to wish school photos would go back to how they used to be

[freddiefrog]

Picked up my childrens school photos this morning.

I usually buy photos of each of them and one of them together, frame them and give then to grannies and grandads for Christmas.

I've got Venture-style photos of my daughters standing on one leg, pretending to be an aeroplane, laying on the floor, sticking their tongue out and pretending to play fight.

All for a bargain £120

What happened to the traditional head and shoulders shots where you could get 3 for a tenner?

"They have found a way of depriving the hardworking photographer of his/her income and the school of the commission."

And that's why it happens. You're paying twice.

"Do you have any other good scams you could pass on?"

I've got one. £120 for a few pictures of a child.

All these model-style shots are awful. If I wanted something kooky and fun I'd take in myself, in an environment my child is comfortable with, so he actually looked kooky and fun. We paid £40 for 3 small pictures of DS this year. Crap quality, shit cardboard frames and awful angles. DP is a photographer and next year we will be doing them ourselves.

£120? Hell no.

Snapper99 Thu 29-Nov-12 22:22:23

It's not necessary to edit school photos. We just get it right in the camera and that's what the parents get. We can photoshop temporary spots if requested.

We only do it if asked.

We once removed a mark that turned out to be permanent and the parent went mad as (quite rightly) the said that was how their child was and the wanted her "warts and all".

When ds had to miss his photos one year for illness I took him to the local Max Spielmann store and they did a great job for a reasonable price. I'd go back there and get 'school' photos that way again if the school start using some of the daft poses people have mentioned here.

We had one at nursery offer to remove a scrape on ds's face and we told them not to, but they were definitely one of the good ones.

Unfortunately, another year was one of the dreadful ones; we didn't buy any of those. Which was a shame as it was dd's last ones from nursery.

totally agree we only had one of dd nurseyr group not the whole class - and yet she was mostly firneds with people outside her little group....and its a huge long thing - i do acutally think it looks nice - no one is doing anything too - cool to be true staged HOWEVER why would i want a really really LONG photo of lots of strangers on my wall?

DS had a head and shoulders shot, but he looked really awkward and his smile wasn't "him" at all. £11 for one small photo. I didn't buy it, I'd rather print out a nice picture I've taken on my own camera.

Here inNorth Wales we've got several photo shops that have a screen in the corner and will take single head and shoulder or small group photos. The packs start at £5.99. We've been taking our three every 6 months. Even the basic pack has enough photos to send to the grannies. They develop there and then and you get to choose from a dozen or so shots. It's only a couple of pounds extra to get the pack with image on cd.

I got fed up with bad school shots were for the two older ones basic packs for both would have been over £50.

They sound bloody awful! Hope you all tell your schools to get the normal ones back!

Ours was Tempest this year, and the nicest head and shoulders shots we've ever had, with white background as well - never normally buy them but as the girls are years 7 and 11 I've bought them for the grannies etc this year.

Cortana... I don't understand your first point.

What did you get for £40? What does small mean?

What did the other poster get for £120

I do a pack with 3 5/7 for £16

I do a pack with....
1 colour 10/7
1 b/w 10/7
2 col 5/7
1 b/w 5/7
4 col 5/3.5
9 col minis
24 col micros
for £20

My cheapest is 1 10/7 for £13 which gives me profit of under £5.00. I won't work for less than that. I assume the parents buy that and scan, which I think is false economy as for an extra £7, they could have my £20 pack

You are all forgetting the massive kick back the school take. If they didn't insist on 25% of the take, we could reduce our costs. Going to a high street photo shop is a good option, but you have to make the effort to get there. The mobile school tog has to be at school before 8 to set up.

When it all comes down, if you think school photos are too expensive (Like I think a Lexus is too expensive for me) or they are poor quality, then don't buy.

The nursery photos were just for us; we used to get the photos for family distribution from one of the toddler groups we went to, who always got a Tempest photographer in.

They were so good that when DD started school nursery and had to drop that toddler group, I was so tempted to take her along to the one session just for the photo. The photographer would take a couple of shots and show them on the screen so that the parent/carer could choose which one to keep.

"Cortana... I don't understand your first point."

