To think that school photographs are abominably expensive?

[Birdly]

Just got the DC's class photos. Lovely pix of them with their friends and teachers in a cheap as chips cardboard frame - £10.50 each! EACH!

So that's 2 DC and, ideally, I'd like to give a copy of each to my mum. That's £42.

Has the world gone mad?

YADNBU I don't buy for family I tell them the price the first time my mum and nan assumed I would pay and were gutted I hadn't and I said well I showed you the form and suggested you order any you want.

YANBU. Same here- £9.50 for one copy of a 8x10. I have a MIL who sees photos and just says- "I'll have a copy of that", as if we are made of money and have loads of time to arrange such things.

For DS1's official nursery picture it was £26 for a pack of about a dozen pics with no frames which was better value as it included copies and different sizes that made good Xmas pressies for GPs.

Its extortion.

We get choice with the individual photos, done earlier in the year, but it's a one-price, one-size job with the class pic.

Don't they know there's a credit crunch on?!!!!

I usually purchase the 8x10 copy, then scan it and reprint through an online printing company, alongside a load of my own personal photos. That makes it affordable for me to give grandparents copies.

I am happy to pay the £10 for the initial photograph as I assume we are also paying for the photographer's time and for copyright (or at least right to display/reproduce), but I balk at buying additional copies for £8 each!

I always buy one, scan it in to my pc then order extra copies from Truprint or similar [tightwad emoticon!]

Xpost with Lutyens

Ha! Our class one was £18 unframed. It is unframable due to it's size, so it's £28 framed. It's very nice, and a lovely funky picture so...

...I got it, as I'm a sucker and she's my first and in foundation. Clearly dd2 will get no such thing

The individual ones were £18 for a pack of various sizes, which was better.

££££ all the way isn't it. Oh well, at least we are lucky to have our little people and have them in school and getting their pics taken.

YANBU, though it wouldn't occur to me that the grandparents would want class photos.

I didn't buy ours this year as instead of being formal ones the kids were all put into small groups and it was all casual, arms round each others shoulders stuff - very strange .

Bamboo - ours was like that too! very strange - dd2's teacher had a yellow monkey draped across her shoulders!

dd1 hated it she said she felt stupid and embarrassed .

A yellow monkey? - how surreal.

YANBU, it's a rip off. DD had a lovely class photo done last term, very original and funky layout/theme. Bought the bog standard, unframed, tiny print and that was £11!

We buy one, scan it in, print it out, and frame them in cheap frames from Ikea.

Our class one is also unframable due to its size, so I bought a framed one reckoning I'd change the picture each year... only its kind of a photo stuck onto a box frame - no glass covering it. Swizz.

Yes we had the quirky one too. They are n lttle groups, all in a line, with toys and some fav classroom stuff dotted about.
It's lovely actually, but I do harp back to the girls stting crossed legged and the boys stood on benches at the bac. Tall ones in the middle and hands folded on laps

Awwww!

I like the quirky style, its going to look suitably dated in future. Can anyone remember the name of the company that does them? (I keep meaning to phone and query lack of glass in frame - it really doesn't seem right)

There's no glass in the frame?? What, just yours or all of them? Health and safety gone mad or an error with your order?

True, this whole new style will be the same as the fluffy rug was in our day. Our kids will look at them when they come to visit with our grandkids and say 'mum, why does Miss Smith have a yellow monkey on her shoulder, were you all on drugs in the early 21st c?'

Our grandchildren will no doubt have their portraits taken on fluffy rugs with brown clouds behind them.

They have always been very expensive.

I have always bought the first and last at primary, and the first secondary as individual photos. Other times I bought the photo with 3 siblings together if it was a good one. Like others have done I scaned in the original, but I suspect we shouldn't really be doing this! In recent years we have been given the option of buying a CD to print from....they wanted £14 in addition to the cost of the photo.

At primary the class pics were always taken by the HT. I didn't mind buying those as money went to school funds.....I think I've got a nearly complete set, plus the football, netball, recorder groups etc. for all 6 DC.

They are lovely to look back at. The most expensive so far have been the graduation photos.

treedelivery, I don't know anyone else who had a framed one and don't want to look like extravagent mum by asking around

Just remembered the name of the company and called them - there is not meant to be any glass. What a con.

OMG, wonder if we will get glass.

How bonkers is that! No glass!?

I tell ya, world gone mad.

We've got the big long line photos, which you'll never be able to buy another frame to fit, type con. And yes, that cost us £26 with frame - but what's the point of a very long photo without a frame??

It is indeed abominably expensive, and a con!

I could understand the expense when we were in school, what with the rolls of film they would have to shoot for individual photos which then might not be bought.

But now, with modern digital cameras, there's absolutely no reason for it to be ridiculously expensive.

I sometimes wonder with things like this, surely a reasonable price - say 5 quid might mean 80% would buy them and you'd make as much money as if you charge 20 quid but only sell to 20%

Nah, I don't bother anymore,I know what my DS looks like

My mum used to always insist on buying the individual ones on the delightful grounds that "If you ever get kidnapped I want a decent picture to give to the police of you." She was a journalist and I think she'd covered too many crime stories - and I hated having my photo taken.

I used to spend all day when the school photographer came around trying to avoid having my photo taken for the teacher wall in the reception - think my record was making it to 2.30 before the secretary caught up with me and dragged me out of class (to the hilarity of my Y4 boys) to get it taken.