School photos are crazy expensive

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For our school you can’t just buy a 5” by 7” photo. You have to buy a pack with a variety of photos ranging from £11.50 for 1 10” x 7” to £32.95 for 15 of the same picture in different sizes.

I just want 3 5” x 7” pictures for me and grandparents but you can’t buy this, why??

What do your schools do?

My DD was poorly on the day of school pictures, so I paid for a professional shoot so I could get pictures of DD and DS together.

I got DS solo picture back from the school on Monday and it’s really not very flattering! I’m glad I had the photoshoot done because I can pick a picture and I saw them being done so I could rearrange hair etc!

5x7 for £11 here and for some reason they had them both sideways and leaning at a 45° angle. I do get the class ones when they contain the pupils and the staff (the last one was missing most of the staff).

Maureen my son's school did this, and I thought it was very strange. ..so close to the start of term when most parents would already have very recent first day photos (if facebook is to be believe ). Maybe it would be worth it if you moved it to closer to the end of the year when taking a picture to document the change a year makes?

Couldn't get over the price from this year. Even the CD with a couple of prints on was £89. No this isn't a misprint.
This was on the photographer's website. The cheapest physical picture was £27 for one.
I know they have to make a living but this is crazy.

I felt bad for not buying my sons this year - first reception pic. It was awful though, he was doing an odd unnatural cheesy smile which I know can't always be helped with time constraints. But they'd taken his dark jumper off and photographed him in a white shirt against a white background so he kind of blends in!

I bought one digital print today for £18 and it was emailed to me at the end of the day. The quality is fantastic.and it's such an amazing shit of my DS I had to buy it!

I've already emailed it to all the grandparents, uncles and aunts and will get it printed myself.

The minimum package you can buy from ours is 3 for £35, for the cd of images it was £125

Ds is year 1, and I decided not to get them because he’s been there since nursery and his class photos are taking over the house. If I do 3 a year, plus his class photo we would be up to 12 photos now just from school. Where the feck do I put all those frames?!

I just do the class photo now (£48 bloody quid!) and have other lovely photos of DS in mean time!

@roses2 I am deffo not paying £18 for one of my DS’s shits, amazing or otherwise

I'm another one who found going on the website had options where I'd use all the photos so much more cost effective

they have to have a high entry level price precisely because everyone just copies them.

I have bought them but only the lowest price package to keep DD happy. They just do not look like her! So staged and outdated. For a few years they seemed to use they same marbled background evident in my school photos!

@ItAlwaysPours We do it at the beginning of the year because the photos are used on their school records for class charts and various other computer programmes. We need to get to know what the little darlings look like! It also means we have a whole day of 'housekeeping' with the new intake before the rest of the school are in. Biometric stuff, photos, testing etc.

Ours are great, got a lovely pic of my dd and her little brother this year and I only paid 5 pound for the digital download to my phone which I then used an online printing service to get them printed off, all together to get 20 prints for all the family it cost me less than 10 pounds I can't justify the prices of the packages when there's not enough bigger ones for all the family but plenty of little ones that will just get left in a drawer somewhere

Check the website. Our school photographer has the 'best' packages on the back of the photo to buy using the form supplied, but if you go online there are loads more options to choose from.

It's always been this way. Even when I started school in 93!

Wait for the Graduation pictures. Think it worked out at £35 each! Which reminds me that we haven't ordered any ( yet)

Daisymay - my ds said to give him the £100 or so it would cost and just take photos on our cameras .
Makes no sense to pay for professional photo at graduation these days with the ease of getting good shots on your own cameras.

I'm sure schools do need money, Alannah, but not everyone has got £32 to throw around. Also it was the government that made cuts to the school. There lies the fault, not already struggling families.
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I didn’t buy my son’s this year. I felt slightly guilty but I have the last two years sitting in a draw because I can’t find frames to match the odd dimensions.

Just received mine, they were 3 for £20, expensive but I feel like I have to have them

My Ds started reception this year so I wanted one to mark that. It was a fantastic shot, I got one big one and a pack of smalls to send to family. Ordered them via the website. In hindsight I wish I had ordered the image on USB but whatever. I doubt I'll buy anymore until year 7

Can't remember how much I paid but I think it was 30 quid. The USB was 23

I was really looking forward to receiving my daughters first school photo last year, got it back and they'd photoshopped her so badly her own grandmother asked if theyd given us the wrong child's. Everyone i showed the proof to gasped in horror it was so atrocious and it really looked very little like her. Its school photo day again tomorrow, I'm hoping the previous photographer has been replaced, who in the world wants a photoshopped picture of their already beautiful child??!!

They are lovely this year, but really expensive.

That's shocking Beetle. I hope you fed that back to the school rather than just not buying it though. If several parents feedback to them, they will know not to use that photographer next time. If no-one does, they'll just assume folk didn't want them / couldn't justify the money / etc.