Oom Doing a House Call
About three months into my SL, I became obsessed, really obsessed with SL photography. I’m a photography hobbyist in my real life and always excited about new techniques and learning new things about it. In SL, I’m the same way. I soon outgrew just doing snapshots, was snapping away in high res and wanted a photo studio to play with, but which one to get? I bought a couple of low end units from Xstreet and played around but they just weren’t enough for me. I read blogs and tp’d around looking for just the right thing. By sheer luck, I landed at photoLIFE on Opium and was immediately struck by the quality of the studio (pL3) they were selling. The price was a little more than I was expecting but the product features made it well worth it so I bought it.
That purchase all those months ago turned out to be one of my smartest SL purchases and one that keeps on giving. The product is solid, there are often updates and most of all there is the Team photoLIFE group. I have learned more from just watching the group chat than in any classroom. The biggest lesson I’ve learned from TPL is that of customer service.
OomPoppaMowMow Snookums or Oom is one of the most amazing business person I’ve met in SL or RL. His level of customer service is amazing. For example, recently there was an upgrade to the system and I missed the notice in the flurry of notecards that usually greet me upon arrival. Sometimes I miss things. I heard in group chat that there was a update and asked about it. Not only did I get an answer, but Oom asked me for a TP and personally came over to do the upgrade. Who does that? This wasn’t an isolated event, Oom and his team are always happy to come over and help. Beyond that, experienced group members offer advice, will come over and help and no one ever makes you feel dumb for asking.
Most of my group chats are full of random sniping, questions about sales or effusive jabbering about dresses. The TPL group chat is one window I never close. I’ve learned about aspect ratios, where to find just the right pose or prop, contests, sales, how different features of the studio work and made friends. I’ve never had a question that wasn’t answered immediately and by several people with offers to help. Oom has managed to build a customer base of kind and helpful people who, like the TPL team, go that extra mile.
While the photo studio and accompanying add-ons are all solid and amazing products (yay Omega Flexi!), it is the customer service and plain old-fashioned kindness that makes photoLife the product to buy when you’re looking for a studio.
Check out the work of Team Photolifers on Flickr.
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Mari Malaspina is a writer, an SL junkie, fashionista, SL sculpture lover and finder of cool sims. She is co-publisher of Slinkmag and is known to Tweet a lot under her RL name as well as for Slinkmag. She's always looking for cool and fun things to write about and buys more virtual goods than she should. Watch out asset server! 
Mari,
I could not agree more about the high quality, both of Team Photolife and of their chat group. I have not raised the lindens yet to pay for the full system, but find the chat discussions to be lively and informative. Well worth joining even if just to find out whats going on.