Freelance photographer Jen McKendrick won’t take pictures of “ugly people” — that is, the high school bullies who were doing what bullies do on Facebook. “If you are ugly on the inside,” says McKendrick, “I’m sorry but I won’t take your photos to make you look pretty on the outside!”
A WTAE-TV article explains it thus:
McKendrick said she saw four high school seniors bullying other kids on an anonymous Facebook page that went beyond just name-calling.
“It was beyond your clothes are ugly or you don’t have any brand clothes or you are ugly, your hair is not right. It was vicious. It was talking about sexuality,” McKendrick said.
[…]
Instead of taking their pictures, McKendrick took screen shots of the online comments and sent them to her clients’ parents, saying she saw their children’s behavior on the Internet and was canceling their sessions and refunding their $200 deposits.
“I got a couple responses that said thank you for letting them know, that they were unaware what was going on and that they would take care of it,” said McKendrick. — Photographer Says No To Senior Pictures For Bullying Students.
It’s important to note that this is not the school sanctioning the students. McKendrick feels she is exercising her right, as a small business owner, not to take money from certain customers. Perhaps the students affected by her decision will learn a lesson about the real-word consequences of anti-social actions.
