The Price of School Photos

Poppy9

I wish I had more school photos as DD 13 only has 3 from her entire time in Primary school as the school decided to cut back on the photographer coming in every year.

She's in her 3rd year of senior school and hasn't once had a photograph:(

While digital photography has made the cost of producing the pictures cheaper there is still the overhead of the photographer coming into school, especially with min. wage increasing their costs, plus the cost of the equipment; a serious, good quality digital camera & software is not £100

pukkamum

It's an absolute rip off!
The photos i take at home are much nicer and cost me pence, £8.50 for a tiny picture i think not!!!!
If everyone boycotted them they would have to bring the cost down.
I know a good percentage of the parents in my sons class aren't buying them.

*Louise*

I'm feeling quite hard done by now - my son's school phot is £25 to get it on CD!

(And the proofs are tiny with PROOF written across it like some others have said)

I ordered 4 7x5's and 4 4x3's for £15 no way was I bying the CD. I do like to get the photo every year to keep as a record or I wouldn't bother.

vickyj

Hi all
Wel this is me being brave.........
I am a school / playgroup photographer i am half of a partnership which is pretty succsesfull in our area,and i really can assure you we do not make squillions.
Firstly can i dispell one myth, Digital actually costs us more to produce than film due to the time involved. we do the high key ( white bg) and it takes me as many hours to edit and make perfect as it does to take the pics in the first place (a bit of a perfectoinist).
Our prices are .. for our biggest pack £30 with three big prints 4 mediums and 5 smalls.
then we have packs at £25, £19, £15, £13 and then there are individual print options. No i am not plugging you will not find a company name anywhere in this post.
These prices have not gone up in 4 years even though our costs have risen along with inflation and dont even get me started on my fuel cost grrr. We charge a fraction of what studios charge and we still give at least 20% back to groups, this is 20% of takings btw NOT 20% of profit so 20p in every £ spent goes strait back to groups.
I am a mother with three children under 10 myself so i can sympathise with the plight of others. Most of us independant photographers really do our damndest to ensure everyone can offord thier pictures as it is not in our intrest to make them unaffordable as this benefits no-one.

Regarding siblings in different schools, most schools will open thier doors early so siblings can come in and have one pic all together, have you tried this?. most photographers are also happy to welcome folks over lunchtimes to get all kiddies together, have you asked ?

I want to assure you we are not "coining it in" i drive a 10 year old car and live very modestly and am by no means sleeping on a stuffed matteress :-)
hey i am a member here arn't i :-)

Vicky

elisamoose

I work in a school and we try to shop around every few times to get it cheaper for families.It is expensive but we do our best ! We have tried local photographers but they are just not set up to do it in the time available, with the print options for parents. We also need it to be simple for us in school as this is not our core business!

hardpressed

It's a long time since mine were of the age to have school photos and even back then it was a bit like blackmail, you had to be hard-hearted to send the photos back without buying. One thing that used to annoy me was that the school didn't ask for permission before my children's photos were taken. Now we hear that parents are banned from taking pictures of their own children at school events so how come the school photographer can do it? Do they now ask for permission first? Most people have a camera and with the price they charge it would soon pay you to get a cheap digital and take all the photos you want yourself.

*Louise*

hardpressed wrote: »

Now we hear that parents are banned from taking pictures of their own children at school events so how come the school photographer can do it? Do they now ask for permission first?

Yes, well our school does anyway.

We get a letter send home about a week beforehand giving details asking if we want the pic taken (so parents can say no at that point if they don't want one done) plus asking if we would like to bring siblings in for the picture.

Paparika

I'm shocked by the prices, the last ones we had is when DS was leaving primary school which was a full class piccy, i had one of those more for my son to remember his mates by, then a few months later when he started secondary school they did a class one again, i bought that one (a good one for friends reunited when he is a bit older) but we lucky have had no more piccys to buy.

mspig

My son brought his home last week, there was no option for it to be put onto a cd, and the smallest package that they did was £24.99 which had 1 8x6 photo, 2 7x5 photos and 4 little ones. The dearest pack for the same as above but with a slightly bigger picture and 8 keyrings with pictures was £49.99.

Not sure where they get the prices from.

vickyj

mspig wrote: »

My son brought his home last week, there was no option for it to be put onto a cd, and the smallest package that they did was £24.99 which had 1 8x6 photo, 2 7x5 photos and 4 little ones. The dearest pack for the same as above but with a slightly bigger picture and 8 keyrings with pictures was £49.99.

Not sure where they get the prices from.

My goodness me that does sound very expensive. I would be very suprised if they are there again next year.
Sometimes in private schools they can be ery expensive due to out of ordinary special reqests thar us togs go with but unless the toggy is realy going out of thier way on this one i would say that that is a bit much.
Vicky