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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be pissed off photographer asked DD if he should edit her photos?

177 replies

ShowerOfMonsters · 19/09/2018 19:28

School photos today. DD scraped her face on a tree branch at the weekend and has a scratch on her chin. The photographer asked if she'd like him to airbrush it out of the photo She is 6. AIBU to think this is totally unacceptable and an awful message to be giving such young children?

If they want to offer the service then maybe to parents in the blurb when they try to get us to buy extortionate photos but not to the kids, and certainly not in class.

DD's best friend has a bruise on her forehead (swing collision) and her mum said DDBF came home saying the same and asking how bad it looks. (I don't know if any boys were offered the same service). I'm in two minds about complaining as I have another child and think I should save battles with school for more important (SN) things. Although I think it is important. I've told best friend's mum she needs to complain because I can't!

OP posts:

lljkk · 20/09/2018 06:18

In 1985 my school-leaving portrait was airbrushed to get rid of my acne. I couldn't perceive the airbrushing had been done but my parents commented every time they looked at the portrait. Nobody asked for our permission. My parents sure didn't complain.

RainySeptember · 20/09/2018 06:36

YABU to be so annoyed about it, yes.

It would've been offensive to ask to airbrush a birthmark or glasses or a big nose, not a bruise or scratch.

Or if he'd expressed disgust, recoiled in horror and asked if she wanted the ugly scratch removed.

I cannot imagine that any child's confidence could be damaged by such a comment. If it is, then you need to work hard on building resilience or she has a tough thirteen years of school ahead of her.

How could the photographer ask a parent if parents weren't present? When you are sent the proof, that is the final photo. Too late for you to request editing then.

In my house the conversation would've been:

DC: photographer said he could erase my scratch from the photo.

Me: some people might want that because the scratch is only there for a couple of days but the photo lasts forever.

And not sexist because he asked everyone the same question.

And only asked because there's a market for it, parents have asked in the past, and he wants to sell photos and offer a good service.

hobblesma · 20/09/2018 13:31

Some of the school photo packages I've bought of my teenage DCs' have been a waste of money as I've had to scan the photos into the computer and remove the pimples myself

Fucksake really?

Way to make your teenagers feel shit. What an awful thing to do. Hideous message to send them. Honestly, this is one of the worst things I have read on here. It makes me feel quite sad.

We would look back and laugh at old school photos. I would hate for them to be a reminder to my children that their mum didn’t think they were good enough as they are.

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar · 20/09/2018 13:40

Maybe it’s the teenagers that didn’t want evidence kept of their spotty faces? Any self respecting teen knows perfectly well how to photoshop anything they care to to enhance it.
They’d be mortified that their school photos captured their teenage zits for posterity.

hobblesma · 20/09/2018 13:45

Maybe it’s the teenagers that didn’t want evidence kept of their spotty faces?

I think I would feel even worse if I had brought up teenagers that felt like that.

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar · 20/09/2018 13:47

Do you have teenagers?

Yabbers · 20/09/2018 13:48

I’d be furious. But then I haven’t yet bought any school photo because they insist on making sure her walking aid or wheelchair isn’t visible. She’s the only child sitting on a chair in a class who are all standing. One year we were given just a floating head on a platform. The year where all the other pics were action shots, she was sitting on a chair, we got just head and shoulders.

Strange perfectionists these photographers. We had a whole school photo taken outside in pissing rain. Pupils were out there just setting up for 40 minutes, we’re bored, cold and soaking and instead of getting the picture taken he kept picking out the one kid in 650 who want looking at the camera.

I would complain to the company. I agree that offering to airbrush a 6 year old is unacceptable. I would also bet he wouldn’t have asked a boy the same question.

GinPink · 20/09/2018 14:03

@Yabbers I'm so sorry to hear that, that truly is despicable and I'm sorry your child had to go though that

Out of interest though how can you compare a scratch to the equipment used by your daughter?

Mossend · 20/09/2018 14:10

I think it would be you're dad's choice if she wanted the graze removed from her photo so I feel the photographer was right to check with your DD

hobblesma · 20/09/2018 14:11

Do you have teenagers?

Yes. Yes I do. And the idea that they or I might feel the need to airbrush their spots out of a school picture really is ridiculous.

You can have your right back

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar · 20/09/2018 14:13

Fair enough . I don’t know any teenagers quite so attached to their zits!

Mossend · 20/09/2018 14:14

Why did you ask if AIBU? You obviously don't think you are, despite the majority of posters telling you you are, so why waste everyone's time by posting?

hobblesma · 20/09/2018 14:15

don’t know any teenagers quite so attached to their zits!

It's not about being attached to their zits. It's about the huge message it sends a teenager when their parent doesn't accept them as they are.

pasanda · 20/09/2018 14:23

Tamiah - just rtft and out of all the posts, yours stood out.

What a lovely, kind person you sound.

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar · 20/09/2018 14:33

But you can accept people as they are without having a temporary spot or cold sore saved forever in a school photo.
It’s hardly like making them wear a bag over their head when out in public...
I’ve no issue whatsoever taking photos of my kids covered in food, muck, paint, whatever. But if I was paying for an actual portrait ( which is what a school photo is, they’re relatively expensive for a single print) then I’d make sure they had clean faces / clothes...
If there was an opportunity to erase temporary (very likely to have cleared up completely by the time the photo is received, they take weeks) spots and blemishes that they might not want to have immortalised I’d take it.
If in the unlikely event they wanted them left in I’d leave them in.
But mine definitely wouldn’t.

mothersanonymous · 20/09/2018 14:53

It's September and many parents will be buying these photos to send at Christmas. It's not that surprising that the photographer (probably from experience) thinks boys or girls or their parents might want scratches or bruises removed. As others have pointed out, the photographer doesn't have direct contact with the parents and they want to sell photos. Wanting a temporary scratch removed from a permanent photo would not mean you somehow didn't accept your daughter's appearance. If the photographer had offered a nose job or to change the colour of her eyes or to slim her down then you would have a point.
For what it's worth, many teens I know would want to have zits removed from a photo if it was offered. The boys tend to be more sensitive than the girls in my experience as there is less opportunity to camouflage them.

GoatWithACoat · 20/09/2018 15:49

An injury is not a natural part of the child like a freckle, big nose etc etc. He’s just asking whether or not the injury bothers her enough for him to airbrush it out. Big deal.

The comparisons between that and the ‘Instagram / fake’ age is so bloody over the top it’s laughable.

MauraIsles · 20/09/2018 15:56

I remember having my last secondary school photos taken and included in the package they sent home was the option to have acne removed, this was back in 2005 - but I thought it was bonkers - I didn’t have acne, so someone else might’ve thought it was a great idea! I can understand where you’re coming from OP, lots of young girls have body confidence issues now, and perhaps the ‘Tog should have asked parents first, but it genuinely sounds like it was meant in the spirit of it not detracting from a photo which DD would probably look back on and think “if only that cut/graze wasn’t there!”

Yabbers · 20/09/2018 16:00

GinPink
Out of interest though how can you compare a scratch to the equipment used by your daughter

To me it’s all part of the same strive for “perfection” the school photographers seem to have. Trying to make all the kids the same, looking perfect in the perfect school photo. Any photo is just a snapshot in time. We look back over her photos and see the progression from chair to frame to sticks and reminisce about her at that time. If she had a big scar on her face, we’d look and say “oh remember that time she did that thing and grazed her face”. Probably followed with a discussion about how fearless she was at that age, always getting into scrapes... instead of “that was P1”

DD’s own comment on the photos are “it’s not really me without the frame, is it, doesn’t show who I am”

Still, at least i’m not the parent who had to scrape her ASD son off the roof when he got home because he’d been told to remove his chewie being told “ your mum doesn’t want to see you with a baby’s dummy, she wants to see a big boy”

🙄

Yabbers · 20/09/2018 16:02

The comparisons between that and the ‘Instagram / fake’ age is so bloody over the top it’s laughable.

How so? Isn’t it just the first step to that girl realising if she doesn’t like how she looks she can have it airbrushed out?

SilverLining10 · 20/09/2018 16:05

'Its part of her story' - I am embarrassed for you. That load of utter cringeworthy nonsense is a far greater crime than what the photographer did.

Duskqueen · 20/09/2018 16:28

YANBU I would be fuming if someone asked my DD that. I don't like the whole everyone has to look perfect thing, my children are perfect to me wether the have a bump or a scratch or not.

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar · 20/09/2018 16:33

Would you think the same if she had a large bogey hanging out of her nose?

mathanxiety · 20/09/2018 16:50

Wrt teenage zits - I had parents who were all for accepting and loving me as I was. YAY!

Actually - NAY!
I would really have liked to be rid of my zits, and to have had parents who went to bat for me to find a doctor who would have got rid of them.

It's about the huge message it sends a teenager when their parent doesn't accept them as they are.
I do not know a single teenager with zits who wouldn't love to be a teenager without zits. It can be incredibly frustrating for a teen to have a parent who insists on seeing the beauty within and ignoring the misery caused by the zits on the outside.

GoatWithACoat · 20/09/2018 17:22

How so? Isn’t it just the first step to that girl realising if she doesn’t like how she looks she can have it airbrushed out?

No because that’s not how she looks. She has an injury that isn’t part of her daily appearance. Back in the day the photographer would have taken it a different day if the kid or parent didn’t fancy having a reminder of the incident. It’s nothing new.

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