to think school photos are a total rip off

[Cait73]

My lo is nearly 3 he started preschool this year so imagine my delight when he bought home his first school photo

Except when I went online to order it the cheapest package is £27 that's OUTRAGEOUS!!

It's Christmas in 3 weeks, his Birthday happens to be Christmas Eve and I only want 2 maybe 3 photos but you have to order a package

It's not a particularly great photo BUT it's his first "school" photo, I'm gob smacked!!

@CallMeRisley Yeah that is a great idea. Shame it's been mentioned half a dozen times before. Some people don't RTFT.

I paid £40 for 3 digital downloads of my 13 month old DD's nursery photos, got them printed for £2 and got nice photo frames from IKEA for £4, everyone is getting one for Christmas

Ouch. Our digital download is £15 for one so I bought that then ordered prints from Jessops. Saved at least £25 on what I wanted (made copies for grandparents too).

We always did school photos until the year the picture was truly horrific. Now we only purchase the class picture!

Now we go to max speilman on the high street, it's a fraction of the cost but they take decent traditional school photos and then some great funny silly pics too for a fraction of the cost.

If the school use Tempest photography as a lot do they paid the photographer very little, I looked into doing it once as I'm a pretty good amateur photographer and have all the equipment.

The price you pay will likely be split between the photographer, the main company and the school.

As for editing, they don't, at least at our school they don't, they don't have time as all the kids are photographed in one day and the photo and form is sent home with the child on the same day.

The photo printing site I use charges 37p for an 8x4 print and they use good quality paper and ink (ds colour labs), I know companies need to make a profit but the school photography company has a massive mark up.

*8x6 print not 8x4 sorry

[quote GetTheFlockOutOfHere]@CallMeRisley Yeah that is a great idea. Shame it's been mentioned half a dozen times before. Some people don't RTFT.[/quote]
Wow

Totally agree. I don't really like staged photos like that.

@DeadButDelicious yeah me too I now feel cheated I didn't get offered a tea towel 😂

I bought the cheapest this year.£12

Buy the school class photo that's a joy to have. Yes it's a rip off but you can just spend less money on Christmas presents for your kid. He is only 3. My 3yo loves playing with empty cardboard boxes,stickers and balloons . They make excellent cheap presents hahaha

That IS a rip off. Ours were £12 cheapest option.

Yes, professional phorography has its costs, but school (or nursery) photos is a pretty easy gig compared to things like sports photography taking action stills in the outdoors with the lighting and elements. That tends to be cheaper too. lol

@Marvellousmadness

Buy the school class photo that's a joy to have. Yes it's a rip off but you can just spend less money on Christmas presents for your kid. He is only 3. My 3yo loves playing with empty cardboard boxes,stickers and balloons . They make excellent cheap presents hahaha

I'm not sure he's in the class photo I need to double check his "permissions" I have to be careful who knows which school he's at its a bit of a logistical nightmare

I order the image, usually around £18 then i print them in asda, works out much cheaper.

YANBU.

They are a total rip off. On the odd occasion I've got them I've gone for the digital download option and printed copies myself.

Tempest seem to have a monopoly on it around here and they aren't even good at it. The last class photo we had was out of focus and included a toilet door in the background. Any idiot with a smartphone could do a better job.

I don't know about a rip off, as you always have the option not to buy them, or to use another photographer or just take your own.

What I have learnt though, is that if we didn't sometimes pony up what does feel like a lot of money, we wouldn't have hardly any nice framed portrait photos of the kids around the house, or to give as presents to family. We're just too busy/lazy, so if it's a nice photo, we'll usually buy some every couple of years.

@oldwhyno no purchase isn't mandatory but we feel pressurised into buying them 🤷‍♀️

I actually take superb photos of the 2 year old I think I'm going to chose the best one and frame a few for Christmas ❤️

@Oatsamazing

I paid £40 for 3 digital downloads of my 13 month old DD's nursery photos, got them printed for £2 and got nice photo frames from IKEA for £4, everyone is getting one for Christmas

When you say 'everyone' do you mean just Grandparents.

Speaking on behalf of every auntie, uncle, friend, neighbour. No one except grandparents actually want to receive a framed pic of your kid.

