Have you ever had a school picture where you look a little less than perfect? Maybe a hair was misplaced or that big red pimple just wouldn’t go away?
This day and age, you don’t need to be ashamed of how you look in a school picture, because with a click of a mouse and a push of a button, all of your imperfections are retouched and wiped away.
Kelly K. Spors of The Wall Street Journal addresses this ongoing trend in ‘Where All School Photos are Above Average,’ saying that studios across the nation are charging ‘$7 to $10, and can usually wipe out imperfections in a matter of minutes.’
With the use of Photoshop, photographers can get rid of anything from tattoos to half-closed eyes.
Spors takes this topic and provides an informative, un-biased essay that lets the reader in on the happenings of school photography.
Using specific and sometimes shocking examples, she highlights individuals and families who have had retouching done on their yearbook pictures and senior portraits.
For example, Nicole Benson from Melbourne got her braces removed for her senior picture, stating, ‘I think I look a lot better without braces.’
Well, Nicole, I hate to break the news to you, but I’m pretty sure nobody enjoys how he or she looks with braces.
Take my fifth grade yearbook picture for example. It included a bowl cut, butterfly hair clips and the standard bright blue braces.
However mortified I was at the time, it was just a fifth grade yearbook picture.
I don’t stay awake at night tossing and turning because my school picture from the most socially awkward years of everybody’s life contains me wearing braces.
According to the photo-correcting customers Spors talked to though, ‘for kids who are particularly self-conscious’hellip;getting rid of braces or other embarrassments can be an esteem-booster.’
What happened to the days when it was typical to have a bad school picture?
When nobody poked fun or looked down upon someone who didn’t look smoothed and untouched, but instead looked like a living breathing human being?
I don’t condone the use of these image-enhancing programs because it creates unrealistic expectations.
Sure, you can look real good for a picture, but what about when you have to stand in front of somebody? When you look in the mirror?
You still have that zit, you still have those braces and you still have that tattoo from spring break last year. By erasing all of these so-called ‘problems’, we are denying what we were born with or given.
Spors points out an example that truly illuminates this ridiculous idea.
‘One mother asked to digitally repair a decayed tooth in a her third-grade sons photo’ Spors writes, ‘by replacing it with a shiny white one.’
That mother got rid of a decayed tooth for a school yearbook picture, but what about for the rest of this young boy’s life?
Maybe instead of trying to cover it up, she should take her son to a dentist and teach him proper dental care.
The people I feel the most sorry for are not the kids who can erase themselves on a computer, but the people who don’t get the service done.
The students who have yearbook pictures that are normal and standard now look like freakish outcasts compared to the Barbie and Ken clones that school photography companies are spitting out.
I want to see the day when it is okay to have zits.
The day when people don’t shun their school yearbook photo for being terrible, but instead embrace it because it teaches humility.
I want to see the day when people stop obsessing about how they look on the outside but instead start working on what’s inside, such as their personality and character.
Maybe then we can make these photo-correcting services obsolete, and people can welcome their true selves.
Lauren Schmidt may be reached at lschmidt@ut.edu.
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