Parents ripped off for poor-quality school photos

Government school parents are being stung for school photos — and the terrible shots have left many fuming.

Penny and Antony Ridge with Socrates and Athena. Picture: Rob Leeson

Parents in some state schools are paying twice as much for school photos than those in some private schools.

Government school parents routinely pay more than $40 for photos they haven’t seen, and are forced to bulk- buy photos they don’t want.

Other photographers, including those at private schools, charge as little as $22 for the exact same packages.

Parents report paying in advance for photos with the kids’ faces blocked by others, kids making silly faces, and shots with random children in the background.

One photographer used a backdrop with red kids’ hand prints that parents said looked like a murder scene. It was ­reshot at the request of ­parents.

Some schools are no longer doing time-consuming group shots, opting instead for a composite photo of individual children — another bugbear for mums and dads.

Penny Rudge with Socrates and Athena and their school photos. Picture: Rob Leeson

Parents also report seeing rude comments about their children on order forms, having snaps photoshopped to remove blemishes and scars and having kids with glasses “look as if their eyeballs are missing”.

In one case a child had an elastic band on his head and the parent was forced to buy the photo as she couldn’t see it beforehand.

Some of the cheapest photos uncovered by the Herald Sun are taken by Elite School Photography ($16 for group and $22 for basic pack) compared to MSP Photography which charges $32 for a group shot and $40 for a basic pack. MSP Photography takes photos for many state schools.

SchoolPix manager of business development Brendan Murnane said previewing photos and allowing parents to choose which ones they wanted added to the cost.

“It also slows things down significantly as it would take time to upload them and to get parents to choose them,” he said.

He said extra copies of photos in a package did not add to the cost as they were printed on the same sheet.

“Schools make 10 per cent on sales and we give away a lot of free things like staff photos and school products,” he said.

Laverton mother-of-two Penny Rudge was unhappy with photos taken of her son Socrates “Soccy”, 5, and daughter Athena, 8.

“My son makes faces to make people laugh and he did this for the photoshoot. I couldn’t believe what I got,” she said. “I felt obliged to buy them even though they were obviously very rushed.”

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