Gargoyles
The flyer came home yesterday. I broke into a cold sweat as it drifted into my lap, the glossy texture causing it to slip away from other, more mundane school bulletins.
School Portrait Time.
Have mercy.
I don't care how photogenic your little Susie is around the house. Sure, little Johnny radiates pure sunshine on YOUR camera. There is something sinister in the art of school photography, and there is nothing you can do to prevent your child's portrait from resembling a gargoyle.
I had a dry run the first year with my oldest. I dressed her up cute, and fixed her hair in tidy pigtails. I reminded her to smile nicely for the camera. (Okay, I admit it, I even rehearsed how to smile with her. Sigh, smile. Sigh, smile. No, put your shoulders down. Uncross your eyes. Stop gritting your teeth. Sigh. Look natural, damn it! NATURAL!) I walked her to the classroom door and pushed her through, hissing one final admonishment (Natural!) and returned home, confident. Several weeks later, the arrival of the pictures revealed the ugly truth.
Not only had they scheduled the kindergartener's photos for the last hour of the day, after lunch and two recesses (hello?) but they had improved my daughter's pigtails by removing the elastics and arranging her now-loose tresses in chunks. Her smile looked like she had a knife point pressed to her spine.
You know, natural.
Then, because I apparently didn't think about it too hard, I dressed my daugher cute from the waist up. She had funny, muddy shoes on, and her class picture features her skort's wrinkled hem and mud-splattered socks prominently. I'm the Mother of the Year! Woooo!
I just kept 'em. No point in trying to improve on it with a retake. I'm just not a gambler when the odds are so clearly stacked against me.
Last year rolled around, and I had two prisoners for the School Photo Firing Squad. I tried a different tack with my daughter.
"Honey, show me how a princess smiles." This resulted in praying hands wedged between her left shoulder and cheek, and a weird, afflicted expression. Okay, no. Barf. Stop the simpering!
"Can't you just smile normal?" Oh yeah. She can't. I forget these things because of the trauma that parenting has inflicted on my poor brain.
I just turned to my son and patted him on the shoulder. I looked him in the eye and sighed. Whispering, I asked him to show me his handsome smile. I got a hideous grimace, cheeks taut over clenched teeth. It was going to be what it was going to be, no matter what I asked for.
Again, the tradition of keeping the youngest kids for last (The hell? Seriously?) left my children in crumb-scattered glory. I remembered to dress them to their shoes this time, but I didn't bank on grass-stains on the knees of my son's khaki pants, nor did I anticipate my daughter's decision to tuck one side of her collar into her shirt, and leave the other side out. Oh, and I totally disagree with the school's decision to have a wind tunnel available for the kids to play in that day. I'm just saying.
The photos we received were hilariously bad. We kept those ones, too.
And now, here we go again. What background do we choose? Purple Passion? Emerald Memories? Smoky Haze? Do we go for the soft filter, for the flattering, Cybil Sheppard lighting - because seven-year-olds need so much help with that?
Do we know enough people to warrant the purchase of a package? Do I want a photo of my child on a bookmark that says "D-Lish?" The decisions are killing me dead. El dia de fotos esta aqui, and I'm not ready.
Sigh. Smile. It's only natural.
Comments
I still have bad flashbacks of school pictures (MY school pictures) so I totally sympathize.
Posted by: ben | September 14, 2006 7:44 PM
That was so hilarious!! I always wonder what they'd do with the photos of your children that you didn't buy. Do they end up in some school photo landfill?
Posted by: Waya | September 14, 2006 8:11 PM
Did you say Purple Passion? That might help things be more natural.
I'm HORRIBLE.
Posted by: dorothy | September 14, 2006 8:43 PM
Oh my goodness! This is EXACTLY what happens in my house when picture time comes around. When my son was going through his sticking-out-the-tongue phase in preschool, I was really afraid what his pictures would look like. Fortunately, they came back with him looking like a sweet angel. I cried - oh did I cry!
Posted by: Melissa Garrett | September 15, 2006 6:29 AM
When my oldest was in first grade, they would let you bring in younger siblings to get their pictures done too..so they put my kids together and took their pictures. They looked great from the waist up, but somehow they got a great picture of my baby girl's drawers.
