DEBATE – Airbrushing School Photographs

Next month, the professional photographer will be heading to Erin’s preschool – to take the first photograph of her since she joined. I have the date highlighted in my diary – and will inevitably (as long as I remember!) set my alarm a little earlier that day, to ensure her hair is washed and brushed, and that she doesn’t arrive at preschool looking like she has been dragged through a hedge backwards.

I HATE having professional photographs of myself taken (in fact I rarely like photos of myself at all!) and when I look back at school photos from my youth I cringe at my overly frizzy hair, the fact my eyes were virtually closed, or the fact that my tongue always seemed to want to poke out from between my teeth when I smiled! However – that was me, the way I actually looked – and is a record of my childhood that I will cherish forever.

I watched with slight shock this morning on The Wright Stuff about school photographers now offering an airbrushing service, by which blemishes or undesirable characteristics can be photo shopped and effectively removed from the photo. For an average fee of around £7 (on top of the existing high purchase price!), parents can ask for a stain to be removed from the child’s top, their hair to be smoothed out, or the odd pimple or spot removed from their face.

I was completely in two minds about this – the first part of me felt that this was a good thing, that a photo which otherwise could be ruined by a slight juice stain on their t-shirt could be rectified quickly and easily. That if your child had fell and cut or bruised their head the day before the photos were taken, that this bruise could be removed, taking them back to their ‘usual self’. But where do you draw the line? Whitening teeth and removing blemishes to me is a different ball game.

A photographer rang in to the show and actually said he removed what he deemed to be blemishes without being asked to by the parents, with the aim of getting that ‘perfect photo’ but guess what?! Children are perfect WITH their imperfections! My daughter has a scar on her face from where she was scratched by another child. As gutted as I am that this happened, and as much as I would rather she didn’t have it, it is part of her face now – her perfect little face! Sometimes it’s visible in photographs, sometimes it’s not. If  a photographer removed it without my permission I would be quite offended – who is he to decide that my daughter’s scar is undesirable on a photo? A similar story was in the press a while back of a photographer who removed a child’s birthmark from a photograph without consent –  to me – that is fundamentally changing the way a child looks and there is no point of having a record taken of their life if it doesn’t reflect reality!

What are your thoughts on this? Would you ever photoshop your child’s photo? What is / isn’t ok???

You can read about the full debate on the Wright Stuff website here