Kentucky Man Shares Hilarious Tips on How to Take a Great School Photo

It's school photo season and elementary, middle and high school students throughout Kentucky are preparing for School Picture Day. I realize that every child has their own 'awkward phase' and the length of those phases vary from child to child. Unfortunately, I think my personal awkward phase lasted for most of my K-12 educational career. Only during my senior year did I truly "grow into my looks."

This was the only school photo I ever liked.

That was my senior year at Daviess County High School and each time I gave someone a wallet-sized version I referred to it as my "sex god" pose.  But all the school photos that preceded that one were hardly worth sharing. Miss Celie sho' was ugly, Y'all.

To help kids understand that they're not alone in their disdain for annual school photos, I have assembled some pro tips on how to take the best school pictures.  Well, maybe "best" is a stretch. I suppose it's more accurate to say that these tips are designed to help young folks embrace their awkwardness. I am confident in who I am now (FINALLY) and can look back on some very regrettable school photos and make sense of them for the new generation of students being compelled to "Say cheese!" when they're not really feeling it.

So, here we go! My pro tips based on some of my own tragic school photos.

We'll get to the hair being combed over those ears in a second. First, I want to address the collar of that shirt.  What was I? The friggin' Flying Nun! One stiff wind outside and I could have gone airborne and flown from Thruston Elementary School in east Daviess County to Louisville. And what's up with that shirt? I look like Tigger.

Now, let's go back to those ears.

There's my picture from kindergarten, which I started when I was 4-years-old. You can tell by the way my right ear is protruding from the hair combed down over the top of it that my ears were large and in charge. I am surprised my ears would even fit in Mrs. Jones' classroom. I am surprised I didn't have to coat them in Vaseline just so I could move freely in and out of the doorways of the school.  Without question, if I had to do it all over again, I think a better look would have just embracing those big ears. I realize I kinda looked like "Happy" from Rudolph's Shiny New Year, but that hair is a hot mess.  And can we address the butt cut?

GASP!  That butt cut and those bangs. What a dork!

I am not sure what grade this is, but it's clear it's right around the time that my two front teeth were growing back in after I lost the baby teeth. Kids, I know that your parents will encourage you to smile when you're missing teeth and I suppose it's endearing to some. But look at me! I look like I fell off the monkey bars and knocked my teeth out. Mike Tyson has more teeth than the kid in that photo. Geez!  I should have had my mom get me a flipper like the beauty queens wear.

Oh, wait!  Maybe I spoke too soon. Check out this grill and that big gap in my teeth. Madonna reporting for 7th grade.

Again, with the hair. But the real issue with this photo is this. Yes! I had moved on from Thruston Elementary School to Daviess County Middle School.  But, did I really need to wear my "PANTHERS" shirt for the school photo. What a suck up!

Now this picture!  Is that a terry cloth shirt? And why is the top button snapped?  Was I going from 6th grade directly to the priesthood? And are there any two hairs on my head that are the exact same length? That hair looks like the prototype for that scene in There's Something About Mary.

I suppose the good news is this. As mortifying as the photos were when I took them (and virtually every time I look at them), there's some proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. A silver lining in the prepubescent clouds. As goofy as I looked through much of my educational career, I eventually did take a school photo I was proud of. It just took a pink shirt, chiseled cheek bones, and a bangin' side part to achieve "sex god" status. LOL!