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Photo by happylark60
It's picture day next week, which means I only have a few more days to decide if I'm going to cough up the $35-$50 for photos of my first-grader standing in front of a backdrop of books with a fake smile pasted on his face. Oh, how I wish he would look as cute and natural as this lad at right.
My daughter always looks like she's on the verge of tears in her shots, she hates picture day so much.
But for some reason I feel guity if I don't order the school photos, even though I don't really like them. I prefer natural, candids to posed shots of children. I guess I always order a package in the end because when I look them years from now, they will sort of chronical my kids' journey through school.
Plus the grandparents go crazy for them. My mother always wants the huge 8 x 10 that's almost as big as the photo display table itself.
CafeMom JSVDP's friend IRL didn't want to pay the money for the package, so she took some shots of their children posed in much more natural ways. She got real creative, snapping some of the pics with the kids in front of cemetery headsones. Check out the photo shoot in Advice for Moms.
Do you think the school photos are overpriced or reasonable for what you get?
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Comments (20)
You are absolutely right about overpricing! I usually pass up buying them (They take 2 school photos here each year)! On occasion I will buy a small spring package. It's really a rip off. The photography company almost makes it unaffordable. If you want a decent sized photo you pay $42! For a little calendar it's $12. There's really no reasonable option in between. Who wants 24 of the 1 1/2" x 2" photos anyway?? Lol.
I will get my son the class picture if that is an option but that is it! They are very overpriced and I am a photographer and I take pictures of my son for free, LOL. Plus they are never very good!!
I think ours are. They suck. With 3 kids in school it costs us about $90 for photos and I get a small package and add in an 8x10 (for our frames).
When my oldest was in kindy and 1st grade the school she went to used a local photographer. His prices were great and you got a free choice of background color. I was able to get 8x10, 2 5x7, a few 3x5 and a bunch of wallets plus the class picture (which was extra) for like $27 compared to getting 8x10, 8 wallets and 2 5x7 for $30+ from the big company all the schools here use.
Wow are yours really that much? I picked the medium package which will cost me about $18, which I thought was really reasonable. i think the pic sizes are kindof smallm, but it will do just fine for giving to family. I just really wanted her to have the class composite anyway.
shot go to Walmart, so much cheeper for the same quaility of pics.
I quit buying the packages through the schools. I have seen them go up in price each year (I have on that graduated last yr, one that a jr. & one that's in preschool) . This year my son's package would have been $47 without an 8x10! And...I don't even like the pictures! I now go to Portrait Innovations. They have great packages, plenty of backgrounds & I get to pick the ones I like! I had my son's Sr. pictures done there last year, I got a ton of pics & they turned out fantastic...for $131. So yeah, they are WAY too expensive. I will purchase a class picture of my preschooler, but that's it.
It's definitely overpriced- so my MIL and I go in halfsies and buy a package that has 2 of the 8x10s. That makes it way more affordable :) With my younger DD in pre-k, they had a 'professional' guy take them(not a corp) and they weren't really that great... we like them and she looks great, it's just that you can tell they are not the best quality. So what we decided, since there were 2 poses, was to buy an 8x10 of each, go in halfsies on some photo paper, and use our nifty photo printer to make enough for everyone to have one :)
Oh- I forgot to add that the pre-k package was over $50 if you wanted an 8x10 in a package, and they had all this other stuff in there, like a calendar and a 'funpack'. It was ridiculous, especially since it wasn't very good quality. My older dd is having hers done by LifeTouch, and while they are not exactly cheap, they are much better than this other guy that the pre-k is using, both quality and price-wise.
Oh yeah! They are way too much but I do get them for the chronological part of it.
Our LARGEST package is $33, and that comes with a LOT of pictures, including 8x10, 5x7s, 4x6s and wallets. I think it's totally comparable, and I plan on buying it for sure.