St. John Photography Privacy Policy

Effective Date: July 14, 2026

St. John Photography respects the privacy of our clients, website visitors, photograph subjects, parents and guardians, students, and other individuals whose information we process.

This Privacy Policy explains how St. John Photography collects, uses, maintains, discloses, and protects personal information in connection with our website, customer accounts, photography services, online galleries, orders, communications, and related services.

1. Scope of This Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to personal information collected through:

• Our website and online customer accounts.
• Photography inquiries, bookings, sessions, and events.
• School, family, children, headshot, commercial, and event photography services.
• Online galleries, photograph-search tools, shopping carts, and orders.
• Email, telephone, contact forms, and other communications.
• Information received from schools, employers, event organizers, parents, guardians, and other clients.

Separate photography agreements, school agreements, order terms, model releases, parental authorizations, and image licenses may govern the creation, ownership, delivery, publication, or other use of photographs. This Privacy Policy does not itself grant St. John Photography permission to use a person’s likeness for advertising or promotional purposes.

2. Personal Information We Collect

Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect the following categories of information.

Contact and Account Information

This may include your name, mailing address, email address, telephone number, account username, password or password-protected credential, communication preferences, and other account information.

Photography and Session Information

This may include:

• Photographs, video, and other visual content.
• Names or identifying information associated with photograph subjects.
• Session dates, event details, locations, scheduling information, and client instructions.
• Image numbers, file metadata, gallery identifiers, access codes, and photograph selections.
• Retouching, cropping, printing, and product preferences.
• Information provided in connection with model releases or image-use permissions.

School and Student Information

When we provide school photography services, we may receive information from a school, parent, guardian, or authorized organization. Depending on the engagement, this may include a student’s name, grade, classroom, teacher, student or order identifier, school affiliation, parent or guardian contact information, photograph, and ordering information.

We use school and student information to provide the photography services requested by the school, parent, or guardian and for related administrative, fulfillment, security, and customer-service purposes.

Order and Transaction Information

We may collect order history, products purchased, shipping and billing information, payment status, discounts, refunds, and related transaction information.

Payment-card information may be collected directly by a third-party payment processor. St. John Photography may receive a transaction confirmation and limited billing information rather than the complete payment-card number.

Communications and Marketing Information

We collect information contained in inquiries, emails, telephone calls, contact forms, customer-service requests, reviews, survey responses, and other communications.

When you sign up for marketing messages, we also maintain your marketing preferences and records of your consent or opt-out request.

Website, Device, and Usage Information

When you use our website, we or our service providers may automatically collect:

• Internet Protocol address.
• Browser and device type.
• Operating system.
• Referring and exit pages.
• Pages or galleries visited.
• Dates, times, and approximate duration of visits.
• Session, login, cart, and visitor identifiers.
• Cookie and similar technology information.
• Information about interactions with our website and emails.

Information From Other Sources

We may receive information from schools, employers, event organizers, commercial clients, parents, guardians, family members, payment processors, fulfillment providers, and other parties involved in arranging or delivering photography services.

3. How We Use Personal Information

We may use personal information to:

• Respond to inquiries and schedule photography services.
• Create, edit, organize, store, and deliver photographs and related products.
• Create and administer customer accounts and galleries.
• Associate photographs with the appropriate client, student, family, school, or event.
• Authenticate users and control access to galleries or accounts.
• Process orders, payments, shipping, returns, refunds, and customer-service requests.
• Communicate about sessions, galleries, orders, deadlines, and expiring galleries.
• Provide information requested by schools, employers, or organizational clients in accordance with the applicable engagement.
• Maintain business, tax, accounting, contract, and transaction records.
• Prevent fraud, misuse, unauthorized gallery access, and security incidents.
• Troubleshoot, maintain, secure, and improve our website and services.
• Send promotional communications when you have requested or agreed to receive them.
• Comply with legal obligations and enforce our agreements.
• Protect the rights, safety, property, and security of St. John Photography, our clients, photograph subjects, and others.

We will use a photograph in our public portfolio, website, social-media account, advertising, sample products, competitions, or other promotional materials only as permitted by an applicable agreement, model release, parental authorization, or other legally sufficient permission.

