I heard some words the other day that struck terror into my very soul.
“My son went to get his senior portrait taken.”
The reason I was horrified is that “taken” is the operative word here. My friend was about to get taken for a ridiculous amount of money, just because she loves her son.
Senior portraits are only one of the boondoggles that parents of high-school seniors face as they propel their children through the last year of free public education.
The purchase of grossly overpriced caps and gowns is another, but we’ll deal with that later, when it’s not an emergency.
Now, it’s Red Alert time for senior portrait ridiculousness, which I got sucked into last year, spending $65 on nothing before I managed to pull myself out of the quagmire.
Here’s what typically happens: You’re just going along, enjoying your summer, when you get a packet in the mail telling you your kid has an appointment on X date to have her senior portrait taken at school.
My personal theory is that they do this in the summer, when it’s harder for parents to compare notes and realize they’re about to be fleeced.
According to this mailer, you need to send her along dressed nicely, along with a big fat check.
I panicked when I got this mailer from from a portrait company last year, because my son’s appointment was scheduled for the very next day.
So I got him up and sent him off with a check for $65, which seemed excessive to me for school pictures, but what the heck, right? He was a senior and I would have liked to have something to hang on the wall.
Much later, I leafed through the big, fat, glossy brochure that the portrait company sent and realized, oh, crud. I wasn’t buying pictures for that $65. I was actually buying nothing except the right to have my kid’s picture in the yearbook.
At our school, students are required to sit for these senior portraits or they can’t be in the annual.
Later, we got some proofs in the mail of attractive shots the company had taken of my handsome boy.
The proofs were purposely unusable, having watermarks all over them.
Instead, the company wanted me to pay $379 to $499 for a photo package highlighting the unique charms of my precious one.
Sorry. My precious one doesn’t have that many charms, especially when he first wakes up.
I called and told them I’d made a mistake by foolishly thinking I was buying an actual picture I could hang on the wall, so could they please send my $65 back.
You’re laughing right now, aren’t you? Yeah, that’s kind of the reaction I got from them, though they were only laughing on the inside.
Still, I was told that I had paid a $25 “proof deposit,” and I could get that much back if I sent back the proofs. The rest of the money went to a “sitting fee” that was shared with the school.
Well, I had no address to mail back the proofs and, soon, my son misplaced them, so I never got my money back.
After I wrote about this in October, scores of readers wrote to me about their own experiences. Apparently this is a universal boondoggle, though the companies change from school to school.
People are fighting mad about it too and questioning in particular whether it’s fair to leave kids out of the yearbook just because their parents can’t afford the sitting fees.
Still, most people are unaware of how it works and just go along with the program.
Jack Tingley, who’s a retired yearbook sales representative, wrote to me that it’s “important that one company take all senior portraits creating matching photos. … Using a photo from another photographer would make the yearbook pages look like they have mistaken photos in them.”
Stormy Jackson, who graduated in June from Cypress High School, told me she got more than 50 students to sign a petition asking for a change because they were required to buy a $150 package in order for their pictures to be in the yearbook.
“Not everybody can afford $150, especially with everything else you have to buy as a senior,” she said.
Jackson said she was given a fee waiver last year, after multiple requests, and for this coming year, the school is now requiring only a $50 package, and students who ask can also have their fees waived.
Readers in the know recommend going to a Sears or JC Penney portrait studio instead, where they also have caps, gowns and other props available.
I was lucky that my friend who’s a professional photographer ended up taking Cheetah Boy’s photos as his graduation present. And they’re beautiful. Thanks, Ana!
And, listen. If you already did the official senior portrait thing, keep this in mind. I got emails from that portrait company for months after my son’s sitting, inviting me to buy the overpriced portraits. And, guess what? The price kept dropping. And dropping.
So keep that in mind if you’re tempted. You don’t have to buy now.
And don’t let down your guard, senior parents. The best is yet to come: The overpriced caps and gowns. The overpriced class rings. And more.
My son was outraged when I immediately threw in the trash the letter he got about the $400 class rings.
“How long would it take you to lose that class ring? Nine seconds?” I challenged him. Not to mention that readers had alerted me that I could have bought nearly the identical ring from Walmart for one-quarter of the price.
I did get sucked into buying a letter jacket for my son, who’s a jock. I paid $360 at C & L Jackets in Cypress, which was the most affordable place I could find. I got tears in my eyes watching him put it on. He looked so handsome.
It’s in the closet. He’s never worn it.
Got something to say on this topic? Please email me. I want to hear from you.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7994 or mfisher@ocregister.com
