Awful school photos

[ShepherdMoons]

Dcs have had their school photos taken, every year they are awful. This year they are worse, they are always taken at a bad angle and I've taken better pictures of them myself!

Dh thinks we should buy them (the proofs are online) but AIBU to say no this year? I could take a photo of them in their school uniforms and frame it (and I might actually like it!!).

I swear there is some sort of portal that opens up in schools on photo day. Every year (in primary), DD would go in looking as cute as a button and every year, without fail, the photo that came back was of some sort of feral creature with wild hair and a permanent snot trail.

It's a 'thing' in DC friendship group that they all try to make the school photo as awful as possible. Borrowing other peoples glasses, brushing their hair strangely, sitting like they are perched on a pointy sharp stick...none of the parents find it funny but the kids think they are hilarious

How do the parents not find it funny?

Take your children to Max Speilman in their uniforms. Lovely pictures for a fraction of the price.

I remember school asking my why I wasn't ordering DS1's reception pictures, I replied that I didn't think they should be encouraged to take photos. They were absolutely hideous.

Thankfully our school changed their photographer!

My parents refused to buy the last lot of school photos I had done 'we've already got nicer photos of you than that' - they really hadn't. I was about the only person in the class whose parents refused. It didn't feel very nice.

i am really surprised people still buy them, given how easy it now is to take a photo (e.g. on phone) and get a decent print. i think i bought their first school photo as a rite of passage and the occasional one of their year group/class. My mum did one year ask for a school photo. I sent her the proof plus a couple of recent pictures I had taken (one in uniform), and she agreed she would much prefer to have prints of my ones.

One of the celebrity gossip magazines printed the official school photo of the little Prince and Princess of Monaco. All the other pictures of them I have seen they seem a rather cute pair. The school one was terrible 😂
They're twins and it looked like the photographer had got them to cram on one single chair.

I really think the time has come to scrap school photos especially individual ones. Class one for the year book perhaps but the rest waste of time.

They are very expensive for what you get, and I'm glad to be past those compilations-of-the-whole-class ones in particular with children giving piggy backs to pupils they'd never speak to in a million years or sitting angelically on the floor with the teacher.

I never buy the official school photos because firstly they are shit, and secondly they somehow manage to look nothing like DS. I have hundreds of great pictures of him in which he is actually recognisable, so I don't need these poor efforts.

@habibihabibi I do like whole class photos. They are a nice little snapshot of history.
My mum actually has 2 of those really old roll up whole school ones of her mum from secondary school (so from early 1930s). They are fantastic.
I only like them though when it's the sitting in rows style. I don't like those 'casual' poses which are then edited together. They're weird.

We didn’t buy ours this year. All 3 were shocking. I’m voice to take a nice photo of our kids & get prints for relatives. The school photos are expensive -no way I’m paying up to £100 if I hate them.

another friend took hers to max speilman & got them to take one. 👍

I only bought Reception year ones. They were always dreadful. I took photos on their first day each year. However my parents always bought mine and my sisters which are very funny. I'm particularly fond of the one where I'm wearing a Green Cross Code man badge as he visited our school the day before. I think he was the original Darth Vader too. He was huge!

I hardly ever buy them. They are always so unnatural. My eldest in particular never looks anything like himself!

Are you my sister? My son’s was awful I nearly wet myself laughing. Disappointingly good this year <grin>

I never buy ones of my DCs as they are always awful!

I do keep the watermarked version they send home though so we can look through them and laugh at how truly terrible they are.

I didn't like DD's this year so I took her to Max Spielman after school one day. They did a much nicer job and were cheaper.

My DS looks a bit like a better looking version of Mick Jagger he

He doesn't take a bad photo but his year 10 was not the best- the lighting is bizarre.

DD is has a pretty elfin look and she again looks nothing like the photos that come

Sorry my phone is playing up.

She looks or looked cute in the class photos and with her brother when they were little but that was because they were outside i think.

No don't buy them they are always crap.

I am with you, my dd8 her photos were not very nice and the 'cheapest' package was still £35 for three prints. I am just not inclined to spend the money. I have told her we will pick out some photos on my phone and get them printed at boots x

I would find that funny 😁

My daughters this year were awful too. She looked like she was possessed by evil 🤣

They are a con and a rip off.
Taken so the school has a photo on the database (essentiall so you can work out it was Jimmy McNulty who spat at you in the playground.)
They do them like a factory line to make it as quick as possible.
I have not boughts DCs for years. Instead I save up the £40 odd and every 3 years pay a photographer to do some professional shots in the woods/local country pile - fabulous shots and the same cost.