Does sending and receiving pictures count on my data plan (Iphone 5)?

I'm a little confused, because I keep hearing it does, but I turned off the 4G, and the pics are still going through just fine, even though I looked it up and people say you need it enabled to send pics. It's not showing up on the usage on my phone either.

Depends on how you're sending them. If you're using some data app, then you must have wi-fi turned on. If these are just MMS messages, you won't get charged with data, since they go across the cellular voice network.