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!!

[Shutupanddrive]

YANBU. I would only buy a class photo when it is their last year in the school. That's what most of the parents around here do. Ds1 is only in year 1 so I don't need to worry about that yet. I do buy the individuals though as they let me take ds2, who hasn't started school yet to be in it too.

[HairyLemon]

photos dont have to be kept in an album family

[MrsHeffley]

God don't get me started on this.

It bloody hacks me off the way schools willingly fleece parents for rubbish.We had dire photos for ages(blurred on occasion,out of focus,can't rem the company).Cost a fortune cue complaints and call backs.

I finally ordered some only to never get the pics.The big company our school used used self employed photographers hence the shite photos.Anyhow in our case he went bust.When I asked for my money or the photos I got abusive e-mails.The big company weren't interested and neither were school.

Be aware.I'm firmly off the opinion school photography is the biggest license to make money (and rip off parents) out.

I prefer our own family photos and buy the class photo(cheaper) instead now.

[familyj]

I know they don't need to be kept in an album. I was just replying to soup when she said she stores hers in an album and that they donb't need to be framed. These particular photos are a pain. They come rolled up in a tube so you can't easily look at them.

[JugglingWithTangentialOranges]

I bought them for a few years when DD and DS were at school together, and I could get the one of them together.

But, though they've been quite good and I have been tempted, I haven't forked out for the ones of them on their own - I agree they're very expensive and we have lots of other nice pics we've taken ourselves.

I don't think I need a huge pic of each of them in each year at school ! Other pictures can be more interesting !

[ElephantsAreMadeOfElements]

HairyLemon Mon 26-Mar-12 14:02:04

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

And bingo, here we have the reason they cost so much -- well, not so much what HairyLemon does, which I think is morally (albeit not legally) fine, but in The Old Days when we were at school, if you wanted one copy of the picture you would order and pay for one, while if you wanted three copies you would order and pay for three (etc.). Now that scanning and/or photographing the prints and making illegal copies is so easy, virtually no one ever orders more than one; they order one and make as many copies as they want. So the photography companies have to make the same profit from fewer actual prints sold, which means the cost of each individual print goes up. And it becomes a vicious circle, because when the prints cost that much parents feel ripped off and can mentally justify to themselves why it's OK just to scan the print and make extra copies.

DS's school does traditional class photos -- I buy one of those, mounted but not framed (I think he'll like to look back on them later, and the mounting costs very little and makes it less likely to get trashed in the meantime, but I don't want to pay £££ for a frame) but don't buy the individual shots as they are rubbish and I can take better myself.

[DartsAgain]

Our school uses Tempest. I now buy the pic on CD and it comes with the right to reproduce as many times as I like, as long as it's for personal use only (they retain the copyright). It cost me about £10-£12, but I can print what I want in the size I want.

[PiedWagtail]

carer I was wondering that as well - must check with other mums in the playground!!

soupdragon - I don't mind at all people disagreeing with me, it was more the tone of your post

The pics are 7" x 28" - not really possible to put in an album! And the faces are tiny.... gah.

[PatriciaHolm]

Our school does normal ones for YrR-5 then those long ones for Y6. As far as I know, they come on a cardboard mount like the other ones, so you can easily display it on a mantelpiece or window frame as it props up fine, it's just not in a nice frame.

[flyingspaghettimonster]

School photos are a bugbear of mine. The school actually expects us to pay cash on the day of the photos, sight unseen, for the number of pictures we want to buy. They also do two a year! Autumn and spring. My kids haven't changed much in a few short months so I can only assume it is to show of their clothes, as schools are non uniform here.

I haven't bought any since they started this scheme, sad because the one I got be white they started charging first was lovely... But I can't justify $60 on photos without sering them first. We go to sears instead and get a set for $8.

[kedge]

We have decided that we are just going to buy a photo of each child for the year they start school and the year they finish!! With three of them, it can work out to be very expensive if you buy one set each for each year, especially as the photos are usually sold in various 'packages' with size and quantity varied, so to get the size of photo you actually want you have to commit to buying one of the larger packages. To be honest, I would rather take them to a photographer every so often and get a decent picture of the three of them together, rather than one of them in school uniform as no matter how smartly turned out they are for photo day, they look like they have been dragged through the school fields/hedges backwards in the pictures.......... So dont feel pressurised into spending hard earned cash if you dont think the pictures are worth it.

[oldsilver]

I just bought the Reception class modern (3-photos-put-together-to-make-one-class-picture) just to write the names on the back for memory sake - it is kept in DS memory box - I don't want it up. I may buy the Y6.

To be honest I was given a Christmas card (as a thank you) of the class for some work I'd done for them, photo taken by the teacher in a lovely grouping, far more natural, all look happy, none of those silly gaps - that means more to me

[DoubleGlazing]

YANBU. That's far too expensive.

[MmeLindor.]

at MrsDevere's dreadlocked Victorian urchin.

Our DC had their pics taken today. It is our first year here, and their first school photo in uniform so I will buy it no matter what. Just a bit apprehensive now.

[Fairyliz]

I'm the school secretary and last year we changed to these tempest 'funky vista' photos. We sold twice as many photos as in previous years so some mums must like them! Personally I thought they were very expensive would never have paid that much for my kids photos. It made a lot of money for the school and funded two free trips so there are one advantages.

[PiedWagtail]

That's interesting fairyliz! Guess it takes all sorts :)

[Mum2Luke]

My ds school has the traditional ones, with the children in classes standing on benches and a separate one of your child- I think I paid £8.00 for the usual cardboard frame.

I hope we don't use Tempest - sounds alot of money.

[katykuns]

I would contemplate paying for 1 simple image of my daughter... IF she didn't look like she was either stoned or in fear in all of them. She is like me, I never had decent pictures...
My daughter is beautifully photogenic the rest of the time... so not sure what happens when she gets in front of their camera lol.

[stella1w]

Tempest just did my dd's preschool. In theory I thought I would like the long thin props pic of all the class, but actually, it's rubbish. My dd's face is v small, and she hasn't got a great expression (which presumably if they had done individually, they would have made sure to get) and tbh I don't really want a pic of the whole class. but bought it anyway as memento of her time there, just choosing the print in a tube for 12.50 - and I know I'll never find a cheap frame!

[RaspberryLemonPavlova]

Sadly they do these prints at secondary school too. DD went off in a rush on on picture day wearing odd socks, and was then horrified to be told to take her shoes off and sit at the front of her group with her feet out!

If you think four year olds look odd grouped in strange ways in school uniform, without shoes, eleven year olds look even more so.

[merrymouse]

I think the modern photos are silly. For most people school photos are a record rather than something you want to put on your wall. 20 years later, you want to identify the person with the familiar name in the local newspaper crime reports/on telly/working with your cousin's husband. You don't want to cart around a photo of them at a 3/4 angle barefoot with their arm's crossed to display on your wall for 20 years.

Surely the the set up that the police use when they arrest somebody would be cheaper?

[iamme43]

Can I direct you to a site that 'some' school photographers use.

Tempest I believe print their own photos so I would imaging be even cheaper.

Be prepared for a shock!

[http://www.dscolourlabs.co.uk/new_school_packs.cfm]

[iamme43]

www.dscolourlabs.co.uk/new_school_packs.cfm

[stealthsquiggle]

That doesn't particularly surprise me, iamme. After all, it is supposed to be the photographer you are paying for, not the paper and ink. That being so, it would make sense if more of them offered the option to just buy an electronic version for the same price as the unframed print, though.

[melika]

Just get the cheapest photo, put it on your pc and print your own sizes off it.