We all make mistakes, some of which get caught on film.
This means you, unicorn man-friend.
This photo may come back to haunt you, mysteriously appearing in Excel spreadsheets at work, much to the snickering of your fellow colleagues. Your best mate might put it on a mug at London Drugs, so every time you come over he can hand you your equine likeness. You will have to face the horrific depiction of your innermost fantasy, or that day you lost a bet, forever. Little did you both know, your mug is now in circulation on the black market, as it appeals to many individuals sharing your love of, um, unicorns.
Once your photo is out there, its out there.
In college, I refused to take my pictures to one of the more well-known developers, knowing what many people did not: at least one of their employees kept copies of all the best pictures. I know what you are thinking.
“Holy Crap!” How Many of MY pictures ended up in a strangers clandestine collection?”
This guy’s collection mostly ran to the bizarre, like drunk people groping each other, or puking, or both simultaneously. But he also kept the best of the self-portraits, the family portraits, the pictures of people with their dogs. I’m sure only a few developers have this streak of meanness, unlike portrait photographers, which are inherently malicious (I offer into evidence exhibit A, this pile of photos, and yes, I am in there) Any honest person would say,
“Are you sure you don’t want to pat down your Chia pet before we take the shot?”
I’m only thinking about this because now is the time I drag the family to the school for family portraits, supporting our schools purse-strings. Capturing my slow decline isn’t high on my list of favorite things to do, but I know I should document my kids growth spurts, slap it on a Christmas card, and send it out for people to place on the mantle and chuck come January 17th. “The Developer” is never far from my mind.
Why not just chuck in the towel? What I really want to do is give the kids Mohawks or buck teeth, and dress the family so outrageously that we have some FANTASTIC Christmas cards. No matter how stylish we think we are now, in twenty years we will be laughing. After all, some of these 70’s and 80’s shots make us shudder, as we all thought we were fly with our mullets and mall-quail bangs.
I think a radical shift in family portraits is in order. We should compete for the ridiculous, have awards for the most off colour family shot. Make them so good, creepy developers will collect the “MacNair family Christmas card” and perhaps even trade them.
If I’m lucky, our mugs will hit the black market by 2014.
(Apologies to people whose shots I have used as examples. Sorry, so sorryyyyyy)