4. How We Disclose Personal Information

We may disclose personal information to the following categories of recipients.

Service Providers

We may engage companies that provide services such as:

• Website and gallery hosting.
• Cloud storage and backup.
• Payment processing.
• Photograph printing and product fulfillment.
• Shipping and delivery.
• Email and customer communications.
• Scheduling and customer relationship management.
• Information technology, cybersecurity, and technical support.
• Website analytics.
• Accounting, insurance, and professional advisory services.

These providers may process personal information only as necessary to perform services for us and subject to appropriate contractual or other restrictions.

Schools, Employers, Event Organizers, and Organizational Clients

When photography services are arranged by a school, employer, event organizer, or other organization, we may provide information, photographs, order status, or administrative information to that organization as reasonably necessary to perform the engagement.

Parents, Guardians, Clients, and Authorized Gallery Users

Photographs and related information may be made available to the client who arranged the session, a parent or guardian, the photographed individual, or other people authorized to access the applicable gallery or account.

A person who receives or obtains a gallery link, password, access code, or account credential may be able to view information available through that gallery or account. Clients should not forward protected gallery credentials to unauthorized persons.

Legal and Safety Disclosures

We may disclose information when we reasonably believe disclosure is necessary to:

• Comply with a law, subpoena, court order, or legal process.
• Respond to an authorized government request.
• Investigate fraud, misuse, unauthorized access, or a security incident.
• Protect the rights, safety, or property of St. John Photography or another person.
• Establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

Business Transactions

Information may be disclosed in connection with a proposed or completed merger, acquisition, financing, sale of assets, reorganization, insurance claim, or transfer of some or all of our business. Any recipient will be expected to handle the information consistently with applicable law.

With Your Direction or Consent

We may disclose information when you ask us to do so or provide permission.

Sale of personal information: St. John Photography does not sell personal information for monetary consideration.

5. Photographs, Galleries, and Image Privacy

Photographs may contain personal information about the individuals depicted in them.

We may use password protection, gallery links, access codes, account authentication, or other measures designed to limit gallery access. These controls reduce unauthorized access but cannot guarantee that a person who receives a link, code, password, download, or copy will not disclose it to someone else.

Gallery availability and expiration periods may vary by assignment, school, event, or agreement. Clients should download or order photographs within the period communicated for the applicable gallery.

Image publication and promotional use are governed by the applicable photography agreement, model release, school authorization, parental permission, or other agreement. A person’s presence in a private customer gallery does not, by itself, authorize St. John Photography to publish the image publicly.

6. Children’s Privacy

Our website accounts and purchasing functions are intended for adults. Children under 13 should not create an account, place an order, subscribe to marketing communications, or submit personal information directly to us without the involvement and authorization of a parent or legal guardian.

As part of our school, family, event, and children’s photography services, we may process photographs and related information concerning children at the direction of a school, parent, guardian, or other authorized client.

We do not knowingly collect personal information online directly from a child under 13 in circumstances that require parental consent without first obtaining the required authorization.

A parent or guardian who believes that a child has submitted personal information directly to us without appropriate authorization may contact us using the information below. We will review the request and take appropriate action.

7. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies to operate our website and support functions such as:

• Maintaining website sessions.
• Authenticating customer accounts.
• Remembering login or account preferences.
• Maintaining shopping-cart contents.
• Remembering whether a visitor has viewed a notice or promotion.
• Measuring website use and performance.
• Detecting security problems or misuse.

Cookies may be temporary session cookies or persistent cookies that remain on a device for a defined period.

You may be able to block or delete cookies through your browser settings. Blocking necessary cookies may prevent account, cart, gallery, login, or ordering functions from working correctly.

Where required by applicable law, we will request consent before placing nonessential cookies or similar technologies.

