Young and Photogenic

Ladies and gentemen, one of the three worst pictures ever taken of me:

i-b056860ce05acb2122c7dfd92354ce52-ancient_id.jpg

There is, of course, a story behind this. It's not a particularly good story, but there is one...

That's my college ID, from my freshman year at Williams. It's actually the second ID I got, because while I was on spring break with the rugby club, I lost my wallet, and all my ID with it. When we got back to campus, I had to start replacing all that stuff, and the first stop was the Security office, to get a new ID.

I wasn't real happy about this, so the first picture taken by the young woman working the camera looked pretty grim. She screwed up the process of transferring the film to the ID blank, though, and had to re-do it. (This was back in the days when we had to walk barefoot through the snow without digital cameras...).

"Come on, smile!" she said.

"C'mon, smile!" I parroted back, and made a face. FLASH.

This picture, of course, made it onto a card with no problems. She wouldn't be talked into re-doing it, but I figured "Oh, what the hell. I'll probably lose this card, too, before too long."

Eighteen years later (give or take about a week), I found it at the bottom of a box while cleaning a bunch of old crap out of the garage in preparation for a home improvement project.

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The picture on my college ID is pretty bad, too. Unfortunately whenever I go to get a renewed card the people at the ID center just stick the old photo on the new card rather than taking a new picture, so I guess I'll forever be an aggravated sophmore.

So so modest... I think you're gorgeous..

By Pat Muller (not verified) on 23 Mar 2008 #permalink

before looking below the fold, I thought maybe the story involved a few barley pop's, i.e. beer. You do look happy. So you gonna show us the other two pictures?

That'll teach you to smart off to the camera lady. (JK, it's really not bad.)

By ShellyD99 (not verified) on 23 Mar 2008 #permalink

My undergrad id picture was actually pretty nice looking. Except for the strange green tint. The experience of having it taken was not as it involved being groped by the photographer under guise of arranging my hair for me. Nasty old man. Alas, I was too timid to report it in those days.

MKK

You can scare/amuse your son/daughter with that nicely. I have a lovely 70s unkempt beard Photo that my daughter loves seeing for the purpose of laughing at me. Reduces me to size nicely in her eyes.