Get That Photoshop Out of my Face

Yesterday my daughter went to renew her national identity card. First, she went to a photographer for the pictures. She found one in the historical area of the city and went in. The photographer told her to sit on a stool, snapped a couple of pictures and went about printing them. When he brought them out to her she was surprised at her image. The photographer saw her surprise and explained. He said he had changed an eye that was too small because of her glasses and erased some blemishes on her forehead and a mole on her cheek he had thought she wouldn't want on the photo. He didn't know who he was explaining to.

My daughter is eighteen but she isn't like most eighteen year olds. She dresses the way she wants to, not the way everyone else dresses, and couldn't care less about her image. If she has blemishes, she has them. If you don't like them, don't look at them. As long as she's clean she doesn't care if she doesn't fit others' expectations. She doesn't take selfies, but she'll pose with other friends for a picture if they ask. She doesn't believe in dressing up for an event. She has been to birthday parties where other girls have gone wearing miniskirts and heels... wearing jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt. She wore a dress to her graduation, but a normal summer dress, not a wedding-party dress like other classmates. So the photographer made a very big boo-boo when he photoshopped her ID picture.

She balked and said she wanted a picture of her face the way it was, period. That he had no right changing anything without asking her first. So the photographer took her back in and took a normal photo which he printed out the way it came out. She paid for those pictures, blemishes and all, and crossed a photographer off her list.