WaterBabies Photo shoot

[Nearlycooked]

I am in a beginners class for Water Babies - it is excellent and we are both enjoying it very much. Have found the whole set up to be very professional and am very happy with the service and experience so far. Have just received promo materials for the underwater shoot and of course want to go ahead and have the photo - I just wondered if anyone has advice, tips and especially the costings of the photos ( prices not included in promo materials!!!!!) Will I need a mortgage???

We're starting beginner's classes in a couple of weeks and really want the photo too. We've been warned by a friend that it costs £60 just to book the shoot (!) and then £40 for the smallest photo. So yep, second mortgage time!!

Yes, they are expensive.

Yep - we've done this. Dd was 13 months at the time - so we'd done a couple of terms by then - and she was one of the oldest at the photo shoot.

Bear in mind that the photo shoot may not be at the pool you normally swim at (ours wasn't and it was a pain to get to and park and it was more stressful because we didn't know where we were going).

When we did it, there were lots of time slots and you had to be ready in your group at a particular time - it was well organised but very busy. They did a sort of mini class to start with and then each baby had 3 goes underwater (unless they were unhappy about it). The teacher put the baby underwater and then stepped out of the way for the photographer to take the picture. You can have a picture with them if you want (I didn't and I don't think many people do).

A few weeks later we went to see the pictures. They had lots of different options on sizes and finishes. It is eye-wateringly expensive but it's something you're not going to be able to do yourself and you'll probably only do it once. We bought one picture.

I phoned up the local office and they e-mailed me the price list. A normal-sized print is about the order of magnitude of £100 I seem to recall. It's a bit pot luck how good the shots, and having gone to the shoot, you probably will buy at least one print. As a keen amateur photographer, I think it's justifiable how expensive it is as they do use super-expensive equipment etc. We got a couple of small prints and I don't regret having got them, but they weren't 'wow' shots either.

If you are going to get it done, I'd recommend doing them as early as possible as some babies go through what WB refer to as the 'wobbles' when they are a bit older...

We had it done 2 years ago. It's a beautiful picture but it cost us around £180 framed (slightly bigger than A4 size, I'm guessing). A friend had a canvas and it cost £400ish. It is very expensive, BUT I used the argument that we will never have the opportunity to get anything like that again and it's hopefully something DS will treasure when he's older. Our teacher gave us all of the 4x6 proofs as well for nothing.

Did it a couple of years ago- second mortgage stuff. I love them though.

Heck! gotta do it though! thanks for replys

Wow, can't believe those prices! I took some pretty decent underwater pictures of DD1 when she was 11 months old with a cheap disposable watertight camera. She was even smiling in one of them! It was an outdoor pool, though, maybe the light is better. Just saying it definitely IS something you can do yourself (with the help of another adult), especially if you're not looking for a super-professional picture, just a cute one.