Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Awful school photo

106 replies

daisychainarainyday · 30/08/2024 11:45

So..cutting a long story short. We have just received our school photos in the post because the company the school used , took so, so long to send them out.

My DD's own photo is terrible!!! I mean it is the worst photo i have seen of her!! She isn't smiling and his her head down so she actually has a double chin !!!!!!!

The class photo - is slightly better but my DD is one of the six who is grimacing 😔

im just so annoyed as they were expensive and i ordered extra for family. i cannot and wont send any. she looks terrible.

can i complain? surely they didnt just take one photo??

im thjnking that i will just take my own of her i her uniform.

i feel very angry and sad about it all.

OP posts:
hereismydog · 30/08/2024 12:09

Angry and sad and want to complain because you don’t like how your child looks in a photo? Gosh, I hope you’re not projecting any of this shit onto her!

Thatnameistaken · 30/08/2024 12:10

Awful school photos are the one's I treasure. They're the pictures that you can laugh about as a family as they get older.
We've got some stonkers 😁

ThatsNotMyTeen · 30/08/2024 12:12

Why did you buy them?

one year our school photos were absolutely unbelievably awful. My children looked deranged and somehow like they had false arms.

Ponderingwindow · 30/08/2024 12:12

For years we had to buy ours before they even took the photos.

i remember as a child we got one snap per child. I don’t know if they try harder these days or not

we have gotten pretty lucky with DD’s photos. I do wait until they are taken, though they still push hard to get the money before picture day.

Adventurerno24 · 30/08/2024 12:14

If the photos are awful and you didn't see a proof I would send them back for a refund.

The op is not complaining about her child's looks, but it's the photographer's job to get the child smiling at the camera at least.

outdamnedspots · 30/08/2024 12:15

No preview?! How are you supposed to make a decision if you don't see what the photo is like?!

I'd return them and ask for your money back.

Werweisswohin · 30/08/2024 12:17

daisychainarainyday · 30/08/2024 12:09

There was no preview photo.
I did not react disappointed in front of my DD.
I opened them when she wasn't there.

I'm going to take my own. Any tips?uniform on ..white background ...

Get them done in a studio if you want them to look professional. Otherwise some natural snaps in the garden, looking smart.

Splat92 · 30/08/2024 12:17

I've had kids at 3 schools and we've always had to purchase upfront before the photos were taken.

One of my boys had a horrendous photo one year so we did get them to retake it for free but we had to travel to their office, which was an hour's drive away, to get it done.

SatansBobbleheadedDashboardOrnament · 30/08/2024 12:17

I'd probably just laugh if it was truly awful and save it for when they were older. Put it on a mug or something.

DappledThings · 30/08/2024 12:18

No preview is crazy. We get 3 to choose from.

Ours have always been some of the best photos we have of DC. School photographer seems to be able to get them to relax and smile in a way I can't.

housethatbuiltme · 30/08/2024 12:19

daisychainarainyday · 30/08/2024 12:09

There was no preview photo.
I did not react disappointed in front of my DD.
I opened them when she wasn't there.

I'm going to take my own. Any tips?uniform on ..white background ...

I have NEVER heard of them not sending a preview, why would you buy something (multiples of something at a premium price) that you haven't even seen?

Also why on earth would you get the photos now at the start of the next year?

None of this sounds real but is such a weird thing to lie about.

Cattyisbatty · 30/08/2024 12:22

Didn’t you see a proof? I didn’t buy them if they were bad. Not much you can do if not!

sugarapplelane · 30/08/2024 12:24

School photos are always bad, apart from on the odd, odd occasion.
You didn’t have to buy. We rarely did.
We just laughed about the bad ones and took our own if we wanted them.
Nothing to get angry about

housethatbuiltme · 30/08/2024 12:24

Adventurerno24 · 30/08/2024 12:14

If the photos are awful and you didn't see a proof I would send them back for a refund.

The op is not complaining about her child's looks, but it's the photographer's job to get the child smiling at the camera at least.

Yep, My DS year 1 photo was so bad I thought it was another child.

My DS had a mop of blonde ringlets that framed his face. They had scraped it back completely flat into a croyden facelift, it changed his whole look/face and made him look like he had really short hair and really big ears.

On top of that the colours where so off (probably because we are pale skinned and they where trying to make him look more 'tanned') that his light blonde (now short looking) hair and eyebrows was bright orange/ginger.

In real life my DS was bloody gorgeous though.

BarbaraHoward · 30/08/2024 12:24

I'd complain about not getting to view a proof before you buy, that's awful. Definitely worth having a terrible one in the drawer though. Grin

It's not a big deal, or worth getting upset about - aside from the wasted money.

Paintpalette · 30/08/2024 12:27

dairyfairy21 · 30/08/2024 11:47

Take your own. I've never bought school photos - I take nicer ones of my own - doesn't everyone?

I don't believe there is a need for the school photo anymore.

Well, there's never been any need for parents to buy copies.

