Our school system has started taking school pictures TWICE a year, once in fall (“The Classic”) and now also once in spring (“The This Makes Us a LOT of Money, So How About We Do It Twice as Often”).
I object. School pictures are ONCE A YEAR. Those cut-out frames, with a place for each grade’s photo, have ONE PLACE PER GRADE. People who say “My fourth grade school photo” mean THE ONLY ONE TAKEN IN THAT GRADE.
I don’t object TOO stridently, though, because all I have to do is “not buy any.” At worst, it’s a second day of the year I have to make sure the kids have haircuts and are wearing clean clothes, so that no one will think I am a parent who forgot Unnecessary Second School Picture Day.
Still, I am irked. Not STRIDENTLY irked, but irked, on principle. These photos are so much more expensive than a package deal at JCPenney’s, for which I can print out a $7.99 coupon any time I want and get a 20-minute custom session where they try to get the facial expressions I’d like to have immortalized, rather than having my child stand in line and get a 6-second custom session where 3 seconds involve being told to stand stiffly and 2 seconds involve being asked to smile like they don’t mean it. I do the school pictures each year rather than doing the $7.99 deal because (1) I HATE having to take kids to have their pictures taken, and (2) I HATE dealing with the sales pitch for additional shots afterward, and (3) school pictures are sooooooo tradiiiiiitional. But they are NOT sooooooo tradiiiiiiiitional TWICE a year.
I AM glad this year, though, because even though I didn’t fill out the order form for photos, they sent home a proof sheet to try to tempt me to change my mind. And they did a little mock-up of what the child would look like against each of the eight background choices, which include, and I am not even kidding, “Floating Upright in Outer Space Posing for a Photo,” “Standing Out in a Freezing Winter Field in Springtime Short Sleeves,” “Standing in the Ocean, Apparently, With a Tropical Island Behind Me But I’m Wearing a Sweater Because Spring Was Late This Year,” “In Some Sort of Mansion, I Guess, or Maybe a Museum,” and “At a BASEBALL GAME, FTLOG.” So I have free, tiny, stiffly-posed, insincere-expressioned photos of the twins in all these places now, and that was WELL WORTH the minor inconvenience of making sure they didn’t have peanut butter on their shirts that day.
(I believe if you click the photos you can see them larger. But not MUCH larger, because they ARE tiny.)
The backgrounds crack me up, but your kids are total cuties.
OMG, I am laughing SO HARD!! I too, was really annoyed by the fact that my daughter’s school took pictures twice this year. I also only bought them once. I was told by the director of her preschool that “all the schools are doing it now”
I get pictures taken once a year now, but not through the school. Twice a year is a rip-off. I only bought a yearbook so they could remember being here.
I recently discovered our school does this too. For fall pics you have to choose (and pay) which package you want at the time the picture is taken, which means you’re paying for a picture you might despise. For the spring pics, you do get to see them before picking the photo package but it’s just another money making opportunity.
Since I don’t have a kid in school yet I had no idea, but this whole thing really rubs me the wrong way. I don’t know why I find it so objectionable, but I do.
Oh my goodness. Our kids get the spring pictures too, but they are usually just with a background of a gate with flowers or an arbor or something silly. Nothing as hilarious as space!!!!
Thank the gods my kids’ school doesn’t do this. It’s rough enough feeling the pressure to purchase them once a year to fill each of their 13-little-rectangles-plus-one-huge-rectangle frames.
They DO do class pictures, though. Those are spring. Individuals are fall. They do not offer these smashing background choices either. Oh my.
I really have nothing else to say but HAAAAA!!! The outer space background KILLS me!!!
Oh man! I would sooooo get the “I’m in the dead of winter in a short sleeve shirt bc my mom doesn’t love me” one. Classic!
Wow. Those backgrounds are something else! I especially like Elizabeth in short sleeves in the snow.
I ran into this same phenomena this year at preschool. I didn’t buy them either. I already got the regular fall school picture, Christmas pics of the two kids, and Easter pics of the two kids. I have MORE than enough pics and no more frames to fill.
