School pictures — then, now, and in the future

(Photo by Daniel Wichers/FreeRangeStock.com)

I have a good friend who is one year younger than me and has a daughter who is one year younger than mine. Her daughter started school this year (because of how their birthdays fall, though, her daughter is two years behind mine in school), and recently had her school pictures taken.

My friend said she wasn't buying them. "I take pictures of her all the time, so I don't see the point in spending $40 for the smallest package of the pictures some studio takes."

I totally see her point, but each year, I've bought my daughter's school pictures. My parents and in-laws love them, and I like to have them myself to put on my desk at work.

And then there's the guilt that comes with not buying them.

"Yeah, they do get pretty pricey," I said. "But I feel like a bad mom if I say I don't want photos of my child."

I thought she'd laugh at me, but instead, she said, "Oh, I know! I do, too." But apparently, she's stronger than I am about sticking to her guns.

From there, we talked about how school photos had changed since we were the ages of our daughters.

Back then, school photos were taken once a year. The photographer ushered us in, one by one, to sit in a folding metal chair in front of a gray-brown-blue cloudy backdrop. He told us to smile, showed us where to look, warned us not to blink and snapped the photo. The really good photographers would have a joke or two ready to go for the students who just weren't in a smiling kind of mood. Then on to the next kid.

These days, though, school pictures at many schools (in my area at least) are taken twice a year. In the fall, at my daughter's school, we're limited to the same cloudy background we had back in my day. But for the spring pictures, the photographers get fancy. The child poses in front of a green screen for the photo, and we get to chose from a plethora of backgrounds ranging from aged brick walls to English cottages.

And then there are senior pictures, which have always been a special occasion, though nowhere near on the scale they are today. When I was senior, nearly everyone had that ubiquitous cloudy background that we had in the lower grades. But we dressed nicer and paid for extras like having a bad batch of acne airbrushed away. These were, after all, the last photo we'd be handing out to friends and sticking in our graduation announcements.

Today, with cameras and professional photographers everywhere, senior photos are an even bigger deal. One co-worker whose granddaughter graduated about three years ago said their family spent more than $800 total for prints on fancy cardstock and the photo session, which included several wardrobe changes and setting up in multiple locations. 

"That's a lot of money. I don't see me doing that for my daughter," I said.

"She's an only child, and she's a girl. You'll do it," my co-worker said.

She may be right. Perhaps the same guilt that drives me to buy $40-$50 photo packages when my daughter is a first-grader will also drive me to spend several hundred dollars when she's a senior.

Or maybe like my friend, I'll be strong enough to say, "I can take a picture of her anytime I want. Why would I spend the extra?"

Time will tell.