Ah, the classic school photo. Where would we be without it?
Love it or loathe it - and my lads have brought home some absolute crackers in their time - it's as much a part of school tradition as dodgy school dinners and itchy uniforms.
But now one mum is on a mission to change it.
The Manchester Evening News reports:
A photographer mum is trying to persuade schools to change the way they take official photos of their pupils. Former travel agent Aurelie Kennedy would like to see an end to the traditional snaps we all get of our children sitting or standing in front of a plain white background, in favour of something more original. The 38-year-old used some photos she took of children at nursery and primary school in Sydney, where her family lived until last year, to persuade her children's new school in Marple, Stockport, to follow suit.
I can't quite decide how I feel about this. On the one hand I can totally see the appeal of doing something to update school photos. I fork out for our school's photos every year because how could you not - they're a timeless snapshot of childhood that I know I'll cherish all the more once my lot grow up.
But most years I also find myself thinking that the snaps taken by friends and family members are more accurate reflections of who my kids are than our school photos. Something about those awkward, unnatural poses and the 'Silly Sausages' grins makes me not exactly love the school photos as much as I do our own candid snaps of the kids.
Nonetheless, I can't help thinking I'd sort of miss the laughable awfulness of the classic school photos if we did away with them completely.
In the end, a look at Kennedy's pics persuaded me of the appeal of ditching the old way of doing school photos. The images are still timeless snapshots of kids during their school days, but there's an energy to the pics that comes, I suspect, from capturing kids having fun at school instead of replicating old-fashioned poses that they never actually strike in real life.
But we'd love to hear your views on this. Would you like to see old-fashioned school photos done away with in favour of something more modern when it comes to class pics? Or would you miss the classic school photos with those gappy grins and funny poses? Leave us a comment or come and join the debate over on our Facebook page.
Our school uses a pretty bad photographer. The poses aren't natural and the quality is sub par so I don't buy them, they're ridiculously expensive too! As my husband is a professional photographer I could easily take my kids to his studio and have much better pictures taken. Some of these companies generally need an overhaul.
I think I'm less bothered about the pose, and more bothered about the extortionate prices. The cheapest single snap from our photographer is £12. They usually take three pictures, meaning that the cheapest you can buy all three for is £36. They also won't allow mixing images in their 'packs'. Such prices exclude so many from the school pictures process. In the days of digital photography, there's no excuse for these prices.