School photos photochopped without permission

[Kym]

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/vce-students-distraught-after-school-photos-retouched/story-fn7x8me2-1226034509739?from=herald


VCE students at an eastern suburbs school were left distraught after school photos were retouched to enhance their appearance.

Students at Box Hill’s Our Lady of Sion College have revealed they were horrified when they received their school photos back this week to find they had been touched-up.

But despite claims by the school that a serious “misunderstanding” led to students’ distress at their faces, hair and jewellery being changed, National School Photography’s Peter Gillahan said the school had specifically requested student images be altered.

Photochopped school photos? WT?


Earlier parent, “Kelly”, told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell her daughter was distraught when she found her photos had been doctored.

“Her hair had been totally changed…she went to a lot of trouble to make herself comply with the school rules and look nice and her photos have been changed,” she said.

Kelly said a lot of students had complained their photos had been changed.

“Some girls had ponytails removed, another had her ears changed all together.”

Kelly said no parents had given authority to have the photos changed.

What were the school principal and teachers thinking?

[Clubmanmc]

more sales?

better looking photos sell more...

well if we are to believe any thing we see in the magazines we all read then this is true...

it was inevitable... (dont mean i agree with it.... )

M

[ricktas]

if the kids got the photos and edited them and chucked them up on facebook, they would all be congratulating each other on their editing efforts. Apparently the school asked them to be edited after seeing the 'proofs'. I think we are not being given enough of the real facts behind this.

[ElectricImages]

At first I was kinda "meh" about it - I mean, how awful could the photos be?

But I just saw video footage of some of the "doctored" images. They truly are ridiculous. It's possible to use Photoshop to enhance or improve an image (in which case, some of the girls might have been very happy with the results), but some of these images were pretty ridiculously bad. I, too, would cringe if my image were altered so tragically. :/

[Adrian Fischer]

If you have every done any of this sort of work (I have done dance studios) you wouldnt want to do those changes unless you were forced to. This type of work is a numbers game. You dont make much on each sale necessarily but you get lots of sales. Spending time going through and PPing hundreds of images would bring your return wayyyyyyy down. I agree with clubmanmc that better photos make more sales so a bit of pimple removal and sharpening eyes etc goes a long way but to change hair styles etc ....thats real work. Also agree with Rick, there has to be more to this story. It will be interesting to hear the photographers take on all this. Though, if as the artilce says, the photographer was asked to come back to retake some photos because of "whishpy hair" etc and they then doctored the images instead, then not good. Togs that do this type of work often pay a good "commission" to the schools for the privelidge of shooting the shool. You can almost guarantee that the shool wasnt going to be paying the tog/s to come back again for reshoots. People I have spoken to who do this type of work have indicated that the responsibility for how the kids look when they line up for their shots is the schools. If they have whispy hair or other problems with the uniform then the supervising teacher / school representative should addressit before the shutter is pressed. Of course the photographer can tell the kids to adjust certain things but in many cases these shots are rapid fire. You have X minutes to shoot a class. Line up, step forward, turn and face the camera, smile, snap, move on. Mind you, having said that, a decent size small school of say 450 kids (primary) might have an earning potential of say $10K so to if it all turned to poo, and to protect that income, Im thinking I might just make time to go back and reshoot if thats what was asked.

[Art Vandelay]

Any links to these pics or video ?

[ElectricImages]

Any links to these pics or video ?

Sure - http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/we-brush-not-airbrush-hair-sydney-principals-say-melbourne-schools-photo-request-silly-20110406-1d44u.html

[Art Vandelay]

Ta,

Pretty stupid on the schools part. If the hair or jewellery didn't conform to school standards then that's an issue they need to sort out,.... and not by doctoring photos afterwards. :lol:

[Clubmanmc]

I used to do school formals for a large company in SA before moving up to Qld... we would white balance the studios before doing any shooting, and there was no PP done on the studio photos...

the only work was usually done on the group photos, as there was usually one or two who would buck the trend and try and ruin it by pulling a face... as there was more than one photo taken, they would overlay one or two to make one good image...

agreeed, to pp all the images with out sales is worse than pulling teeth, if the school had a no pony tail / earing policy, then its the schools fault for allowing the images to be taken and the parents fault for allowing the kids to go to school dressed as they were...

put simply... its easy to blame the photographer for a bad shot, if the consumer dont like the result... because of their inability to conform to a standard code of dress...

M

[Kym]

I'm not suggesting the photography company was to blame, other than agreeing to the school's request for edit.
They should have said no.

That said, the school is 99% responsible for asking for the edits.

[reaction]

"the photography company"

either charged $$$ for all the PP work
or was a weekend warrior

I'm guessing the latter, cuz no way school would pay the time needed for major PP, and no way they would normally have time to do, or for free.

[ving]

What were the school principal and teachers thinking? hmm,.. prolly something like "gee we have ugly kids. can you do something about it as we need more enrollments for next year!"

the kids were distraught? weird. Id have thought most girls would love to have a glam shot! :rolleyes: