School photos-what a waste.

[Ohwhatfuckeryitistoride]

We've been having a huge clear out and ive come across the box of school photos. Now ive got 4 kids. Not only were there photos from year 7 and 11 for the oldest 3 but for every year for youngest. Plus the class photo. I always got the smallest option but still, big one, grandparent ones and little contact print size. The boys hate all of them. Dd isnt bothered about them. But i feel so guilty(and so ripped off by bloody tempest) about getting rid of them. Surely these days, when phone cameras are ubiquitous schools dont need to do this.(I know schools use them for SIMS) Parental guilt drives it of course. And what do you do with the bloody things?

I never understood why ppl buy them that are so dull compared to nice photos of kids doing things enjoy. Incredibly strange tradition and just an excuse to rinse parents.

I have kept one of each, im not a monster.
Ages now between 37 and 28. 1 had a really shit time at school and really doesnt want reminding. We have got primary ones which were nice because they did family groups. My favourite is the twins,one is grinning madly, the other is ☹️. Always makes me laugh.
There are some howlers though. They were quite normal looking kids, but ds1's year 7 looks like he has a coconut for a head. Ds2 is doing a weird squidged up face. DS3 had long hair and he basically looked like cousin It, just one eye peeking out.
Not as bad as my mate's kid at nursery-lovely picture except for the huge bogey sticking out of his nose.

The huge nursery ones with loads of kids we do not know and they are huge ?

The huge nursery ones with loads of kids we do not know and they are huge ?

I got secondary group photos in year 7 so I could put faces to names of new friends, and also got group photos in their last year of school, partly because its interesting to compare the two, but also because after they all go their separate ways one or more of them might become famous (or infamous!).

I sometimes look back at my own group photos from school to see how many names I can remember.

Same. Didn’t buy a single one. Much prefer our own photos.

Going against the grain but I’ve bought the individual shot every year I love them. I have one or two up but now DC are late teens I’m wondering what to do with them. Was thinking of making a gallery wall with them in our upstairs landing so I can see them every day. Possibly really naff.

We always bought the cheaoest option and scanned it into the computer (cheaper than buying the digital option). But sometimes the cheapest option included 9 million wallet size pics, bookmarks etc etc. We have a very small extended family so ended up chucking all the excess ones.

I’ve bought school photos every year. I display the latest ones in a frame and the old ones get put away in a folder, I write on the back what year they were in when it was taken. Also give copies to grandparents who enjoy them too. I am sentimental so keeping stuff like this to look back on in future is right up my street. I take a lot of photos of dc on my phone but rarely get around to getting them printed out and framed so it’s nice to have a ‘professional’ one on display.

The buying options annoy me though, they never have quite what you need. You either pay for a ‘package’ where you end up with 10 copies of the same photo that you don’t need, or you pay double for 3 prints because that’s all you need. Oh and the fact that most of the packages only include one photo, so if you have two or more dc then you end up drowning in photos unless you splurge for individual prints which is what I often did. These photography companies know what they’re doing.

I don't know... I'm a sentimental fool. We're done with the whole school photo thing for many years now, but I still have some of them around the house and on the fridge. They're mostly awful but adorable in their awfulness. I think they just capture a moment in time. They capture school days to a tee! They were always taken in winter so my kids look like a vampire's been at them and they're in urgent need some sort of vitamin drip. Our collection is a sort of evidence board of eczema flares, cold sores, bad hair, bed hair, crooked ties, crooked smiles that look like the Yikes emoji before it even existed.
My eldest is 24 and I notice how much I struggle to remember teachers' names now and that makes me sad.
My daughter's in college. I used to despair over the state of her hair in school photos. She insisted on doing her own hair. There wasn't a hope of helping her style it for picture day. Her hair, in every photo, is sooo bad but so creative. I think My Little Pony must have been her inspiration. Now she bleaches it and colours it every colour of the Manic Panic rainbow. I miss her My Little Pony hairstyles.
The photos I used to sigh over and moan "We PAID for this?" have become these nostalgic time capsules, condensing everything that is so wonderfully wonky about childhood and those school days which pass by far too quickly.
When I divorced and was packing up the family home, I came across a school photo sample I'd never ordered from. And I suddenly just teared up and fell apart. I had to have that photo! But it was like 8 years old and I thought, there's no way I'll ever be able to order the photo. I contacted the company and learned that they no longer did school photos but had the email address of one of the photographers who might have access to the archives, which she did, on a disk. It was so old school and so human, our communication. I had this lovely email chat going on with this lady who conjured up the images of my kids (it was a sibling photo) and I was able to order it and bring it to my new house.
Sorry to derail the thread with my Pro School Photo stance. 😆

I’m in the minority because I absolutely love them. My primary aged daughter has a profile shot and a class photo every year and I buy all of them. I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of any of them.