Update: In an email to the Daily Dot, a Lifetouch spokesperson claimed that while the initial photo was taken by Lifetouch, the intense editing Derri showed was not done by the company.
“We take the responsibility of photographing students as their authentic selves very seriously,” the spokesperson said. “Recent claims on social media suggest that a Lifetouch photo was altered in a way that is inconsistent with our standards and practices. After a thorough investigation, we can confirm that while the original photo in question was taken by a Lifetouch photographer, Lifetouch did not create the allegedly edited photo. We have reached out directly to the concerned parent to further understand the situation, but unfortunately, we have not yet received a response.”
Original story: A parent is calling out her son’s school after she received highly edited school photos showing the child with dimples and perfectly straight white teeth.
In a slideshow with over 11 million views, TikTok user Derri (@damnnnderri) shows the photo that her son’s school sent her. She then contrasts that photo with the unedited picture, which shows the child smiling, though dimple-less and without showing his whole teeth.
Derri had emailed Lifetouch, the company that took and edited the photos, in order to receive the unedited versions.
“I need my son unedited pictures,” she wrote in the email. “This isn’t my kid!”
She later posted the same pictures to Instagram.
According to Lifetouch’s website, the company offers “retouching options for scrapes and blemishes.”
How and why the company decided to alter Derri’s child’s photo so drastically is unclear, though others have made similar complaints against the company in the past.
In 2019, a San Antonio mother complained that Lifetouch had edited her son’s hair to appear like, in her words, “the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” The child is mixed-race, leading to speculation on the part of the mother as to how and why this happened.
“It’s not that I don’t like the look of the hair, it’s just that’s not who he is,” she told News 4 San Antonio. She later asked, “Was somebody just messing around, and thought it was funny?”
Other parents on the internet have also complained about the company’s retouching features as well. Some parents claimed that the company whitened their children’s teeth, while others said they removed things like freckles.
Furthermore, the company has been criticized for its high prices. Lifetouch responded to this issue in part by telling the Christian Science Monitor, “While we try and encourage school districts to tell parents, the fact is that most aren’t made aware that our price is inflated by 50 to 100 percent by the schools as fundraisers.”
Back on TikTok, users in the comments section shared their thoughts on Derri’s peculiar situation.
“Veneers and dimples!?” questioned a user. “I need them to edit my pics atp.”
“He’s so handsome too, that was so unnecessary,” added another.
“They made him 5 years older with dimples too,” stated a third.
The Daily Dot reached out to Derri via Instagram direct message.
