NBC’s Today Show reports that a private school in Missouri retouched school I.D. photos to make girls look “slimmer, eliminate freckles and recolor lips, among other changes. One student said her ID picture did not look anything like her, and the photo company says the retouching happened by accident.”
One teenaged girl, Zoe Royer, took to Reddit to express her anger upon discovering that her photo had been altered beyond recognition, writing:
* face smoothing
* skin recoloring
* lip recoloring
* eyebrow smoothing and reshaping
* face thinning
I was outraged! I have a round face that I have grown to love and now I get my photo back with a different face. The new photo no longer even looks like me but rather a prettier twin sister. When we go and have our photos taken we are flat out told that our skin will be retouched to hide blemishes. We are not told, however, that more drastic changes are made.
Going to an all girls school we are constantly reminded about positive body image and accepting ourselves for who we are. Having these changes made to make me appear thinner makes me wonder how must our school practices what they preach.
Here is a comparison of the two photos. The left is untouched and the right is the new photo
As The Today Show reports, “it wasn’t just Royer. All of the ID photos were edited with extreme changes such as removed freckles, recoloring lips, reshaping eyebrows, and even making the girls appear thinner. “
According to The Today Show, the photo and story were picked up by Perez Hilton and Jezebel, among other popular online outlets.
St. Teresa’s Academy, an all-girl’s private school, told NBC News the retouching was a mistake on the part of the photo company, DeCloud Studios. The school did not authorize any kind of retouching of the photos, and St. Teresa’s president, Nan Tiehen Bone told the Kansas City Star that the school didn’t agree with the retouching. “Of course, we were very angry,” she said.
Once the matter was settled, Royer took to Reddit again to update the status of the situation:
After meeting with my high school it has been determined that the untouched original photos will be use in the yearbook. The edits were not made by my school but rather the company our school used. These changes were made without notification to the school. When our yearbook teacher saw the photos he was outraged along with all the other staff members of the school. They understood that the new edited photos are not what the students look like. I would like to thank all of the positive comments about how wrong this is and how there need to be changes in this. My school has proved that they are fully behind positive body image by printing the untouched photos. I am proud of my school and what they stand for. To sum it up, I want this issue of photoshopping to get the attention it needs but know that my school has realized that their students do not need to be “corrected”.
You can watch NBC’s Kristen Dahlgren reporting, below:
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