AIBU about cost of school photos?

[IWantDogger]

Cheapest option for primary class photo is £11 for one 12" x 5" picture. Seems extortionate to me and would like to decline but dd(7) is keen to have a memory of her class so feel a bit obliged. Is this pretty standard or should I mention to school it seems a bit much? It's not clear anywhere if PTA or the school are getting a cut. It's a big company I think.
There's 12 classes and they did all the pics on one day.

I think it is standard and I think it is alot, although perhaos there are costs I haven't considered. I especially think this as the one I chose of dcs together this year turned out to be one in which ds had a big bogey, shich I couldn't see from the contacts. Grrrr

They've always been extortionately expensive, but I suppose there are a lot of upfront costs.
I think it's nice to have one of the whole class at some point - just make it clear you are getting it this year, but won't be getting them every year.

I'm of an age where we are getting a lot of pleasure at people unearthing a class photo from 30, 35, 40, 45 years ago - over time, I think it's worth paying out for one, obviously if that's not going to leave you short of food or warmth.

Thing us backforgood - thirty or forty years ago a school photo was pretty much the only annual photo produced. Now with iPhones they're not so important.

I liked it when the photos are expensive as it made it even easier to decline.

Awful idea, hate the thought of paying for a photograph of other people's children (especially the ones that are constantly mean to mine).

I agree about 'snaps' arethereany, but how often do all the class line up together for you to take a snap ?

Bloody hell, you're lucky, OP! I've been asking our school to do class photos like that for years, but instead we get the trendy ones of the kids all standing in groups with their shoes off, that are about 6 inches tall by 2 foot long, so don't fit in any normal frame, and they're about £20!! So you're getting off lightly. IMO!

my brother and SIL took my nieces to a local photographers dressed in school uniform. Got enough photos for them both grannies and me for a fraction of the school.package

DS didnt have that experience funnyface. Sad that yours have though.

I think the school get a cut from the photos.

Although I reckon that if they got a parent to do it and stuck them all onto a dvd for a fiver they'd make much more money!

And we also used to get the rubbish trendy long line ones that you needed to buy a special frame for if you wanted to display it and was too long to put into a photo album.

Thank goodness they have reverted to the class, all at the same time, all squinting into the sun in the playground this year!

I have a related question

My class photos (in another country) had a board in front with the class and year on it. Dds ones so far carry no info at all. I have to write on the back. Is there a reason for this?

Our preschool had 2 sets this year, a normal pic and grad pic. Full package $65 each. Slightly less photos $60. One photo pose on disc, $25, and they helpfully take about 3 poses per set.

I would just love them to put all the pics from session incl the class pic on a CD for $30. No printing costs for them, no angst for me about not buying them. It's emotional blackmail and I hate it. They must make a bloody fortune from it. I wrote them a note back on the envelope explaining why I wouldn't be buying

We had €60 for 1 (crappy) photo of each one and then one (also crappy) photo of them together.

School photographs have always been expensive. With 6 DC we do have quite a collection and it is nice to look back and even show the DGC pictures of daddy at school.

At our primary the head kept the cost down by taking the whole class/sports teams photographs himself. They are some of the nicest class photographs I've seen. Always taken outside on sunny days and everyone is smiling. The DC still had individual and family groups taken by professional school photographer.

I tended to buy less once they were in secondary school. I know some proofs never arrived home. Teenage DC (especially boys) really hate having photographs taken.

A good idea if you would like a school picture of your child/children is to take it yourself at home, place a large sheet or towel(plain colored)pin it to a wall and have your child/children stand or sit on a chair in front of it with they're uniform on.

Will save you a fortune and your guaranteed of a good picture that way as you'll be in control of it.

We have 5DC and some of the school photographers are awful.It's so rushed usually that each child only has a couple of seconds to have they're picture taken.So some poor parents will be paying for a picture where they're child's either not smiling,has got they're lunch down themselves,red faced and hair a mess from running around or aren't even looking in the right direction.

South London state primary.... £8.50 for a class photo, or £22 if framed.

I just take a photograph of my children on the first day of school each year.
Here is a beauty a that Prat a Portrait took of my son at nursery ohtheholidays.

I think I should go round the talent agencies with these beauties ....

I have a confession. The last couple of school photos that came home with my boys, I just took a photo of the school photo with my iphone.

I know it's really bad, but I just do a good colour copy of someone else who is gullible enough to pay for it 's class photo.

If you only have one DC at school then one class pic and a single one, while expensive, is manageable.

If you have two, that's twice as much PLUS the joint one of them both, in which one child invariably looks better than in their single photo, so I feel obliged to buy both singles and the double.

Plus the eldest at secondary who (thankfully) doesn't have a class pic, but still another single to buy.

And I buy a set of three so their dad & grandma can have one of each of them too! aggghhh!

Very brooding Yalla! Handsome little fella, but obviously not enjoying his moment in the spotlight

Great photo yalla. I love your username.

Here a full package costs around £7, for one whole school photo, one class photo and an individual portrait plus little passport ones. This is in an international school in a country where photos are dirt cheap.

You have to pay before the photos are taken though and DD totally messed up her hair and it is so so frizzy. Still, at least an accurate representation of her usual appearance, eh?

In france last year I think the cheapest option was 10 euros for a class photo at the local maternelle. A full package was 20 euros but you could see the photos before you bought them.

Yalla - those could rival ds1's last year's photos which I thought were pretty bad - his front two teeth were wobbly and the night before the photos one of them fell out, the other wobbled over into the centre. DS for some unknown reason decided to flatten his hair, part it down the side and swipe both bits of his fringe back. It was so bad that I almost bought it to bring out to embarrass him at a later date. usually he's really photogenic and I have plenty of lovely photos of him - but those took some skill and timeing to be quite so horrendous

We had some group ones of all 3 of ours once, which were so terrible I contacted the photo company to ask if there were any other shots to choose from. There were about 5 or 6, all equally terrible, but in sequence they were like a really funny cartoon strip of each child taking a turn to make a totally unphotogenic face, so I bought one of each and mounted them together for a laugh!