It’s almost time – once again – for me to shell out an inordinate amount of money for my kids’ very professional school photos and I’m reminded of the poor guy who was pressed into service to take my sixth grade school pictures so many years ago.
Unlike the modern new professionals, this weary photographer made no effort whatsoever to mask the angst of pre-teen politics by posing random groupings of chummy-looking kids into panoramic class shots.
No, my sixth grade photographer simply told us where to sit, when to smile and where to go afterwards in a bland monotone that made us all aware for the first time that adults sometimes lead miserable lives. While he did manage to persuade each of us to choose a career other than photography, he also saved me from making what would have been the worst photographic mistake of my childhood.
Being a pre-teen drama queen, I had rehearsed at length a smile I found to be so unique, I was sure no one had seen the likes of it before – I somehow managed to position my two front teeth so that when I smiled, only those two spectacular teeth showed, tucked on the outside of my lower lip, very like Bugs Bunny.
Thankfully, that lacklustre photographer had the decency to tell me, in no uncertain terms and without a sliver of sympathy in his voice, “Don’t smile like that – it looks stupid.”
If he’d spared my feelings at all, I would have surely argued and eventually persuaded him to stop caring and just take the picture regardless of the face I was making, leaving me to be immortalised in my mother’s family photo album as the biggest dork in our family.
I guess sometimes, you really do have to be cruel to be kind.
Laura Fulton