St. John Photography will maintain a current cookie inventory identifying the cookies and similar technologies used on the website, their purposes, providers, and approximate duration. 

cookie name	Source	description
__stripe_mid	Stripe	Fraud prevention and detection
__stripe_sid	Stripe	Fraud prevention and detection
emview	stjohnphotography.com	Set if you have viewed our mailing list popup offer (value of 1). Required so it does not show to you each time you visit our site.
hasloggedin	stjohnphotography.com	Set if you have previously logged into your account (value of 1)
lv	stjohnphotography.com	The date of your last visit for our statistical system.
m	Stripe	Tracks the user's session for Stripe
ms_session	stjohnphotography.com	A unique random identifier for user experience and actions such as saving contents of your shopping cart.
persid	stjohnphotography.com	An encrypted ID to automatically log you into your account if you choose the remember me option when creating an account or logging in.
PHPSESSID	stjohnphotography.com	Random value to start sessions
PXE-uid-STUDIO ED0IQFWH1HF4HYP	stjohnphotography.com	This specific suffix is a system-generated, hardware-tied ID.
PXE-uid-STUDIO ED0IQFWH1HF4HYP	stjohnphotography.com	This specific suffix is a system-generated, hardware-tied ID.
s7	Adobe Analytics	Gather data regarding site usage and user behavior on the website.
vid	stjohnphotography.com	A visitor ID number used for our statistical system.

8. Marketing Communications

We send promotional emails only as permitted by applicable law and based on the preferences provided to us.

You may unsubscribe from promotional emails by using the unsubscribe mechanism in the message or by contacting us. Even after opting out of promotional messages, you may continue to receive non-promotional communications concerning an account, session, gallery, order, payment, security issue, or other service-related matter.

We do not sell our marketing list.

9. Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to:

• Provide photography and ordering services.
• Maintain galleries and photograph archives where offered or agreed.
• Complete transactions and fulfill orders.
• Maintain appropriate business, tax, insurance, and accounting records.
• Comply with contractual and legal obligations.
• Resolve disputes and respond to customer-service requests.
• Protect against fraud, misuse, and security incidents.
• Establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

Retention periods vary depending on the type of information, the applicable service or agreement, and legal requirements.

When information is no longer reasonably needed, we take steps designed to delete, destroy, de-identify, or otherwise dispose of it securely. Information may remain for a limited period in protected backups or archives before being overwritten or deleted.

10. Information Security

We maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, acquisition, use, alteration, disclosure, or destruction.

Our safeguards may include access restrictions, account authentication, protected gallery controls, secure service providers, system maintenance, backups, staff procedures, and secure disposal practices.

No website, internet transmission, storage system, or security measure can be guaranteed to be completely secure. Please protect your account password, gallery access code, and login credentials and notify us if you believe that an account or gallery has been accessed without authorization.

11. Your Choices and Privacy Requests

You may contact us to request that we:

• Provide information about the personal information we maintain about you.
• Correct inaccurate account or contact information.
• Delete personal information, subject to applicable exceptions.
• Close an account.
• Update your communication preferences.
• Opt you out of promotional communications.
• Review a concern involving a photograph or gallery.
• Address information submitted by a child.

We may need to verify your identity or authority before completing a request. For example, we may ask for information sufficient to confirm your identity, your relationship to the applicable account, order, gallery, or photographed child, and your authority to act for another person.

We may retain information when reasonably necessary to complete a transaction, maintain required records, comply with law, detect fraud, protect security, exercise legal rights, or fulfill another permitted purpose.

Depending on your state of residence and the laws applicable to St. John Photography, you may have additional rights concerning access, correction, deletion, portability, or certain disclosures and uses of personal information. We will respond to verified requests as required by applicable law and will not unlawfully discriminate against an individual for exercising an applicable privacy right.

12. Third-Party Websites and Services

Our website may contain links to social-media platforms, payment services, or other third-party websites and services.

Those parties operate under their own privacy policies and practices. We are not responsible for the privacy or security practices of a third party after you leave our website or choose to interact directly with that party.

13. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically to reflect changes in our services, technologies, legal obligations, or information practices.

The revised policy will display a new “Last Updated” date. When appropriate, we may provide additional notice of a material change through our website, customer account, email, or another reasonable method.

We will not apply a materially more permissive information practice retroactively when additional notice or consent is required by applicable law.

14. Contact Us

Questions, concerns, and privacy requests may be submitted to:

St. John Photography
129 Main Street
Pineville, North Carolina 28134

Email: info(at)stjohnphotography.com
Telephone: (704) 889-7800