I hate school pictures.
Posted by: Contrary | September 15, 2006 8:09 AM
I think the schools require photographers with special training for bad pictures. My teens get their pics taken at school for the yearbook but I have my 17 year old take pics of the other 3 kids around school pic time and we don't even do school pics any more. Unfortunately, it took me until my oldest daughter was in high school to figure this out.
Posted by: queenmab1066 | September 15, 2006 8:14 AM
And they want a lot of money for those packages too.
My memories of school pictures are similar to yours - only not as funny.
Cas
Posted by: cassie-b | September 15, 2006 10:24 AM
Thanks for the chuckle, it helps me through my own School Pictures trauma this week. Linking to your post.
Posted by: Michelle | September 15, 2006 12:25 PM
Yes...yes. The first good shool pictures my daughter ever took were ones where she was posed like a pinup girl (seriously)and featured her budding bosoms. lovely. Her smile was way cute though!
Posted by: jenn2 | September 15, 2006 12:27 PM
That is AWESOME! And hilarious because it is so freaking true. I want to know why the photographer feels the need to restyle your child's hair before they take the damn picture. Does the picture guy think he's a cross be Vidal Sassoon and Annie Leibowitz?!
Posted by: Neila | September 15, 2006 1:16 PM
I've watched those picture sessions for many, many years. They go so fast, most of the time the child hasn't even finished sitting down completely before it's all over. It's 'next' click 'next' click all day long.
However, I will have to say that terrible as my kids' pictures always were, that's my kid at that moment of that day, that year, and a couple of times it was the push I needed to make a hair appointment or put a dress or shirt in the giveaway pile.
I always did prefer the natural look to the studio look, but there's got to be a happy medium, and it's got to cost less than a million dollars for a locket-size picture that will be lost in the dryer's lint filter before the week is out.
Posted by: Mamacita | September 15, 2006 2:50 PM
I love goofy school pictures. That's how you have to approach it. The weirder the better. Then, put them in a drawer for 10 years and when your kid is 18 or 21 or 30 and having a BIG birthday party, have them blown up to poster size. Honestly, it's fun!
Posted by: Lin | September 15, 2006 3:05 PM
Oh, goodness, you really have me counting my blessings here. My kids' pictures done at the preschool were divine. My son looks like the little man he is. But the elementary school - scary, but at least they do the kindergartners first thing, and they don't redo their hair.
But they do make for some fun "blackmail" photos when the kids are teenagers.....
Posted by: FishyGirl | September 15, 2006 8:24 PM
Everyone's favorite picture of me was my kindergarten picture. My Mom forgot it was picture day and sent me with my hair in funny pigtails, wearing a hand-me-down shirt from some boys who lived nearby. On it was a picture of a smiling hamburger with flailing hands that imitated my pigtails. My top lip curled under with my smile(my oldest has the same problem). Priceless.
Posted by: Mega Mom | September 18, 2006 5:48 AM
i remember school pictures. omg. my mom did me up from head to toe and wrote me a gym note. but i always, no matter what, looked like i just rolled out of bed.
Posted by: Jenny | September 18, 2006 11:35 AM
my kids always end up looking like victorian orphans on school photos - mind you, they look a bit like that at the best of times. how chuffed was i when one of the teachers at my son's drama class suggested he go up for a casting? which film was that, then? polanski's oliver twist - because he'd be perfect for the workhouse scene. proud mother? don't think so .... took him straight home and fed him buttered toast and loads of sweets(instead of the usual gruel).
(he didn't get it, btw)
x
Posted by: mad muthas | September 20, 2006 3:52 AM
School pictures are a good reason to homeschool, I do believe. My post this weeks includes a story involving my 5th grade school picture. Takes me back.
Posted by: Fiddledeedee | September 22, 2006 8:44 AM
LOL! We just got ours too, and I shuddered when the kids handed it to me. Every year, at least one of my daughters has to get retakes - and those still come out horrible.
I'd love to do what Lin suggested, but they include the kids' pictures in these giant class pics they hand out to the kids, and at the end of the year we have a yearbook.
Posted by: Lisa | September 27, 2006 5:14 AM