Lessons That Last: Smile! It’s school photo day

The night before school photos one year, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror feeling pretty pleased with myself.

This was during my teenage years, when pimples could appear without warning, but I’d somehow hit a good patch. My skin was clear. Nothing brewing on the forehead or chin, fringe big and bold and, most importantly as it turned out, the nose was looking terrific.

You beauty, I thought. School photos tomorrow and I’ve actually got away with it.

I went to bed.

The next morning I looked in the mirror and nearly fainted.

Overnight, one almighty blind pimple had pushed its way to the surface. Red, angry, swollen, about the size of the tip of my little finger and sitting in the one place on my face where it was absolutely impossible to hide.

Right on the point of my nose.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Student had school photos that morning.

There was no hiding

School photographs were merciless. Whatever face you brought to school that morning was the one being recorded for posterity.

There were no filters, no taking 20 shots and choosing the best one, and certainly no making an offending pimple disappear before anyone saw it.

Bad haircut? Recorded. Missing tooth? There forever. Mum had attacked your fringe with the kitchen scissors on Sunday night? Into the family album it went.

I can’t remember what I did to the pimple that morning, but knowing teenage me, I probably poked and squeezed the thing until it was twice as angry as when I found it.

Then off to school I went.

Everybody look respectable

Mum knew school-photo day was different.

Hair had to be combed, shirts tucked in and collars straight. You left home looking unusually respectable, then had several hours at school to undo most of her work before your class was called.

That was when the teachers took over.

“Straighten your tie.”

“Fix your collar.”

“Tuck your shirt in.”

There was always one kid whose mother had prepared them for the photograph as though it were going to hang in Government House.

Then came the great arrangement. Tall kids at the back, shorter ones towards the front, everyone shuffling sideways while the photographer peered through the camera and made tiny adjustments.

“Move in a bit.”

“You there, to the left.”

“Chin up.”

And the old favourite: “If you can’t see me, I can’t see you.”

Eventually everybody was in position and expected to produce a natural smile after five minutes of being moved around like furniture.

Someone blinked. Someone looked sideways. Someone else was caught halfway between a grin and a sneeze. Someone occasionally slipped the bird.

And somewhere among them was a teenage boy wondering whether the camera could pick up the enormous red monstrosity now occupying the end of his nose.

Then the envelope arrived

Weeks later, the photographs came home.

We’d immediately inspect ourselves for damage. Was my smile weird? Or why was my hair doing that?

The class photograph went into the family collection and those individual portraits seemed to travel everywhere. Mum had one, grandparents got copies, maybe an old neighbour, and another might end up in a frame or somebody’s wallet.

Your worst haircut wasn’t merely photographed. It was syndicated.

At the time, I doubt I noticed much beyond my nose.

Finding them years later

The funny thing is, when you find those photographs decades later, all the things that embarrassed us are what make them so good.

The haircuts are magnificent. Glasses are enormous. Some uniforms look three sizes too big because Mum had bought them to “grow into”. There are missing teeth, freckles, awkward smiles and faces still trying to work out who they were going to become.

Then your eyes start travelling along the rows.

There’s Grego. There’s Brandt. There’s Julie. And then you find somebody you haven’t thought about in 40 or 50 years and suddenly remember where they sat, the nickname everyone called them or something stupid you did together at lunchtime.

For a moment, you’re back there.

Somewhere, I suspect, my Rudolph photograph still exists. A whole class lined up with hair combed and collars straight, while I sit among them carrying what I was convinced was a teenage catastrophe on the end of my nose.

Looking at it now, I’d probably give anything to have skin that young again.