school photos

At schools here, they do formal pictures in the fall.  Those classic, traditional blue-background head shots.  Then, you get a class photo composite of all the kids' head shots.  In the spring, they take casual photos and they also take a class photo of everyone standing/sitting together with their teacher.  If you want a full class shot, you have to pre-pay for those without seeing them first.  Then, they send home the casual individual shots for you to either purchase or return to school.  And, if you have twins in the same class - they will take photos of them together.

This same company has now photographed my kids 4 times at school and once at t-ball.  They are 0 out of 5 for getting natural, nice smiles.  This time, I even wrote a short note to the photographer on how to get a natural smile out of Carl.  Both kids reported to me that the guy never even spoke to them other than to say, "Stand here."  "Move your arm like this."  Gretchen reported, "We didn't get the one who looked through the camera.  This guy just stood there and went 'click.click.click.' ".   Ugh.

And - how dumb to send home prints?  Each packet contained 7 8x10 photos.  So, 21 sheets of photo paper and ink for my family alone that will get thrown out.  Happy Earth Day week, people.  (picture a little eyerolling smiley face here)  $15 per sheet or you could buy all 7 for a discount ... $55 for all 7.  They claimed to have 3 poses, but clearly it was 2 poses and they took one of those poses and simply cropped in for a close up sucky picture.  The shot with them both?  They cut off Carl's foot and the vignette is atrocious.

Honestly, I cannot even believe they printed up these individual ones of Carl to attempt to sell me.  It looks like he is a deer that first smelled something yucky and then got caught in the headlights!!!!

Below them are recent shots I took to show you what my kids really look like in case you were unfamiliar with them.......