The intercom system was popping Wednesday morning as head secretary Erin Jensen called students down to the auditorium grade by grade for the annual picture retake day.
September 16 was the original picture day earlier in the school year, and most students were relatively satisfied with the mug that peered back at them through that little cellophane window when their teachers returned the pictures. But for others, the shock was real, and retaking was going to happen.
“Basically just a bad photo, not smiling, hair in the wrong spot,” are the main reasons for retakes, photographer Heather Klein of Lifetouch said, which is based in Eden Prairie, MN. “And that is due to the fact that we don’t have a lot of time to spend on everybody, especially with a large school like this.”
For many students, however, who take their photos seriously, hoping to pass them along to friends and family, display them at graduation parties and keep them as momentos of their high school experience, taking a little extra time to get the picture right is worth it.
Junior Hailey Abraham is one such student. She said she got her photo retaken “because I feel like they are very rushed the first time, they don’t let you retake if you don’t like it and then they get upset with you, you can kind of just tell.” But on the retake day, with the process slowed since fewer students are photographed, she was able to at least get a second look so that she could decide which photo she preferred.
Picture retake day is also for students who simply didn’t get their picture taken the first time around, usually because they were absent from school.
“Every student has to have their picture taken because we have to put it into campus so that all staff members know what the student looks like,” Erin Jensen said. “Students also need to have ID badges to get into school dances so we know who they are.”
And then there is the yearbook. Twenty years from now, when you’re trying to remember so and so’s name from this year, you can bust out the annual to see the picture.
