Page 3 | To feel sad that this is a thing - graduation photos.

TravellingSpoon · 2022-07-03T15:28:13+00:00

Booking DS's graduation photos along with his gown and mortar board hire. As part of the photo package, you can pay £7.50 for teeth and eye whitening, £7.50 to have your complexion brightened, or a bargain for £12 for both. AIBU to think its really sad to offer this? I understand that some people will feel unconfident about how they look, but something like this will reinforce that.

motogirl · 03/07/2022 19:44

We declined the photos, they wanted £15 for 3! We are taking photos on the beach instead. Unlike when I graduated, everyone has amazing tech in their pocket

NeedAHoliday2021 · 03/07/2022 19:54

We didn’t buy DD’s year 9 photo because it had been photoshopped. Hardly looked like her 🙄

Blurp · 03/07/2022 20:56

MrsAvocet · 03/07/2022 19:37

Mind you, thinking about it more, it's nothing new really is it?
Portrait painters have always enhanced their wealthy or important subjects' looks. (Especially if the subject had the ability to send the artist to the tower if they weren't happy, or at least to make or break their career!)
It's relatively recently that we got used to seeing realistic images of ordinary people I suppose. Things are going full circle except you don't have to be a noble any more. Henry VIII getting a shock that Anne of Cleves didn't live up to her portrait is much the same as a modern day online dating app uswr complaining that someone's profile pic isn't realistic.

I suppose the difference is that people didn't really expect portraits to be totally realistic, whereas when you see a photo you assume that that's what the person looks like. Maybe we're entering an age where people will automatically assume photos have been "improved", but I don't think we're quite there yet.

ManateeFair · 04/07/2022 01:25

Most people graduating now were born around 2000ish and have never really known anything else but a world in which photos can be, and are, readily altered like that. They’ve all been editing photos of themselves on social media since they were kids, and they see it as the norm. And they don’t hide the fact that they edit their pics either, for the most part. So I don’t think it would bother most undergrads to be offered those editing services at all. It seems weird to people for whom this kind of thing is a development that’s happened during their adulthood, but not to young people who are really at ease with enhancing their own images.

willstarttomorrow · 04/07/2022 01:38

I look awful in my last graduation photo (mature student- did not realise I was pregnant). To be honest I do not even know where the bloody photos are now. Same with DCs school photos growing up, she is in a weird pose, doing a weird smile and does not look like her. The thing is, when I was a kid, we did not have a camera until I was a teen so these photos were important to send to family etc. We have very few photos of us growing up. It is totally different now- my DC has just had her prom and hate the official photographs compared to the natural 'fun ones' taken over the night by various friends. The people who take them are not proper photographers so just get your own and print them off.

Monacles · 04/07/2022 08:05

ManateeFair · 04/07/2022 01:25

Most people graduating now were born around 2000ish and have never really known anything else but a world in which photos can be, and are, readily altered like that. They’ve all been editing photos of themselves on social media since they were kids, and they see it as the norm. And they don’t hide the fact that they edit their pics either, for the most part. So I don’t think it would bother most undergrads to be offered those editing services at all. It seems weird to people for whom this kind of thing is a development that’s happened during their adulthood, but not to young people who are really at ease with enhancing their own images.

My DD is of the age you are talking about and thought it was awful.

AnneButNotHathaway · 07/07/2022 09:42

Tbh, I think offering this service isn't necessarily bad. I know I'd love to have my skin smoothed on my graduation pictures because the imperfections weren't permanent and went away eventually but the reminder is still there. That being said, implying that youngsters definitely need teeth whitening or whatever other digital beautification is disturbing. Things like that could be done on request, I think.
Also depends on how it is done in general. I've seen graduation pictures with filters that made faces look more like masks than actual human faces, which is a shame in this day and age when tasks like that could be done through simplest programs like Photodiva or Photoworks in a very realistic manner. One doesn't even have to be a Photoshop savvy to do that.

MollyRover · 07/07/2022 09:45

ParkheadParadise · 03/07/2022 16:51

Count me in 🤣
If I'd managed to get to university
I would have the works for my graduation pictures
Spray tan
Make up
Hair
Botox
Lip fillers
When I would have had the picture blown up and covering the full wall in my living room.
😂😂😜😂

You'd have the photo blown up, but not your degree?

surreygirl1987 · 07/07/2022 21:10

You'd have the photo blown up, but not your degree?

What do you mean?

MollyRover · 07/07/2022 21:18

surreygirl1987 · 07/07/2022 21:10

You'd have the photo blown up, but not your degree?

What do you mean?

A degree is a bigger achievement than Botox, surely? I would be more proud of that than a photo of me with a trout pout.

SpiderinaWingMirror · 07/07/2022 21:41

What do they charge to make the gown look like it hasn't been down the side of a bed for a decade?