Interesting….I’m inclined to think the same way. I’m trying to remember when was the last time anyone I know actually looked at the previous year’s school pictures, beyond what is already in the school yearbook.
That sorta explains why the pix are so expensive. If only a couple parents buy them but the majority don’t then you gotta soak the ones that do to pay for your time to take pictures of all the kids.
But I totally agree with you Escoguy. No need to buy the formal pictures. It’s not like most parents don’t already have a ton of pictures of their kids.
School pictures seem like a stunningly obsolete business. I remember having them taken decades ago, when I was in grade school, but that was a time when not every household had a camera, and getting tangible pictures meant waiting for the whole roll to eventually get exposed and then schlepping to the drug store to get the film developed and printed.
Fast foward to today…if my daughter took any more selfies with her phone, she would have welders’ burns on her retinas. Our marginal need for one more photo is between zero and negative.
Also don’t buy them and don’t dress the kids up either. Probably should just tell them to skip it. We have so far only bought the yearbooks when the kid’s leave a school, for example ,going from 5th to a middle school in another district. So far none of our kids have left a school other than for that reason.
What is worse is the people who buy them and then hand them out….we just got the notification that our 13 year olds school pictures are available for purchase. He has a stupid t-shirt on and I asked my husband if he knew when picture day was and why did he let him wear that stupid shirt….we don’t plan on buying, so whatever. Although I guess the grandparents still love to receive them.
We don’t buy the pictures either. The pictures are in the yearbook, which is more fun to look through and the kids have fin getting their friends to sign it, so I do buy one of those for my kids to share. Maybe the school has to take pictures for the yearbook?
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