I don’t know about other places, but we always had school pictures twice a year…the fall photo was the one that ended up in the yearbook that year, and the Spring pictures were “dressier”. May be just a Southern thing, and we wanted to show off our Easter dresses. Which I never had, because we didn’t go to church. So, spring picture day involved miserable trips to the Pretty Plus section of Sears. :shudder:
We started taking pics twice a year when I was in Jr. High. My kid’s schools have always done so, since preschool. My elementary aged child most of the same background choices as yours did. I decided to buy it after seeing them because she has 4 front teeth missing and they were too good to pass up!
My 4 yr old’s spring pictures included tiny caps and gowns. Because they are graduating. From Preschool. Riiiiiiiight. Talk about not buying these adorable pictures of your child makes you feel like a giant jerk. UGH!
Priceless! What in the world is WITH the outer space background?!
I would LOVE to know why these particular eight are the background choices.
Superjules- RIGHT? In a previous year, I remember one of the backgrounds was a bookshelf with children’s books on it, and another looked like a chalkboard. THOSE make SENSE. But…outer space? A TROPICAL ISLAND?
HA! Oh my god, too funny. My favorite is “In Some Sort of Mansion, I Guess, or Maybe a Museum.”
I died laughing. Because the second to last one? All I can see is the palm tree growing out of your childrens’ heads.
I honestly think the school picture backgrounds are pulled from the Windows Screen Savers file or something.
These backgrounds are deeply awesome. I would really love to know who with the portrait company decided that awkward backgrounds=big sales.
The schools where I was from started doing spring pictures when I was about 10, but they usually made us pose with weird props like ladders and fishing poles. They also let you take pictures with your friends, and those were actually a HUGE seller, especially in middle school.
Our school has an added scam. They send home not just a proof sheet, but an actual package of pictures. They have printed out pictures of my babies, and if I don’t buy them, they will end up in a file somewhere. Or worse… the trash! Also, it turns out that if they send them home, they can ASK for the money, but they technically can’t MAKE the parents pay for them. So, it puts the school in an awkward position between the company and the parents.
Also, the children are so cute… even floating in space:)
The twins are super cute.
But beyond that… Wow. I mean, it seems that the photographer has SOME business savvy if s/he’s figured out a way to squeeze more money out of School Picture Day. But those backgrounds – particularly the SNOW one and the random HALLWAY – totally counteract any good impression of this person’s business skillz.
Is the company Lifetouch? If it’s anything like our school (and I’m betting it is), our schools get tons of $$ and free things from the photography company for merely ALLOWING them to come back in the spring. We get grant money and planners for all the kids and other free stuff, and all the school has to do is allow spring photos.
I’m highly irritated by it too, for all the reasons you mentioned. I REFUSE to purchase a spring pose, out of stubborness. Plus, our fall one is traditional, but the spring one always has them in front of a fake plastic tree or whatever. Gross.
Our spring photos are taken and a package of photos (NOT proofs) sent home with the kids, asking for payment or for us to send the photos back. What a waste! My friend tried requesting that they don’t take her son’s photos, and they refused.
Oh, well, it’s easy money for the school, right? I won’t begrudge them that, I guess.
Ok I’m over here snorting my water b/c I took a sip before I looked at the pics. I was expecting awkward backgrounds from your description BUT WOW. I just can’t imagine an outfit or pose that would make those backgrounds work?
My mom never bought the school picture packages. Even 15-20 years ago they were like $58 for 4 pics. We always went to Sears or JCPenney’s or hell, Kmart or Walmart when they had the photographer sessions in town and got the $12.99 special where you had enough wallet size pics to give to every single person you knew, including the mail man and grocery bagger.
Why is the mansion/museum so dark? Is it haunted? Is Jack Nicholson lurking with an ax?
Yes…stinking Lifetouch. The only good thing about the spring pictures was the class photo. I totally bought that.
@Marie, that’s good to know that the school is getting something out of it. I feel better about sending the entire package back (minus the class photo).
Our school also sends the whole package and then you buy some or all or none. Thing is, there are 5 total “sheets” and it is about $15 a sheet. BUT WAIT! If you buy all 5 sheets it’s only $44 not $60!
Total sucker that I am I buy them every year. I send most of them out too though. *sigh*
I will say though that they are always awesome pictures of my kids or I would not buy them. Thanks to digital photography, no more closed eyes or weird faces are sent home!
Maybe it’s places where they might work? If they grow up to be Space Cowboys? Or … Tom Cruise in Cocktail? It’s v. strange and I would find it super annoying. My kids aren’t in school yet and I am already terrified that everyone at their school is going to hate me.
