After seeing Derek wearing a beard and turban, Melody commented she would never trust another picture. Not that that should have ever been the case. Ever since photography was invented people have been manipulating pictures. Photoshop just makes it easier. As further proof, I offer this picture of the Hoopers I didn’t spend a lot of time cleaning up the small details, but either picture still looks real enough to fool the casual viewer.

Aside from having trouble getting the lighting set up for a group, I also found that there is a further challenge in group photos, getting a pleasant facial expression from everyone at the same time.

The “Original” photo is actually a composite made up from the worst example of each family member. Interestingly enough, Michael looked almost the same in each shot, with a very pleasant smile and he managed to keep his eyes open in all five shots. It looked like he wasn’t available for the shoot and we had his cardboard stand-in there instead.

The “Retouched” photo is the best selections from the five photos for each person, so it is actually 4 different photos put together. That’s right, not a single photo had more than one person looking their best. I think the girls took turns blinking for each shot.