But clearly the need is still there - school need an image of each child for their records.

As a teacher, from Tuesday I'll have approximately 200 new names to learn as quickly as possible. Those little images on our info systems make this possible (even if the child appears to have a double chin and doesn't in real life!)

violetsparkle · 30/08/2024 12:27

You can't complain because you don't like how your child looked! That's your child just pop it in an album and replace it with the next one.

It's not meant to be a modelling shoot it's a snap shot in time.

spiderlight · 30/08/2024 12:28

@housethatbuiltme - they seem to be particularly bad with pale-skinned children. My DS is a very pale redhead, and in one of his primary photos, his skin was blue. Genuinely blue. I don't know what they'd done with the white balance. I eventually started buying an electronic version of the photo rather than prints, so I could fiddle with them in Lightroom and get him looking at least alive, and then print a couple for family myself. His secondary school used a different company and they were much better.

Taluulaah · 30/08/2024 12:28

Aw, let it go, OP - I know it’s disappointing but seriously, school photos always tend to be the worst imo! Always a bit uncomfortable, a bit forced, weird dynamic going on etc -but you bought them, it’s done - they’re not what you hoped for, so you are best to just move on and forget about it now as there’s nothing you can do to change it. Dwelling on it won’t help, making a fuss won’t fix it and will probably upset your DD… I’d just shove em back in the envelope, at the back of a dark cupboard never to be seen again and pretend you didn’t receive them - and never think of it again! Take your own, take your time making your daughter feel good about the whole situation, and don’t let this round of less-than-flattering school photos get you down.
Oh, and in future, maybe ask to see a preview set of pics before buying?
Chin up, OP. Not worth being upset over 💐

ChilliMum · 30/08/2024 12:28

Thatnameistaken · 30/08/2024 12:10

Awful school photos are the one's I treasure. They're the pictures that you can laugh about as a family as they get older.
We've got some stonkers 😁

This, the bad ones are the best!

We have a drawer full! I always buy them as it's nice to look back at class photos (my mum still has mine from the 80s) and they are only about £10 for the pack here (class plus individual plus a set of small passport style which are great for library card / bus pass / other). But our favourites are the bad / tried to be arty ones.

Mine are teens now but we love getting the old hideous school photos out and having a laugh. We have some great ones; dd is a grimacer so we can always rely on her for a good one, and one year ds school thought it would be a good idea to take them with the kids posed thoughtfully at a desk holding a pen. My absolute favourite though was the class picture during covid with all the kids in little archways like the opening credits to the muppits😂

I have plenty of lovely photos of my children taken myself, there is something truly special about the awkwardness of the school photo!

Start your collection now and enjoy in years to come!

ilovesushi · 30/08/2024 12:29

We had some pretty terrible school photos one time when DC were in primary. I didn't love them, but didn't hate them, but I am guessing a number of people were also disappointed and took it up with the school. In the end we weren't charged and they brought in a new photographer to redo photos. We got two sets that year. Bad quality photos with DCs looking immaculate. Good quality photos with DC looking more disheveled because I missed the note about the additional photo shoot.

DialSquare · 30/08/2024 12:30

I always thought shit school photos were a badge of honour. I've got one of me from the 70s where, in my head, I thought I had flicked my fringe to look like Farah Fawcett Majors, but of course I looked nothing like her! I can't even describe how my fringe turned out. It was like a handlebar moustache at the top of my head!

LovedFedAndNoonesDead · 30/08/2024 12:34

Preschool did photos in June and we got the proofs a couple of weeks later. We refused to buy them as the only option was £65 for digital copies photos of each child on a memory stick - there were 11 photos in total of my twins so it was going to be £130 for them both. If every family bought them that would have been well over £2,500 going by the number of children in the photos.

Plus the group photos were awful - one was a photoshop of kids in different poses, facing different directions and the kids were all different sizes; the other was circles with kids in each one - but siblings were all in there together and they wanted £15.95 per copy; oh, and you couldn’t have the group photos as part of the memory stick only printed copies.

We still have copies of my school photos starting from first year infants 47 years ago through to end of middle school - no idea why there are none from senior school but, as others have said, it was a different time when most families only took photos on holiday or special occasions plus at school, unlike now when almost every moment of a child’s life is recorded and stored “on the cloud” for ever (or until storage is full when a couple of thousand images are deleted!)

Dolliesdisasterousdayout · 30/08/2024 12:35

Fwiw ds (25) has one of the most awful school photos ever taken.
I now love it, it makes me giggle every time I walk past it in the hallway. He’s making the most ridiculous face but as soon as I look at it I remembered our conversation about 18 years ago on the way to school where I’m telling him not to make faces and to practice his nice smile. Lovely memories.

CatamaranViper · 30/08/2024 12:35

We've always had a choice of 4 pictures. You can buy packs with 1 of the 4 in various sizes or a mixture of 2 photos.
Id be furious if I had to buy before the photos were taken. How on earth are you supposed to know!