Article from the New York Times

Interesting article from the NYT.

Posting below as text

No Boo-boos or Cowlicks? Only in School Pictures
By SARAH MASLIN NIR
Published: November 19, 2010

Oliver Tracy showed up for his first-grade portrait with a crisp white shirt tucked into navy slacks, a striped tie slightly too long for his tiny frame, and not a lock of his sun-streaked blond hair out of place.

But just above Oliver’s right cheek was a scab; he had tumbled while playing tag. His father, Jahn Tracy, had e-mailed the school, the Bay Ridge Preparatory School in Brooklyn, to see if Oliver could take the photo on another day, after the cut healed.

Mr. Tracy need not have worried. When the big envelope of photos arrived, Oliver’s blemish was nowhere in sight.

The practice of altering photos, long a standard in the world of glossy magazines and fashion shoots, has trickled down to the wholesome domain of the school portrait. Parents who once had only to choose how many wallet-size and 5-by-7 copies they wanted are now being offered options like erasing scars, moles, acne and braces, whitening teeth or turning a bad hair day into a good one.

School photography companies around the country have begun to offer the service on a widespread basis over the past half-dozen years, in response to parents’ requests and to developments in technology that made fixing the haircut a 5-year-old gave herself, or popping a tooth into a jack-o’-lantern smile, easy and inexpensive. And every year, the companies say, the number of requests grows.

Joseph Sell, the New York area manager for Lifetouch, which says it takes about 30 million student photos a year, estimates that 10 percent of the company’s photos of elementary school pupils are now altered or, in the industry parlance, retouched.

Another company, Highpoint Pictures, estimated the proportion at 2 to 5 percent.
The numbers go up after the seventh grade, Mr. Sell said. By senior year, sometimes half of a class requests retouching, he said. “The media and magazines have exposed our marketplace to people that are well groomed and well cared for,” Mr. Sell said.

Lifetouch offers several levels of retouching, which can include a $6 “basic” treatment for small changes like removing the glare from eyeglasses; a $10-to-$20 “premier,” in which the teeth will be whitened or a cowlick tamed; and intricate, and more expensive, custom changes, like adding a tie or making short sleeves long.

What else can be tweaked? “There’s really not much limit,” Mr. Sell said.

Mindy Cimmino of Wrentham, Mass., who owns an event-planning company, said she was initially aghast when she noticed a small check box on her children’s photo order forms asking whether she wanted retouching.

Then, two years ago, her daughter Delaina scratched her face the day before her third-grade portrait. Delaina was despondent about going to school that day. So Ms. Cimmino checked the box.

“My rationale was, this is not something that is part of her face,” she said. “I didn’t feel like I was changing my child.”

(The father of Oliver, the Brooklyn first grader, gave a similar explanation for choosing retouching. “It’s not like I’m making him thinner,” Mr. Tracy said.)

But Ms. Cimmino said she was stunned to learn that a parent of a classmate of Delaina’s had asked for the congenital strawberry mark on the child’s face to be wiped away.
“That’s your kid,” Ms. Cimmino said in an interview. “You really need to think about the message it gives your kids about accepting themselves.”

Glossing over lasting disfigurements might not be a bad thing, said Dr. Bradley S. Peterson, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

“There are kids who have some substantial socially stigmatizing features that they want to tone down,” Dr. Peterson said. Doing so in a photograph can build confidence, he said.
But parents who choose to edit also run the risk of “potentially validating the concerns that it is not O.K. to be that way,” Dr. Peterson said.

“In some ways,” he said, “even though they’re trying to help the child’s confidence, it could inadvertently undermine it.”

Some companies have quietly offered retouching for many years.

At the time of its founding in 1946, Irvin Simon Photographers, which took Oliver’s photograph, employed artisans who could paint out pimples on negatives with special inks, or even out skin tone with a faint film of paint sprayed onto prints themselves. In those days, the services were available by special request, and the process was painstaking and expensive, said Steve Miller, a co-president.

Six years ago, like many of its competitors, Irvin Simon Photographers upgraded to digital technology. Now, for about $7, it routinely cleans up pimples, rubs out grass stains or neatens hair, among other touch-ups.

Sometimes the work is more substantial. Marty Hyman, who has been photographing schoolchildren in the New York area for more than 30 years, said that if “if a kid doesn’t look good in the class picture, we will, when necessary, take his head — if it looks better in another picture — and swap it in.”

At the Spence School in Manhattan, Jake Ahern, a science teacher who schedules class photos, said that three years ago the school began offering elementary school students who missed picture day the option of being digitally inserted into the class photo.

Some photo company executives admit to reservations about some of the services they have provided. Last year, Highpoint shortened a girl’s hair at a parent’s behest. The company’s owner, Jason Brand, said he felt that such requests went much further than minor editing.
“I think you want to look back on the way you were, and not the way you wanted to be,” Mr. Brand said. “It’s not an honest thing to reflect back on.”

Mr. Miller said that Irvin Simon would do whatever parents wanted, but he added, “We like to think that all the kids are cute already.”

Dr. Peterson said parents should keep in mind that “what supports healthy growth of the child and capacity to love themselves is parental idealization, that this child is perfect, and the apple of one’s eye.”

So if a parent has a school photo tinkered with, Dr. Peterson said, “it can inadvertently send a message that ‘I perceive you as less than perfect and not ideal.’ ”

When it was his turn for a portrait in the gym at Bay Ridge Prep, Michael Terzuoli, a second grader, straightened his clip-on tie and brushed blond bangs out of his eyes, revealing a nickel-size birthmark on his forehead. He smiled for the picture, then ran off to play.

His mother, Tatiana, said she would let Michael decide if he wanted the mark edited out.
Asked what he would do if he saw his picture without his distinctive birthmark, Michael said, “I’d rip it up.”

Thoughtful Piece on the Value of School Pictures

We're exploring a question this year. The question is, "What is the value of the school picture? And how well do we, as photographers & providers, listen to what our customers tell us about our product."

Below is a really thoughtful piece from a Mom in Maryland, Kym Byrnes, who epitomizes our customers. She's comfortable with digital, values the immediacy of the digital pictures she takes, and yet, sees the past the easy assertions -- School pictures are too expensive! -- to a more evenhanded opinion.

In the excerpts below, she addresses key themes such as:

Value and customer service...
"A friend of mine suggested that school pictures are a racket. She has three children in elementary school and was frustrated that the school photographers don't give a multiple child discount. She laughed that she doesn't even really want the school pictures, but feels obliged to take them."

The importance of choice, and control over purchasing decisions
"Pictures do come in handy to give grandparents and put in gifts... But those picture packages from school are not cheap, and in some cases I've been forced to make a decision without even seeing them! How do I know if I want one 8-by-10 or 36 wallet size photos if I don't even know if I will like the photo? "

The relevance of printed pictures to today's mom
"My sister has given me my nephew's school and sports photos over the years and, to be honest, I never really know what to do with them."

The effect of peer pressure and obligation
"Maybe, like my friend, I feel obligation to purchase class and sports photos because I don't want my kids to feel left out when their friends turn in their orders and get those envelopes to bring home. "

The appeal of non-photographic items
"I've never been interested in trinket items -- keychains and mugs and trading cards and other things that, to me, resemble promotional items businesses hand out at marketing events."

In am age where customers can just blast a company and bad-mouth a product through a quick Facebook post, Ms. Byrnes instead gives our industry a thoughtful critique. One we need to listen to and learn from.