senior pictures

[FLA]

what a racket! Now having had 2 kids go through the process and ended up with really bad picture choices, I'm wishing I had skipped the whole thing and just taken them to a place in the mall. I have a pic of my DD and our dog that is miles better than any of her senior pic poses.

the cheapest package to get 1 8x10 is $229. No thanks. I felt like I had to have their senior pics so I bought an 8x10 of each for $63 each. And they don't even look like senior pics. Claire's only decent pic was one of her playing the violin, none of the ones in her drape were any good.

I don't mind paying for something really good, or even marginally good but these were bad. Ugh, I wish I'd done the mall. But the odds of getting the kids to agree to go to the mall to do it were slim at best. This is the business to get into, you have a captive audience. DD said most of her friends spent close to $400 on a package labeled "best value". $400!

this is the same company that did my senior pics. Back then, your prints came on thick paper, they really worked to help you get good poses to choose from, they looked like high quality pictures. Now the paper is like what you get when you get prints at a drugstore. the background was blue clouds like every other year's school picture. Nothing special at all.

lesson learned too late, oh well

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Do you have to do it with the school photographer? We do it and now just buy the 1 digital print for $25 and send it out to family.

[disneysteve]

Do you have to do it with the school photographer?

Some schools require you to use the school photographer in order to be in the yearbook. It's probably in their contract. So you can have pictures taken anywhere you want but you have to at least by the cheapest package from the school or else your kid won't be in the yearbook.

[creditcardfree]

Some schools require you to use the school photographer in order to be in the yearbook. It's probably in their contract. So you can have pictures taken anywhere you want but you have to at least by the cheapest package from the school or else your kid won't be in the yearbook.

I think this is going to be the case for my daughter next year (required to use school photographer) I have no idea what the cost is. When our older daughter was a senior we went to a professional photographer and paid $400 for a small package. The experience was good (the actual photo shoot), and the quality was awesome, but not really happy with the cost.

[cooliemae]

I don't mind paying for something really good, or even marginally good but these were bad. Ugh, I wish I'd done the mall. But the odds of getting the kids to agree to go to the mall to do it were slim at best. This is the business to get into, you have a captive audience. DD said most of her friends spent close to $400 on a package labeled "best value". $400!

Our school's photographer allows us to purchase a cd of the photos along with the release of his rights to the photos. So we just head online and get the prints we want made super cheap. Of course homemade pictures are sometimes better, but not always especially if you want backgrounds added.

[FLA]

you had to use their photographer to be in the yearbook. You weren't obligated to buy anything, I don't think but I'm not sure you could pick your pose if you didn't. I just felt like I should buy at least one of their senior pictures. Buying the CD wasn't an option, it only came with the packages that cost upwards of $400. It's ok, one picture of them is fine, I just wish it had been a better quality of photo and better poses to choose from. Like he had DS in a black shirt on a black background playing her violin so as she points out, it looks like her head, hands and violin are just floating. And that was the best picture, the one I bought, lol.

[sv2007]

this is the same company that did my senior pics. Back then, your prints came on thick paper, they really worked to help you get good poses to choose from, they looked like high quality pictures. Now the paper is like what you get when you get prints at a drugstore. the background was blue clouds like every other year's school picture. Nothing special at all.

I think this has to do with the photographer. These days they seem to be less knowledgeable and under more pressure to turn things out quickly. I mean, the equipment no doubt has improved, so that leaves only the indian.

I, too, feel that today's school pictures are no where near as nice as when I was growing up. Maybe kids back then are just better looking subjects : ) On second thought, I'd still blame the photographer.

Many things are too rushed these days, and a lot of things have a decrease in quality (sure, there's a decrease in price too, but not everybody wants to pay cheaply for crap).

If I remember correctly, my senior pics package was $180, using the inflation calculator, that equals a price of $350 in today's prices. That was a mid-low-priced package. So, in reality, the prices you see today is actually cheaper.

But quality is just not there; there's just too few "real" professional photographer today who owns their own retail stores. Now everybody is a pro who's done a wedding shot.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I tend to agree with sv2007. I wonder if it's that everyone thinks they are a photographer now and the shots are awful. So these random people are in the business and schools hire them. I admit i hate my kids school photos.

[FLA]

the kids school pics through the years were so bad, I rarely bought any of them

I don't think these "photographers" that work for big companies are well-trained. I certainly don't think they are professional, career photographers

[Drake3287]

Agree, High School and even grade school photo's are simply a money maker for someone. Your forced to buy a package you don't want or can even afford in order to get the one picture you do want.

With 3 grown kids, 99% of our purchased photo's are still sitting in the same envelope they came in.

[sv2007]

With 3 grown kids, 99% of our purchased photo's are still sitting in the same envelope they came in.

That's better than me. I'm pretty sure that my parents have thrown out all my school photos except for my HS graduation picture.

They'd buy them every year; I do remember is exchanging the wallet-size photos with friends at school (andthey were thrown out too). This doesn't seem to be happening at my son's school; maybe it was just an east-coast thing or that he's just too young.

Come to think of it; these pictures just add extra garbage to the house. Maybe just buy the digital form in the future.

[FLA]

I asked my kids, didn't they want wallets to share with their friends and they looked at me like I had two heads. DD said, "social media, mom, social media". It's a different world than when I graduated in '88!

[Thrif-t]

Oh yeah kids don't exchange wallet photos' of themselves so save your money. Class rings is another thing I found they don't do. I got oldest DD one at the early bird discount night. Only a few people actually got them, the kids don't wear them today. Biggest waste of my money. I didn't worry about them for my other kids.

Back to senior pics, I just got one 8x10 spent a little more for the 1st kid cause we used a professional photographer, kid 2 I got smarter and got a girl off fb. Paid $75 and she printed out multiple 8x10's 5x7's, they all looked fine to me, never got anymore made, we had the disc too. In fact, I didn't have a use for all she made me.

In 2 years when I have to do this again for my son, heck I might snap the photo of him myself and enlarge it. He could care less about playing model and changing clothes like the girls.ha

[FLA]

class rings, yup, neither had any interest. Prom has changed. DS did go to two with a date but DD went to hers with a gaggle of girls even though two boys had asked her. I kind of like that change.

[disneysteve]

Ive seen a number of people use the proofs to share with friends and family, even though they had PROOF printed all across them. As far as they were concerned, that was good enough and they weren't spending the money to get the final prints. One woman at my office has a framed proof of her daughter on her desk. She's got 4 kids. They couldn't afford to spend hundreds of dollars for pictures of each kid.