Worst Portraits Ever.

Feb 21, 2018 | Other photographers, Portrait Photography

This is not a joke, apparently.

Professional photographers and those in the business of photography alike appear to be stunned at the unbelievable rate of what is being hailed as the worst portrait session of all time is being shared online and going viral.

Bad Portraits

Lee Morris, writing for Fstoppers, admits that he’s seen his fair share of bad portraits but nothing on the scale of the likes of this. He claims that there is a plausible story behind the photos and why they are so bad but initially questioned their authenticity– they’re so bad that they can’t be real, surely?

The photos in question are family portraits that were posted on Facebook by a regular wife and mother called Pam Dave Zaring, who spoke out to complain about the quality of the portraits which were taken by what she thought was a professional photographer.

In her post she wrote:

“Ok. This is NOT a joke. We paid a photographer, who claimed to be a professional, $250 for a family photo-shoot. Please see these FOR REAL photos she delivered to us … She said the shadows were really bad on the beautiful, clear, sunny day and that her professor never taught her to retouch photos. Feel free to share, I literally have not laughed this hard in YEARS! You can’t make this stuff up … again, this is NOT a joke.”

What followed were a set of incredible images that accompanied her dismay.

 

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Post-Production

Even a professional photographer may not know exactly how to recreate the unimaginably bad effect that appears to be the work of post-processing, a technique not uncommon in the production of professional images. Because the photos are so unrealistic, many have questioned the motive behind the photos and suggest whether they’re the work of a Photoshop expert who purposefully wanted to create a viral campaign– it’s either that, or, literally, someone who has no idea what they are doing.

Seeing The Funny Side

Pam waited months to actually get the shots after paying $250 and is adamant that this is not a joke on her part. Many comments were left to her post on Facebook and reading through some of the comments on her shared gallery points to their hilarity, with one user suggesting that Pam should place the photos on her Christmas cards in future because they are just so funny.

Check out one of the pictures below to see why:

 

 

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This blog post originally appeared on www.photographybymatthewjames.com

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