We don’t know about you, but we’ve always thought there was a certain charm to the grand English tradition of slightly dodgygraduation photos. There’s something about the combination of being locked away in a library for six months, the UKs generally disappointing climate and some ‘professional’ (only by name) photography that makes almost everyone’s pictures come out pallid, swollen and generally pretty disappointing. But who cares, right? This is a photo designed to commemorate the achievement you made with your brain, not your face or body and besides – no one’s actually going to see it when it takes pride of place in your mum’s downstairs loo, are they?
Except this evidently isn't the attitude taken by Success Photography – the photo agency that provides graduation photos for over 100 UK Universities Including the Universities of Dundee, York, Northumbria, Portsmouth, Bournemouth and the London School of Economics and Political Science – who, it's just emerged, have been offering to Photoshop all your embarrassing graduation picture worries away so you can finally look as brilliant as your brain feels. We assume.
Last night Sophie Gadd, who's graduating with a History and Politics from the University Of York today, revealed how Success Photography offered to ‘digitally slim’ down her graduation photos for her for the (pretty hefty, considering how much all the other graduation hoopla costs) price of £9.95. As part of the beautification package, graduates were also offered ‘digital complexion and smile enhancement’ for £7.95.
How did she feel about the offer? ‘I laughed at first, but then I felt annoyed because it’s just playing on insecurities,’ Sophie explains to The Debrief. ‘I was registering to have my photo taken before I’d even graduated and this was one of the options. It’s just so weird – why were they asking before I’d even had my photo taken? It was like they were assuming we won’t look thin enough!’
It’s really odd but reasonable enough, we suppose, if Success Photography was responding to a genuine demand from students who desperately wanted to get their pictures digitally enhanced, but that certainly wasn’t the case with Sophie. ‘I’d never consider getting my graduation pictures photoshopped,’ she explained. ‘I get why people might get it done to their wedding photos but this is a celebration of your brain not your face! And if I did I’d do it myself and save the £9.95.’
As for if Success Photography were responding to a demand from other students, we can’t be sure – when we contacted them asking for a comment we were told the only statement they will be making on the matter was a Tweet which read: ‘Just to make clear 'digital slimming' refers to reducing the appearance of the gown only, never the individual.’ No word yet on why anyone would pay a tenner to get their GOWN slimmed down, but we wait with baited breath. eye roll
Update from The University of York
A spokesman said: 'Success Photography has offered a service at York graduations for a number of years. It has a contractual relationship with the Student Union (YUSU) rather than with the University. We have raised the issue of 'digital slimming' with YUSU who in turn have raised it with the company. As a consequence of these conversations, the company has withdrawn all marketing literature offering this service from our campus and has made a commitment to remove this information from their website as soon as possible.'
Looks like we weren't the only ones to think this was all a little bit dodgy...
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophiecullinane
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.