From My Mom

[Nashida]

My younger brother is a senior this year, and just got his portraits taken. My mother went Thursday to pick up the disk with the prints they wanted to have in the yearbook, and he came down the stairs flustered and clearly miffed. He then relayed this to my mom.

An hour before my mom came to pick up the photos, he was doing another sitting with a student and his mom. But the whole time he was doing the shoot, Mommy Dearest is off to the side snapping the exact same pictures with her phone! The photographer told her eight times to please put the phone away, and she never acknowledged him. So now her phone's filled with the same pictures he just took, and she paid him for the sitting.

My mom told the guy he should have just stopped the shoot after the third or fourth time the phone was out and just charged them the sitting fee, but the photographer let out a kind of groan and shook his head, which meant he didn't and just finished the sitting. I hope he can get some justice here, because what's stopping the SC from making prints of the photos from her phone?

[Dreamstalker]

One can always hope that the phone camera quality is much worse (bad angle, no flash, etc) than Mommy Dearest realizes.

[BeeMused]

Most phone cameras are bad, so there's a good chance that the prints made from her photos are crap. Karma is such a bitch!

[Amina516]

Im sure he wouldve been justified in asking her to leave. There has to be a policy in place to prevent that kinda thing.

[bainsidhe]

Does the photographer know which school the son attends? If mummy dearest was snapping photos, it probably means she intends to use the phone pics for the school photo instead of shelling out for professional pics. If that's the case, a nice letter to the school explaining copyright violation would be in order.

[Squeaksmyalias]

That lady will still be charged for the sitting, actually it's likely the school system will be paying for it. She will get proofs and will then pick a picture for the year book and package, or not. Most school systems if they are paying for a sitting will insist on using the photo from the photographer they are using.

So luckily he will still get paid, he might just end up missing out on a package. It's annoying none the less, 15- 20 minutes setting up for a shoot, getting the kid into place only to have mom try to elbow her way in to save money. That being said, her shots won't be as good as the one's the photographer has, just due to the angle and light. Even if she has a good quality camera in her phone, it's just not going to be as good.

OR she might end up buying every single picture he took, it happens, some parents must have as many pictures of their kid as possible.


I feel his pain, I was the one keeping parents in line today during senior basics. I had to calm down a mother who was arguing with her son over him not smiling. Ugh that was fun. We finally had to tell them that if they continued to swear at each other they would have to leave since we had more parents and students walking in any minute.

[BlaqueKatt]

Even if she has a good quality camera in her phone, it's just not going to be as good.

average is 2-3 megapixels-there is one phone with a 5 MP camera and one with 8MP(looks more like a camera than a phone-so yeah not printable at all.

[Sapphire Silk]

I'm surprised. I never, EVER had my parents present when I sat for school pictures.

You went to school, they set you up, took the pictures, then later on we'd get proofs to take home for Mom and Dad to order from.

As a high school student, I've been MORTIFIED if my parents had been present.

[Squeaksmyalias]

I'm surprised. I never, EVER had my parents present when I sat for school pictures.

You went to school, they set you up, took the pictures, then later on we'd get proofs to take home for Mom and Dad to order from.

As a high school student, I've been MORTIFIED if my parents had been present.

That only happens for Senior portrait sessions, but even then parents don't always attend with the students for the basic sessions. Today out of 25 or so students maybe five parents showed up with their kid. A lot of the time parents will attend the in studio sessions, but it's more expensive anyway and with the amount of money they are spending they will most certainly have an opinion on the photographs.
There are three types of sessions for seniors (at least the way it works for my studio) Regular in school year book and ID photos, like the underclass would get. That is more or less a must get anyway.
Basics which is in school but you get a 15 minute session, two different outfits.
Then in studio which is about a half an hour to an hour.

The normal picture day is like you said, that happens for under class and for the senior's ID cards.

Hope that clears that up. =)

[bainsidhe]

Yeah, I was thinking senior photos as well. Different school districts do things differently, our school was never responsible for paying for the senior photos/sitting fees. A friend of mine refused to pay a professional photographer to take her senior photo, so the yearbook used the school standard pic from junior year.

[Magpie]

We had to pay for grad photos, but they didn't make me submit a picture for yearbook if I didn't sit. I think I was probably in the yearbook anyhow, because I had to go for the standard "walk here, smile, ok you're done" pictures for my ID card.

It was apparently mandatory in university to get the grad photos though. I'm still not sure why... (or what they'd have done to me if I didn't get them done).

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I hope he can get some justice here, because what's stopping the SC from making prints of the photos from her phone?

Nothing, if she doesn't mind said prints looking absoluetly horrible.

What's going to be really funny is when she tries to print them out. I only hope she pays someone else to do it.

The photographer should have refused to proceed with the shoot until she put the phone away. On the other hand, he probably knows exactly what she's planning to do and thinks the result of that will be as hilarious as I do.

[Eisa]

Ours was that we could get the standard school picture and not do anything else OR we could go through this portrait studio the school recommended...or we could just submit a picture all on our lonesome.

But I can't imagine getting a decent-quality picture off a cell phone...at least not to print in the yearbook. Mine's 1.3 megapixels and not horrible, but...definitely not good enough for yearbook photos. What on earth was that woman thinking? And that's unbelievably rude to the photographer, too.

[PepperElf]

my school never had that trouble
they had the photographer come to the school... so any parent loitering around and snapping pictures could legally be asked to leave by the school itself

[sweetj82]

Most phone cameras are bad, so there's a good chance that the prints made from her photos are crap. Karma is such a bitch!

She will probably go back than and demand free pictures and a new sitting