Tempest photography is one of those mobile photography studios which will come to your location and take posed photos for you. They seem to work on schools, sports teams etc but they also seem to have the monopoly on graduation day professional photographs and my experience of them in this setting is what I'm going to write about.

Tempest took both mine and my boyfriends grad photos at two different unis. The way I see it is that during graduation season they must go around loads of unis, staying there for a week or so at a time. At both experiences, there were multiple (I think about 10) booths of photographers set up back to back and around the room. Obviously there are a lot of graduands and their families wanting pictures in a short space of time so the set up has to be very efficient. I think they have hit the nail on this.

In the (very large) queue, there were multiple clipboards with pens and the form to order the pictures which you wanted (i.e. with your name, address, card details - you just filled in the picture references when you got them). This made the queue go a bit faster and they had been slightly pre-filled in with the uni name etc. There were also leaflets showing the various packages and the prices for them.

When it was your turn you went into the free booth and posed for the photos. The photographer was so nice and you couldn't tell that she had probably already taken a million of the same picture that day. I was handed a piece of plastic pipe with a ribbon around it, the lady styled me and then told me how to stand. I felt a bit odd but she knew what she was doing and the pictures did come out really nice. She had no problems taking a whole bunch of pictures in various orders and combinations of my family and after each picture she printed out a page with a mini proof on it and the details to order.

I was rushed for time so took these sheets home and decided after my holiday which to go for. I then ordered online. My boyfriend didn't order his for a year after his grad and the online codes still worked and his photos were still there. I thought this was pretty good. Also you could send the details to someone else like your granny and they could view the pictures online and buy them themselves if they want to.

So the photos are pretty expensive but to be honest I think everyone is already resigned to this when they go to graduate. For me, I wanted pictures to commemorate a special day and I wanted pictures like my mum dad and sister have had before me. I think we worked out the best value as one of the packages and bought two of them (per pack you could have 2 lots of photos and I wanted 4 sets - me, me with my boyfriend, me with my mum and dad and me with mum, dad, granny and grandpa). This worked out as about £150 but I have too many photos. This was the best way to get plenty to share though.

The photos said they would take up to 6 weeks to arrive which I thought was fair as it was the middle of their season. They didn't actually take that long and when they came they had a good protective sleeve around them and there was also a mini (passport size) set (around 15) of each picture. These are nice as I think my boyfriend has one of these in his wallet. These small pics weren't mentioned anywhere and we weren't charged for them.

My only gripe is that when the pictures came they came with mounts (I didn't buy framed pics) which were nice, the larger ones had the uni name and crest etc but the sizes are impossible! I have been to EVERY frame selling shop in vain and ended up having one professionally framed, and trimming the mounts on the others. This is a shame as not being standard sizes is so super annoying.