Those backgrounds are so bizzarre. Why do they DO that to perfectly cute kids?
My boys’school pictures were always laughably terrible and I never bought any. I did what you mentioned and took my sons to a studio, but yes, that sales pitch was pretty high-pressure.
I did always buy the class picture, though.
Those backgrounds are so bizzarre. Why do they DO that to perfectly cute kids?
My boys’school pictures were always laughably terrible and I never bought any. I did what you mentioned and took my sons to a studio, but yes, that sales pitch was pretty high-pressure.
I did always buy the class picture, though.
My daycare does the whole send-the-whole-package-home-to-guilt-the-parents-into-buying-pictures as well, since you can’t very well let them toss the photos of your ickle darling! We always send them back, without scanning all the good ones…because that would be wrong, correct?
WOW! That is hilarious!!
My daughter is in Kindergarten and her school just did spring pictures too. Still waiting on seeing them – they’ll send them home too. But they already sent us previews of the backgrounds we could pick and non of them were as weird as yours! I picked some cutesy cartoony pink doodles one – as it’s one that you can only get away with for Kindergarten and for a girl.
I’m kind of glad they are doing picture day again – because my daughter was sick on fall picture day and so had to go to “retake day” where they somehow screwed up my order and used the boring grey background and then only sent me tiny photos, instead of the 5×7 that I wanted.
Plus I also hate taking my kids to the picture studios – far too stressful!
There was a huge snowstorm on our spring picture day – so my daughter wore her short sleeve dress under her snowpants and winter coat! :P
OMG that outer space background is FULL OF WIN. Why didn’t my kid’s preschool offer that? If I were you, I’d get all my school portraits in outer space, all the time! (I’m only half kidding.)
Yeah we have pictures twice a year now too, it’s been that way since she was in daycare. However, I don’t mind. We take the picture in the fall, and then I figure the spring picture is an insurance policy in case I don’t like the way her fall picture came out. The really annoying thing about our preschool’s pictures is you have to pre-order and pre-pay, before the pictures are even taken! Which kind of sucks, but I just order a small package with a digital copy.
Still, I’m voting for Astronaut Mini-Swistles from now on!
My daughter’s school does this too and it’s annoying especially when her soccer team and basketball team have photos in the fall and spring. We only purchase one set of photos for school and team because we really get all of the pictures we want from our own camera. Your kiddos look cute!
If you were ordering there are clear choices though…
Elizabeth in spring dress caught in a blizzard and Edward taking in a night game at Wrigley Frield.
Who comes up with these backgrounds?!
BWAHAHHAHA! Kids in Space!
Oh my god, you are too funny with those descriptions. Complete agreement on the schools taking too many pictures but those are adorable ones of your kids. I’d totally be tempted to buy :) My daughter has the same shirt (is it a dress?) from Target. Cute!
My son is in second grade and we’ve yet to order even a single one of his school photos because they are uniformly terrible. Blank background, terribly forced expression, just bad. We get his class photo for memory purposes, but his individual photos we’d rather forget. In this age of smart phones and digital cameras there doesn’t seem to be any reason for us to pay a ridiculous sum for a bad picture when we’ve got tons of good photos of him that are (relatively) free.
It took me fourteen years to get disgusted enough to take a stand on the school pictures but we’ve been happily school picture free here for two years. I take a first day of school set, a last day of school set and I also do a fall and spring photo shoot with each of my kids around the same time that school pics are done. Mine are much better anyhow and I really resent how much they charge for their photos. It is ROBBERY.
Our daycare does photos three times a year. We never plan to buy any, which is good because I am pretty sure from seeing the photos that they must poke the kids with a sharp stick and tell them their pets died before taking the photos.
Your kiddos are cute but those backgrounds are ridiculous.
Those backgrounds are a riot! What irks me about the spring pics is that they are printing out all of those pictures, many of which do not get purchased so they get sent back to the company. What a waste!! Hopefully they get recycled at least? This year our school switched from what your school did to a prepay and order like the fall pics. Only kids who were ordering pics had their pic taken. Between my two daughters’ classes, only one kid got her picture taken! Shows that many people have the same view that school pics are once a year. What I don’t understand in this digital age is why on earth don’t they just have the proofs online and let you order that way? You can decide of it’s a good pic and there’s no useless printing out of pics that won’t get purchased. Maybe that’s just too logical!
