Waterbabies photoshoots are scandalous! :(

[LankyDoodle]

I knew they would be pricey. My daughter loves her lessons and is a good little 'swimmer' and they are worth the money in my mind!

We got an 'invite' to the underwater photoshoot in our area, and the booking fee is £40. Fair enough... bit steep but we can swallow that as they have to cover for the people who will go and not buy the pics I guess. And waterbabies overall isn't cheap, so I didn't expect it to be a tenner!

The photo costs, though, are flippin' scandalous! The cheapest photo is £68 and that is for a normal 10"x8" print like you'd get from Boots photo processing! You can buy the pics on a dongle, and if you want all your pics (probably 4 or 5), the dongle is £300. A canvas is about £250 for a small one.

I would love a picture of her swimming underwater - I love the pictures - but why do they have to charge so much? I don't get it. Surely if they charged less, they'd get more of us take up the shoot and buy the pics (I spoke to a couple of the other mums who watch the dads do the lesson with the babies, on Sat and they also said they won't be doing it due to the cost).

I am absolutely gutted.

 

[mrsraggle]

So basically at least £108 for one photograph?! That's an utter rip off!

 

[JellyBeann]

I knew they would be pricey. My daughter loves her lessons and is a good little 'swimmer' and they are worth the money in my mind!

We got an 'invite' to the underwater photoshoot in our area, and the booking fee is £40. Fair enough... bit steep but we can swallow that as they have to cover for the people who will go and not buy the pics I guess. And waterbabies overall isn't cheap, so I didn't expect it to be a tenner!

The photo costs, though, are flippin' scandalous! The cheapest photo is £68 and that is for a normal 10"x8" print like you'd get from Boots photo processing! You can buy the pics on a dongle, and if you want all your pics (probably 4 or 5), the dongle is £300. A canvas is about £250 for a small one.

I would love a picture of her swimming underwater - I love the pictures - but why do they have to charge so much? I don't get it. Surely if they charged less, they'd get more of us take up the shoot and buy the pics (I spoke to a couple of the other mums who watch the dads do the lesson with the babies, on Sat and they also said they won't be doing it due to the cost).

I am absolutely gutted.

you can buy an disposable underwater camera for about £4!! Take that along and do it yourselves lol! Seriously though, I am a photographer and no way are their overheads that much!!

 

[LankyDoodle]

Yes. I expected it to be pricey but when I opened the email attachment and saw the prices, I think I stopped breathing for about 10 minutes!! This picture is just a small picture you could get for a few pounds from Boots!

 

[LankyDoodle]

I knew they would be pricey. My daughter loves her lessons and is a good little 'swimmer' and they are worth the money in my mind!

We got an 'invite' to the underwater photoshoot in our area, and the booking fee is £40. Fair enough... bit steep but we can swallow that as they have to cover for the people who will go and not buy the pics I guess. And waterbabies overall isn't cheap, so I didn't expect it to be a tenner!

The photo costs, though, are flippin' scandalous! The cheapest photo is £68 and that is for a normal 10"x8" print like you'd get from Boots photo processing! You can buy the pics on a dongle, and if you want all your pics (probably 4 or 5), the dongle is £300. A canvas is about £250 for a small one.

I would love a picture of her swimming underwater - I love the pictures - but why do they have to charge so much? I don't get it. Surely if they charged less, they'd get more of us take up the shoot and buy the pics (I spoke to a couple of the other mums who watch the dads do the lesson with the babies, on Sat and they also said they won't be doing it due to the cost).

I am absolutely gutted.

you can buy an disposable underwater camera for about £4!! Take that along and do it yourselves lol! Seriously though, I am a photographer and no way are their overheads that much!!

That's what I said to the other 2 mums. I would feel a bit cheeky taking one to the lesson but I thought could maybe do it at the local baby pool (although they do say no cameras...).

 

[whiby]

Totally agree there is no reason for them to be so expensive - it's not even ike you get the £40 booking fee off the price of the photo afterwards if you decide to buy!

 

[QTPie]

They charge that much because they can....?

Believe it or not a LOT of people go to the photo shoots (we have been) and virtually all of those buy at least one thing. We have a huge framed photo (which we got framed by a local good framer) on our kitchen/playroom wall.... (funnily enough the same photo was used by our Waterbabies region in their follow-up newsletter, so maybe it is reasonably good! ).

Somehow I doubt that you could get the same (studio) quality from a disposable waterproof camera at your local pool (waterbabies have very good underwater camera, they have a deep blue backdrop which brings out the blue and they have "techniques" to maximise the composition of the photo). They do it very well and, unfortunately, they charge accordingly....

 

[LankyDoodle]

Doing something very well shouldn't mean you can charge THAT much for it! The prices are ridiculous! I have seen examples of the photos at the class, and I know they are good, but I still don't think I'd spend several hundred pounds on one photo!