Instead of the photographer coming in and taking some photos and being paid they now have the set up where the school gets money as well. I haven't forgotten the kick back, it's my whole point. These crap photographers have nothing to offer, a degree does not a photographer make, but they hook in the school with the kickback. The way school budgets are at the moment I can understand them taking up the offer, but I am going to get cross when the shots are pants.

£40 got me one the size of a postcard and two half that size. Apparently holding the camera straight was too mainstream or too much effort for our local guy. It's not even a jaunty angle, just badly framed. I felt I had to buy it as it's our first year away and DM was really looking forward to it. It was the smallest package available. I thought I had found one print for £9 on the list but that was only available after you've bought a package.

Your pack sounds better, I had planned to buy loads and give them out to extended family as we live far away. I dare say next years uptake will dip at our school though. They were shocking.

Was it Timpsons Whistling?

My ideal pack would have 4x 7"x5" and 4x 5"x3.5" (all colour) and for that I would pay £20-25 That isn't offered though so I think I must have odd tastes, the 10"x7 is too big for me.

I didn't actually order any of ours in the end.

I usually spend around £40, this year a big fat zero, and they didn't go down well with the rest of the parents, so I think they've lost a lot of sales.

I ordered calendars from Vistaprint instead. 5 calendars using 13 of our own photos was about £15, versus £120 for a CD of some not very good shots, that I'd have had print out myself.

The last couple of years we have had the group shot with the kids just floating on a white background - it looks like they have photoshopped the walls and floor out. The photos came in one size anxious were ordered via school - two years ago the photographers messed up and they arrived six months later. Made last year look speedy at four months!
This year we are back to individual portraits and are ordering direct with the photographer - much better!

Cortana... what you paid was outrageous. Get shot of your tog
Odd boots. I offer 8 packs. What you want isn't one of them but the price is right.
Whisling. Percentage take up varies. Worst I've had was 10% Best was 60%. I'd say average was 30%. I know a lot of school togs who claim higher.
I think the best option is cd 1 image £15 2 images £25, 3 images £30. Then print your own

Anxious?? AND

Personally I loathe all my school photos except a lolvey head and shoulders shot of me in a nice nursery setting ie by a table with stuff on it - and a group photo to remind me of who was there...

all the other head and shoulder shots I do not like whilst I was at school. Why would grand parents etc want shots of children in boring school unifoms? I dont get it. I like a whole class group photo so you can see who was there with you at school, not an arty shot with no one in it. I would much rather take lovely pics of DD myself in beautiful settings in lovely clothes...

That decision doesn't rest with me Snapper. I can give feedback but until I'm giving a kickback I doubt I'll be listened to.

I know there are good photographers out there, trying to make a living and I know how hard it is, DP had some success working for a magazine and it was hard won.

However there are more and more out there with a degree and an expensive camera who think they can get the best out of children in the 30 seconds they seem them, put them in stupid poses and expect parents to fork out for the tat they peddle. Unfortunately due to the whole kick back thing they are in abundance.

I'll give you a couple of examples of things that have to be factored into a school tog's costs.

I've spent the last two weeks driving round delivering photo orders to schools photographed earlier in the term. Not a photo taken, so not a penny earned.

A parent rang me a few weeks ago. She had proof cards of her children for the last four years, but had never got round to ordering any. I said I would put all 12 on a cd for the ridiculously low price of £40.00. She could then print her own. Great she said. No order ever arrived. I rang her and she said she was still thinking about it.

A parent sent her son into school with a shirt which had some black felt tip pen on the collar. She requested I remove it. This I did in photoshop. She has now rejected the pic because the collar is "too white"

A parent went mad because she had not received the proof card from when I took the pics. I took all the images into the school and me and the secretary hunted thru them. Sure enough the child wasn't there. We then discovered he had been absent that day.

A school forgot a pupil was not with the rest of the class when they came into the hall. I had to go back and spend best part of half a day to take the pic. The parent didn't order.

A parent found a proof card from 2006 in a drawer. I said I still had the images on file, but the packs and prices had changed so I had to post him a new card. He never ordered.

I could go on.