NOT to want to pay £29 for a school photo???

[PiedWagtail]

My school has got Tempest to do 'modern' class photos - long thin ones with the kids in small groupings with props - they cost £12.50 for a print, or £29 framed. They're awkward to find a place for, too big, too expensive (to get both my ds's class photos would be £58!!) - who can afford that?

Just emailed the school sec with my feedback and she said they have just had positive feedback - so AIBU??

What are your school pics like and how much are they? I just want a record of my dc in each school year, and their friends, and don't want to pay a fortune for it!!

No one is asking you to pay £29 for a school photo. They are offering you a photo for £12.50 or a frame plus photo for £29.

I really can't see what you are complaining about - just buy the bloody print.

A big hurrah for our school - after two years of those awful long modern photos, they've gone back to the traditional everyone lined up photos, much to everyone's relief!

The problem is what to do with the print. You can't put it in a frame unless you pay to have one specially made. You can;t pop it i nan album, they dont make them big enough. You coule just buy it and leave it in its rolled up tube. even if you buy it with the frame where on earth do you display it, too big for the mantlepiece.

I think what people are saying is give us some choice. Let us have a traditional photo in a standard size at a reasonable price.

We had one of these tempest photos.

The grouped ds(8) and his friend - the smallest boys in the class, either side of the biggest girl in the class, who's hugely tall AND fat.

Poor ds and friend looked like toddlers. Poor girl looked freakishly large.

Not good at all.

Didn't buy the picture. Don't know what possesses a photographer to do something like that in a school photo.

I really hate those prop photos, leaning all over the teachers and gym equipment. Theres no date or class name or names of kids. I never buy them.

My son was "posed" one year .... Hands in pockets, standing sideways. He looked nothing like him at all.

Bring back the normal photos i say, although sm in a minority tooo. I sympathise.

One year DC3's nursery did photos. Nothing unusual there but when I saw them

They were those 'victorian waif' ones. Hidious and weird. Weird because my DC has dreadlocks and he looked bizarre in a cloth cap and knickerbokers.

I declined to purchase any.

I never buy photos now. I keep the proof. I only want a record of what they looked like at that time. I dont like school photos, they are generally pretty naff.

I was reeling on Friday when the dcs came out of school with their class photos and they were £10.50 each.

I will stop complaining now as they are traditional rows of pupils with their class teachers and I can see everyone's face clearly and obviously much cheaper than the alternatives

I didn't buy ours, my daughters expression was very false and scrunchy...

So I dressed her for school nicely, sat her about a foot away from a plain coloured wall with good natural light. Took digital photo, telling her a joke to make a more natural smile, got printed on high street for 69p... friends dropped over and they thought I'd had her school photo back super quick.

Result.

Buy the print, take a pic of it with a digital camera and then print it out at whatever size you have a frame for. I've done this with loads of non standard size prints I've bought

I agree, they are a rip off. The mark up is way too high. Both DH and I are good photographers so we take our own.

yanbu! we just got the full group poto when we were in school.
its fab looking back on them now.

i dont see the point in single pictures of ur kid to be honest its just a money making racket... i mean everybody now has a camera so why not just take a photo of ur child at home all dressed up in their uniform why does the school need to do them.

I hate them too so yanbu. I bought ds2's class photo last summer as he was in year 6. I hate it. They are all in their socks - WHY?? The girls have mainly white socks, but the boys seem to have every colour under the sun and that bugs me! Some children are standing, some sideways some face on. Yuk. I just bought the print as framed was going to cost a fortune. So now, it sits, rolled up in the tube it came home in.

Plus it's longer than my school photo of the whole school - 820 children plus staff!

soupDragon that was a completely unhelpful reply. Thanks. There's no point buyng the print without a frame, is there?? You can't stand it up like you can the traditional cardboard school photos as IT IS TOO LONG. And it is not s atdnard size so it would be v hard to find a frame for it. There's no point replying if you can't say anything helpful.

Jenny - I can do photos of my own dc, I was talking about class photos.

Oops - a standard size

Honestly OP buy a print just so you have record of it and then take a pic of the pic , print it off and stick it in a frame. it is a fair bit smaller obviously but at least you have something you can frame. Or if it is of DC with a group could you just take a pic of it and crop out the others?

Our school offers photo books, I thought it was Tempest, but I could be wrong. I liked those because they have the whole school in them, so when ds1 was still at primary I could just buy one and have both of them and their class included. I'm not a school photos on the wall type person, so I just wanted a record.

I do wish they would make more of an effort to make the children smile naturally in the individual photos, my dc always look slightly odd!

Thanks for singling me out, PiedWagtail. After all, I was the only one who said you should just buy the print.

I must have missed the bit where you said "please only post if you agree with me"

"There's no point buyng the print without a frame, is there??"

Yes, of course there is. I have all of 2xDSs and DDs class photos and they are in an album because, whilst I want the record of their class, I really don't want all their friends on my mantelpiece.

If I don't like school photos I just don't buy them [shrug]

DC's school started doing class photos outside and "casually" posed - but it's still a group photo, not a collage of lots of them, and it's a conventional shape so you are not forced to buy the "special" frames. Most of them are nice, but I wouldn't pay that sort of money. DS now has formal, uber-conventional, team photos and I do get those as I think they are a sort of record of achievement and who knows how much longer he will manage to make it into teams for

Do they not do any sort of mini-print option, OP - that you could stick in an album or something? We did, I have to admit, buy some of the pseudo-venture ones which DD had taken at nursery, because they were stunningly nice pictures of her (and not in uniform).

My favourite school/nursery photo is one of DC3 (again). Every single child is looking in a different direction. Its hilarious.

You don't need a frame because you are not going to display it are you? It's just a record really. My dds are in their late teens and we had a real laugh at Chiristmas going through their old class photos so I'm glad I bought them all.

I hate the packs that contain 20 shots of the same photo in all different sizes. Relatives must dread it. But if you only want one photo the price isn't that much cheaper.

Our school only does those class photos for Primary 7 as a "last picture" type of thing...I think they look great...!

OP i do NOT for one minute believe what the school secretary told you about only having positive feedback. In this economic climate? BULLSHIT!
i bet shes telling that crap to everyone that complains.
im not a parent but i am really shocked at these prices. My last experiences of school photos was when i was in them back in the "80s.

The problem is soup that those photos don't fit in an albulm. They are too long.