted beneath one of them. Correcting the false cancellations created a month of headaches for the Political Science undergraduate society. Wong said she had never heard of the incident. “There’s plenty of business for everybody. We don’t need to do any of that garbage,” she said.

The Commerce, Economics and Biology undergraduate societies also use Artona, which is owned by John Rak, but their grad representatives could not be reached for comment. The 1995-96 president of the Philosphy Students Association said Artona also did his society’s composite photos. In Philosophy’s case, however, the studio did their class composite for free to match a third competing studio’s free offer. Many undergraduate representatives were reluctant to talk publicly about this story. “It’s funny,” one mused, “but university politics is a lot scarier than I ever imagined.”
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Students UBC Graduation Photos - Evangelos & Artona

milquetoast Senior Member

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