Every
good and wholesome family needs to go and get their family portrait taken every few years. You know, to send to relatives in the mail with a Christmas greeting or to get framed to hang in the house, only to embarrass the kids whenever their friends come over and snigger at the picture of you standing there so rigidly in the shirt and slacks combination your mother forced you to wear.
Well, that's sort of how it went for Pam and Dave Zaring, who organised their two sons, two dogs and grandma to polish up and head to the park together on a clear, sunny day in Missouri last year. Pam booked a
professional photographer in the area to come out and take the pictures and paid $250 for her services.
But... they didn't exactly come out as expected. Apparently, it took eight months to even get the photos, so this "professional" photographer was already putting doubts in the family's mind. But then when the Zaring's
did finally receive their pics, they were even more surprised and became further dubious about how "professional" this photographer really was...
Pam shared some of the photos to her Facebook page yesterday, together with a lengthy caption to explain the bizarre photos.
"Ok," she wrote. "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."
"I literally have not laughed this hard in YEARS!!!!! You can't make this stuff up.....again, this is NOT a joke - final product."
The post has been shared more than 300,000 in less than 24 hours and has attracted 263,000 likes. And it's hard not to see why... the pictures are just next level hilarity.
Here they are:
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Their clothes and the park look completely normal but just look at the faces – they're like melted lego figurines:
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At least grandmas wrinkles have been retouched:
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What is up with the teeth?!
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The dogs somehow got away with their normal snouts:
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Then there's this:
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Oh come on... just one closer look:
What the
hell happened? This can't just be bad
retouching in Photoshop.
The public Facebook post attracted thousands of comments from people who found it equally as hilarious. "It looks like you guys are the first Artificial Intelligence family," one person wrote, while another said: "I can't stop my tears!!! This is the best thing ever. Wish she would have done the dogs too". Someone else suggested: "Omgosh they look so creepy like a cover to a horror film lol I’d be getting my money back for sure!!"
And when people really questioned that these were genuinely handed over by the photographer in a serious manner, Pam had to reassure them: "This IS real!!!! I️ kid you not!"
"I already ordered photo books to keep in our office and share with family to remember our beautiful faces," she added. Pam and her family did try to get their money back after receiving the photos, but she said the photographer stood by her work and tried to justify herself by saying "there were shadows in the photos she had to work around".
Well, at least Pam and her family could find the humour in the situation. And it sure is a family portrait they'll never forget.