And plenty of photographers are good at their jobs, use top of the range equipment and cutting edge techniques, but don't charge £68 for a small print!

If we booked onto the shoot, I'd end up buying a photo as we can afford it, but I won't be booking the shoot because I think it takes the mick!

 

[QTPie]

Doing something very well shouldn't mean you can charge THAT much for it! The prices are ridiculous! I have seen examples of the photos at the class, and I know they are good, but I still don't think I'd spend several hundred pounds on one photo!

It is like anything (art, sculpture, food, hotels, air travel....) - it is what people are prepared to pay for it...

They set the price to maximise their profits (rather than "what is fair to charge"). So if they can sell 200 photos at £150 each (£30k) is better, and less direct costs, than selling 1000 at £10 each (£10k). I am sure that they would have thoroughly researched what price points give them the biggest profit.

Babies = big money....

 

[LankyDoodle]

But it is fairly obvious that £10 is too cheap for the photo and £150 is too much - there is a middle ground. I am in no doubt that lots of people go to the shoots - I've seen friends' photos - but I just think what else I could do with that money and it galls me even though we could technically afford it. Plus, I'd want to do the same for any subsequent children.

 

[QTPie]

But it is fairly obvious that £10 is too cheap for the photo and £150 is too much - there is a middle ground. I am in no doubt that lots of people go to the shoots - I've seen friends' photos - but I just think what else I could do with that money and it galls me even though we could technically afford it. Plus, I'd want to do the same for any subsequent children.

Why the middle ground? You don't maximise profit (as a company) by "choosing the fair middle ground".... It is a business and not a charity. They have a licence to print money and they are using it to the max - the whole business idea is really stunning to be honest...

(sorry, I agree with you that it is hugely expensive, but Waterbabies have set the prices that the market with support - supply and demand... Unfortunately babies are big/expensive business )

 

[LankyDoodle]

But I am a customer and as a customer I am entitled to feel galled and find their prices extortionate.

And the middle ground would cover both areas - bringing in large margins on each photo, and attracting lots more people to do the shoot and buy the photos. I think only 1 or 2 of the 10 people in our class are doing it. I realise that across all of their classes, that works out to be a fair few people, but that's a big majority not taking up the invite and feeling pretty peeved off. I suppose we have also just had 5 weeks off due to class cancellations, and then came back to that and were all left a bit meh.

 

[LankyDoodle]

Also, I agree re the supply and demand - as you say, babies are big business. I am just totally shocked at how much they charge for the photos. I had no idea when people said they are pricey, that they meant several hundred for one canvas!

 

[Poppy7]

We did the photo shoot just before Elliott's first birthday. We have never had any professional photos done of him so did decide to splash out (no pun intended!) and buy a set of 3 prints in a frame. I think in all we paid over £200

The photos are lovely though and such a gorgeous quality. It's just a shame that the whole experience frightened him (and I feel terrible for this). We still go to lessons and I have persevered but he's never been the same since

 

[binxyboo]

I don't do waterbabies, but my friend has a waterbabies picture of her LO. TBH - I don't really like it. I don't know if it is just her picture I don't like, but I don't think it looks very professional. He looks Odd, ill at ease and is pulling a horrble face. She said they only took 2 or 3 pictures of each child and that was the best one. Not really something I would want on my wall.

I took my LO to a family photoshoot at a local photographers. for £45, we got a photoshoot (where the bloke took close to 200 pics) and a choice of 5 of those pictures to be put on a disc as a high quality digital copy. This means we can go somewhere like photobox to get them put on canvas for a FRACTION of the cost of one normal print from Waterbabies. AND we had a mega choice to pick our faves rather than a choice of 2 or 3.

 

[dom85]

Although I think the prices are crazy, just to point out that underwater photography is not the same as regular photograph where basically anyone with a DSLR can take a decent picture. You have a have a top camera plus the underwater housing for it which costs thousands of pounds.

 

[Heidi]

This is one reason why we decided to go with 'little dippers' instead of water babies their shoots and prints are so much cheaper.

I do agree that babies are big business

 

[mrsraggle]

I think it would be far fairer if you got your booking fee back against any prints you purchase.

 

[jenny82]

I don't think ours was that expensive. In saying that we didn't get a photo anyway! I have the small photo in an email with the watermark but that's it. I brought OHs underwater camcorder which they let us use too so I have an in action video instead and it was free!

 

[LankyDoodle]

Although I think the prices are crazy, just to point out that underwater photography is not the same as regular photograph where basically anyone with a DSLR can take a decent picture. You have a have a top camera plus the underwater housing for it which costs thousands of pounds.

I am aware that they have to use a different camera and need different equipment to a normal photographer, but they do charge £40 for the shoot and have been doing so for a long time so I'm sure they've got the costs of that covered. A print of a photo shouldn't be costing that much. But oh well, it does, so I probably won't go which is a bit of a shame and I was a bit gutted, but I'm not really that bothered about it now.