Tempest round here - £14 minimum order for one photo! Total rip off.

They don't even send a mini proof with the order form any more - just an email link so no cost involved there.

A choice of two photos, one of which has been taken at a jaunty 45 degree angle! Why??!!

I'm a hobby photographer and know how hard it is to make money from photography so do understand why they need to charge approx £25 for a digital print.

But I get so annoyed that the photos are often not well composed ( obviously rushed to get through a class full of kids in the time allocated) and badly edited.

My sons latest photograph was missing the top of his head. Looks ridiculous but for once DS was happy with how his face looked so asked me to buy it.

@3of5

I buy the digital download and order the prints from snap fish. That way I got the pictures I needed (rather than the random selection) and it costs so much cheaper!

Same. I just wanted 8 lots of 7x5 prints, I didn't want a massive one and a tiny one and some keyrings and they didn't do a package of just all the same size. So I ordered the digital download for £20, printed them at my local print shop for 20p each and bought some cheap frames from The Range, which were still nicer than the cardboard ones you get from the photographer.

The total cost for each ended up being about £4

@Vapeyvapevape

Before becoming a parent, I thought School Photo Days were straightforward, a fella takes a picture of your kid at school, you buy a copy from them for a few quid. ..Nope.

• Hi there, we’ve taken a picture of your kid at school and wondered if you’d like one?

• Oh, ok, yeah I’ll take one.

• Well.. we don’t do single photos we do ‘packages’.

• Ok, what’s the most basic package?

• That would be Package One. It’s one normal-sized photo and 42 wallet-sized photos.

• Well, that’s shite, I don’t know 42 people. I certainly don’t know 42 people who own a wallet. And I definitely don’t know 42 people who are weird enough to carry around a picture of someone else’s kid in their wallet.

• They’re great for passport photos.

• 42!? How many passports do you think he needs? He’s six, not f*ing Bond.

• OK, well Package Two is one of our bestsellers.

• What’s that?

• That’s 20 photos, all really awkward sizes, either too small to frame or too big to give to relatives without it being weird.

• Great. ..Package Three?

• That’s Package Two plus a snow-globe and a 6-foot canvas for your living room wall.

• Jesus, no.

• Look just give me the cheapest.. Package One.

• Certainly.

• Is that it? Can I pay now?

• Tea towel?

• What?

• Tea towel?

• Are you taking the piss? Why the bloody hell would I want a tea towel with a picture of my kid gurning on it? It’d be like drying the pots with the Turin Shroud. I’ll just take the..

• Cushion?

• No.

• Mug?

• No.

• 6 foot cardboard cut-out.

• NO.

• What about a hot air balloon? They’re twenty feet wide and we’ll tether it to your back fence.

• Wha..?

• They’re very popular.

• No.

• We can project your kid’s face on to the moon?

• Why would yo..?

• What about one of those big, blow-up, wavey -hands things you get outside car dealerships?

• NO.

• We’ll tattoo their face onto a pig?

• JESUS CHRIST!?, what is wrong with you people!? Look, just send me the shitty wallet package.

• No problem. Package One. That’ll be 45 quid please.

• What the bloody..!? Are you hand-painting each one!? I’m not paying that.

• Well, its memories isn’t it. And they are only young once, aren’t they? And you can’t get this time back and..

• ..Fine.

…and give me one of those f*ing tea towels as well.

This cracks me up every time I think of it. Thanks. Needed the laugh today!!

@neededafart hahahaha well done for saying it 👏

The problem is that if less and less (or is it fewer and fewer?) people buy them, then the costs will go up and up...

Photographer needs to cover overheads, so needs to make £x. If they reckon on selling 100 photos, then they set their price at x/100. But if they sell less than that, then next time they'll have to charge x/something-less-than-100, which people think is even more expensive and so the spiral continues.

So - in theory - they need to change their business model somehow. You would think that it would be to take photos which people find it harder to recreate themselves (so they can't replicate by plonking said child in front of a magnolia wall), or at the very least photos which are deemed good enough to want to pay for.

Either way, surely this is an operation that's going to have to change sooner rather than later, because the number of people willing to pay for the current offerings is only going to diminish, and photographers' overheads are never going to come down.