As I am writing this, the worst portrait session of all time is being shared at an unbelievable rate. This. Can't. Be. Real.
I've seen some bad portraits in my lifetime but nothing like this. These are so bad that they can't possibly be real, but the story that goes along with them is plausible. Pam Dave Zaring, who seems to be a normal wife and mother on Facebook, just posted a group of family photos. She writes:
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
She then proceeds to post the most incredible imagery I've ever seen.
This post-processing is unimaginably bad, but at the same time, I wouldn't know how to recreate it. So the question is; is this someone who literally has no idea what they are doing or is this the work of a Photoshop expert purposefully creating the ultimate viral campaign?
Reading the comment section of this shared gallery on Facebook is hilarious and Pam can be seen replying to many of the commentors. She sticks to her story that this is in fact not a joke and that she paid $250 for the session but waited months to actually get the shots.
I can't believe this is real but Pam's story and comments certainly add to the believability and the hilarity of this photo series. What do you think? Real or fake?
Lead image by slon_dot_pics, used under Creative Commons.
I think that's totally fake, because when I went to that "photographer"'s Facebook page, I found an image that was clearly stolen.
Edit: the FB page turned out to be a spoof one. So that's "OK".
Dont be surprised.... when you have clients asking for this editing style ONLY because it went viral!
There is a LinkedIn page https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesa-hall-29b05169
Anyway it’s way too creepy. :) I’m intrigued, real or not. I hope it’s a campaign, not real.
I find it very annoying that people make stories up like this one just to get attention. All fake, everything lookes made up. Here is the fb page of this Lesa Hall, which also looks fake https://www.facebook.com/Lesa-Hall-Photography-195118537734592/. My very personal opinion but if I were fstopper I would not fuel stories like that at all. It just wastes people time. Informative, interesting content would be better than this time wasting rubbish.
The lady waited 8 months to get the photos. Didn't get a refund. If you look at this person's actual web page it is not that hard to believe. http://lhphotos1.wixsite.com/lhphotos?lightbox=dataItem-ij4gz6u7 That fake spoof facebook page was not done by them. When stuff goes viral people make up all kinds of things.
The Lesa Hall fb page you posted was a spoof created AFTER the photo went viral as a joke. Several others have also popped up, all done after.
somewhat she creates a new genre of photography....
looking her page photos this remind me of the early digital cameras era from 90's
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesa-hall-29b05169/?trk=public-profile-join-...
A search for this business "IMagery" shows the business to be fictitious
Well people are currently making fake ones
That just means that it is not in her name. In some states you have to register your business if you are not using just your name. In her case her business was Imagery so that is a fictitious name. It has nothing to do if it is a real business.
I wonder if the photographer is suffering from prosopometamorphopsia? According to the Wikipedia entry: "Generally, faces tend to appear distorted to a person who is affected by this condition. Those who suffer from this condition are able to recognise faces normally but perceive them as strangely disfigured. These facial hallucinations are usually described as ugly, and have prominent eyes and teeth. Some have described the faces as having a cartoon-like quality. Faces have been known to be perceived as contorted and as having displaced features. For example, one patient described a person's face as having a nose deviated to the side, the mouth laying at a diagonal and one eyebrow being higher than the other.
Wiki entry here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopometamorphopsia?wprov=sfla1
Lee why hasn't Fstoppers attempted to reach out to the photographer and get her side of the story before posting, rather than feeding into the hype to get clicks? This is obviously fake, and the photographer is being bullied by the entire photography community now.
How about showing the photographer a little support here? Maybe she'll turn around and buy a few tutorials?
When I wrote this I didn’t have access to the photographer but just in case this is real I didn’t want to make it about her. At this point, if this is real, I’m sure she is too busy to respond.
I live in St. Louis and have taken photography classes at St. Louis Community College and can guarantee this is 100% fake. STLCC has one of the better photography programs in St. Louis almost better than Webster or Washington University. I know the program and the instructors and can say this would never pass. It is, however, a great marketing tactic. Now Viral, what is the old adage there is no such thing as bad PR.
It's all a joke. Here is Lesa Hall's Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/IMagery-by-Lesa-Hall-388688644916623/. Does not look real to me.
the page was created after the original post
Well then, just a marketing trick. But for what purpose...
She forgot about the dogs.
I agree that this looks bad, however, in all fairness to the photographer, this is exactly what she shows on her photography page. Every single portrait has this style and if this person who paid for these portraits checked, they would have seen that and if they did check and saw this photographer's work they would have known what to expect.
I don't like what this photographer is doing, however, their portfolio shows what they do. I put this on the person who hired this photographer not the photographer in this situation. I find it suspect that the buyer didn't know this prior to hiring this photographer. The only reason they wouldn't know this if they never looked at the photographer's page. In that six months did you not look at this photographer's work and or how did you decide on this photographer?
https://www.facebook.com/IMagery-by-Lesa-Hall-940125012830107/
Sigh... that is a spoof site created after this went viral
She left the dogs out (no pun intended). Someone has to fix that.
Just a great marketing gimmick. Client got 2 free sessions to post this.
As you can imagine, I was mortified when I woke up to all of the Facebook messages and posts to weed through. I am Lisa Hall Photography - not Imagery by Lesa Hall. But, its the way of the world to not pay attention to detail. This is all a big joke. Now to figure a way to spin this in a positive way.....:)
It is beyond comprehension how all these people confuse Lisa with Lesa even in the comments of this article. Hopefully it doesn't hurt your business.
You said you wouldn't be able to recreate the processing. Here's a nice tutorial on how to achieve that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le2MsFLCR8A
. Now I'm mad my professors didn't teach me anything related to this great and innovative technique :(...
Seems like a weak attempt (they all are) at viral marketing intended to drive traffic to their insurance business page.
Why would they identify a real photographer whose photography business will be hurt by this then if it wasn't real?
REAL. This is absolutely legit. Cracking up!
clarity and contrast sliders way down in ACR...
She has a linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesa-hall-29b05169/
I cannot laugh or facepalm.
I went speechless when my wife showed me these.
Totally no reaction.
Could also just be a fine art family photographer where they do their own entirely unique style of photography away from the norm.