Our school system does twice a year too, with two different companies. The fall company has the horrid business plan where you pay BEFORE the photos are taken.
Yeah right.
We never buy fall photos because I refuse utterly to pay for unseen photos
The spring company sends a photo package home about a week after they were taken & you buy what you want, order more or send the rest back in. I cough up the $15 for 2 8x10s because, as you said, it’s tradition.
Damn. You’ve got the right idea, but I would have had to buy the space pictures — they’re just so weird. I had a friend whose kids’ school allso took pictures of siblings together, which was just evil because they were freaking adorable and how could you not buy them? Okay, anyone who was more frugal than sappy could not buy them, but I would be screwed.
This is making me SO SAD that I didn’t follow my gut and take a picture of my daughter’s spring portraits (which I had to return yesterday). I was TOTALLY the parent who forgot and it was REALLY OBVIOUS. I’m not sure I’ve ever sent her to school looking more hideous and the portraits (plus odd floral background) were SO BAD. Can you say bright orange tank top and short shorts (with spots on the top!) and half done/unbrushed ponytail PLUS super awkward smile? SO BAD. And kid did ask how they got all the flowers in the photo since they weren’t at the photo shoot. So funny all around :)
PS your kids’ photos were actually quite nice even though I agree spring portraits are kind of a scam.
I remember seeing the flyer about pictures this spring for my daughter’s Kinder class, but I totally assumed it was just for the kids who were sick on picture day in the fall. SO SHOCKED that it really was a real picture day!
And OH MY, my daughter looked AWFUL. I still have it sitting here in awe of how bad she looks (b/c of course I think she’s beautiful normally!)
yeah, picture day should be a once a school year thing, and that’s it!
My daughter’s daycare does this! I usually do JcPenney’s at Easter, Aug birthday and Christmas. I skipped Easter this year because it seemed like she just had her Christmas photos done.
JcPenney’s has pulled the hard sell on me several times, you have to keep resisting.
Yeah, our preschool did this too, but I ended up being happy about it because in her fall picture she had a lingering cold, and apparently no one thought to make sure she wiped her nose before the picture, so… yuck. Not a great shot. Her spring picture was way cuter, so yay!
I still agree though: rip off.
OMG. I love them. I gotta admit the one looks like they are standing in a hallway in Hogwarts. And seriously, SPACE?
HA! Oh, how I love the baseball-themed “View from Section 52A” background. CLASSIC.
(I would be so irked about the additional photos too. STUPID.)
Space school! Tropical beach school!ha!
They did the twice a year photos at my school when I was little – the fall ones were always the classic background that went in the yearbook, and the spring ones had the funky backgrounds that were more optional. I don’t think my mom ever purchased the funky background ones, but I giggle when I see them at my friend’s homes (because we didn’t epitomize ENOUGH the early 90s with the way we dressed, we had to add neon colors in the background! Hysterical!)
Aw. They are cute despite the crazy backdrops!
My friend Liz showed me Ellen Degeneres’ “Bad Paid For Photos” yesterday, and I have to share it:
http://photos.ellen.warnerbros.com/galleries/bad_paid_for_photos#142963
Our school does the twice a year photo thing, too. But the photographer they use couldn’t care less about whether the kid is smiling or even looking at the camera unless there’s a fat money envelope accompanying them.
Our school does the twice a year pic thing too. I sorta hate it because there are 2 things I am a complete sucker for: books and pictures of my kids, even shitty pictures because I’m all “Oh, this captured the moment of them looking shitty when they were 4.”
But N’s birthday is in Feb. I did the 3-6-9-12 month pics and then one a year until she turned five. But since her birthday is after the fall pics, I like to get the ones taken in spring when she is “technically” the new age. It’s dumb, I know, but it’s just my thing, I guess.
I don’t actually mind our spring pictures but they do one actual “spring” background and the last couple of years I’ve liked those better than the fall ones. A friend of ours forgot that it was spring picture day and sent her son to school in a shirt that said (boldly) “Wasn’t Me”! She had to buy one for the sheer hilarity of it. :-)
I cannot believe all those silly backgrounds on your kids’ photos – who wants a picture of their kid in space?