To really hate group class photos?

[TheBadgersMadeMeDoIt]

I didn't buy DD's class photo this year because I can't bear all the fake casualness. The kids are all over the place - sprawled on the grass or leaning against trees. One was sitting on a tree-stump, sideways on to the camera for some reason. DD was arm-in-arm with another girl and scowling. The photographer had told her to pose like that with her "buddy". The girl in question is the one child in the class that DD really doesn't get on with. (Hence the scowl).

Maybe I'm just hopelessly old fashioned but what was wrong with the row of benches, folded arms and cheesy grins? At least you could see everyone's face. Is it just me?

Never knew they did it like this. Never known it myself.

I agree, you can't see their lovely little faces properly and it's so forced! Bring back the nice neat rows that are more easily comparable as they grow older.

Yanbu. I never buy them,they are truly dreadful. Also they are massive, where do people hang them? I'd like them to do a smaller normal one for old fashioned folk like me so that we can look back on them in years to come but I'm not buying the barefoot casual nonsense.

haha, Ds' school do these style photos, everyone at jaunty angles to look less contrived then a 'class face forward' situation but failing miserably
Tbh, I never buy class photos anyway as they are extortinate, I have no where to put it should I buy one and why would I want a photo of 25+ kids I dont know? Just realised I sound like a grumpy old shit and I am infact turning into my dad

Combine

I hate them too
I especially hate having to be on them and having to sit on a chair with children sprawled at my feet.
Why on earth would parents want a photo with me on?

The rows of benches one are much better.

I have five kids. Do I really want 5x7 years' worth of class photos?
I haven't bought a single one. I have individual ones when they look good but I don't buy them every year regardless. They've barely changed some years.

Loved the old style class photos.
The imperfection of them was what made them so appealing. The new style are very expensive.

My parents used to buy mine and I loved looking back at them. And the secondary school whole school ones which came rolled up in a tube! I don't like the sound of these new fangled arty ones though. It should be in rows on benches!

Experienced this for the first time with DC1 in Reception. She has her arms crossed and looks cross I bought it because it's funny, but I'm not sure I'll do it again. The bloody print is 5" x 20" as well, such a strange size!

Sort of made me yearn for the simple days of kids lined up in three rows, sitting/standing on PE benches...

Our primary does this - the first year they'd made an effort and everyone did look really natural, but they seem to be less and less bothered now and the photoshopping is awful. It is really obvious they're pasting together different pictures and the perspectives are weird. Plus they aren't cheap even for the smallest one (in which it is hard to make out the children properly) and the sizing is awkward.

When my daughter left primary the local paper does a thing where they photograph the different year groups, and we bought a print of that - traditional style benches/standing group, taken in the playground.

DD brought her proof home this week, it's still the old way of rows. It's a nice pic of most of the kids but one boy looks like he's about to fall asleep and another looks well pissed off. I think they're Good to keep and look back on but don't like the idea of "forced casualness".

I've found myself suckered into getting them. The school has a one form intake so it will be the same combination of kids as they grow until they are 11. It's blue tacked on to the playroom wall.

I much prefer old style rows. Tall kids on the back, shorties on the front. (I was cast iron guaranteed to be on the front row). I'm really not a fan of the faux casual posey flopping around on a sterile background.

Our school still does the old fashioned type with the benches - much better.

DS1's nursery photo was badly merged as DS was one of the shorter ones, yet mysteriously very similarly scaled to the child over a head higher.

They're now in the same class so the real difference is apparent.

The 'casual' ones are just awful, if they genuinely were candid shots of the class having fun it would be okay, but all the forced cheesy posing is cringe. DDs school alternates years between traditional rows and casual style so at least there's a choice of sorts. The last casual style one DD was absolutely mortified by, she was made to pose crawling out from between her (male) teacher's legs !

In my school we do extremely traditional forward facing class photos, although tbh I don't really know why parents buy them (not many do).

Every five years we spend about an hour trying to arrange nearly 300 children in one photo with all of the staff and take a whole school photo.

For some reason, DS's reception class photo this year involved him posing with a large traffic cone, and four other similarly nonplussed-looking children. I passed on the chance to purchase.

Some casual photos taken by the Head with her own camera DS, proud as punch on his first day at school, carrying his tray very carefully into the dining room, DS having his sheep makeup put on for the nativity play, with a queue of angels behind him are really, really gorgeous. And ironically, despite the fact that I'm told the photographer who used to come in annually to his pre-school and toddler was a real old-school battle-axe, her photos of DS (of the traditional, child's head and shoulders in front of one of those swirly blue backdrops) were always natural and lovely.

I like them but ours are formal. In the auditorium in neat rows with hear brushed and children grimacing unnaturally, captured for eternity.

We get lovely candid shots on the weekly blogs and bit bit of awkward formality is a nice change.

We never had the full class photos ours were always singles or siblings. My mum wouldn't have paid to see all the other kids lol.

My mum found her class photo from the 1960s the other day and was reminiscing. I think it's nice for the future.

Our used to be four groups of kids and teachers / TA. Format slightly bigger than A4. This year it's a long roll with no teachers / TAs. Useless size to display ime and to the PP, yes I would like a picture of my kids teacher. They can make or break a year and this year's teacher has been fabulous for my DS.

YANBU I kept the traditional one from the local paper instead. DH says our lot look like the Bash Street kids even in formal rows

Tbh, I never buy class photos anyway as they are extortinate, I have no where to put it should I buy one and why would I want a photo of 25+ kids I dont know? Just realised I sound like a grumpy old shit and I am infact turning into my dad

I think my mum wrote this in fact you sound just like me!