A picture is worth a thousand words, making photographs and stick-figure sketches the easiest solutions to looming dissertation deadlines. Take advantage of efficient visual-communication strategies with today’s Groupon: $59 for a one-hour in-studio photo shoot for one person, a 10-image CD, and two 5”x7” prints at Fusion Photography (a $514 total value).

Fusion Photography specializes in artistic and organic fine-art portraits ideal for senior pictures, business headshots, and photos of brand-new babies. A one-hour photo session begins with a preshoot consultation to forge a common vision between subject and photographer (a $50 value), freeing the shutterbug to pursue mantle-ready images set against the in-home feel of the Fusion Photography studio. After capturing wild light and taming it with practiced technique and minor touch-ups, Fusion Photography traps customer-selected shots in two 5”x7” prints (a $64 value) and loads 10 retouched, printable images on a CD (a $400 value) ostensibly for posterity, but actually as fodder for dummy VIP passes to exclusive gatherings of high-flying librarians.

For nostalgia seekers, Fusion Photography offers free upgrades of its vibrant color prints to vintage sepia and high-contrast black-and-white images. These tonal transformations allow a brief return to the optics of previous centuries, before scientists figured out how to illuminate everything via a simple code of color by number.