 Oh Okay, Jess. Are you ready? Oh, yeah, I am. I just got a fix Hey, I said I wasn't ready dude, oh my school photos Following the trend of sharing too much information about my most embarrassing moments with thousands of people Cuz don't we just love that here is another traumatic experience for you to be entertained by and what an experience this was Oh Recently I launched a merch store and guess what I've added more items All previous products are on sale now and so are the new ones including an ugly Christmas sweater to get you ready for the festive season as well as some smaller items like socks and a face mask But be quick this sale only lasts for one week as a big Black Friday event So be sure to check it out link is below This was an annual shindig where a crew of strangers would infiltrate our school and take photos of all the children as weird as this Sounds I'm sure it's a common practice in most schools around the world for my school We had to pay for our photos which makes sense But what doesn't make sense is that getting your picture taken wasn't optional. How is that fair? I'm going to split this topic into two separate videos primary school and high school Part two will be coming out very soon And if it's already out by the time you're watching this the link will be below now Let's go talk about primary school when I was a lot younger the morning of school photo day tended to go like this Don't waste time eating breakfast. I need to do your hair extra nice today Stop watching Disney Channel and brush your teeth. We need to leave soon Hey mom, I spat toothpaste on my uniform After all that my bros and I got kicked out of the car at the school gate And of course I was thrown in front of a camera right away before my hair or uniform got affected by daily school life During my year of kindergarten aka my first year of school ever the photography crew must have been like See how the Sun is blaring down on the steaming 45 degrees Celsius day right in that specific patch of grass Let's set up that group photograph right there This led to my first ever school photo experience having a horrific outcome The Sun was so blinding that I could barely look up at the photographers So my head was tilted downwards away from the Sun's harmful rays But of course you need to make eye contact with the camera for a photo, right? Right, I definitely didn't forget to do that with my head tilted down I persevered through the searing light and locked eyes with the camera Yeah, I wish I could say my photos got better from there Nope, it was a downward slope more about the slope later My eyes were already melting from the Sun itself But when staring this camera down I just had to be hit with a bright camera flash as well Summoning the demon spirit to overtake my body. What a mess Side note for any photographers out there who might know more about this than me Why were they using a flash in such bright naturally lit Conditions I have a feeling that these people just used as much equipment as possible to convince the school that they're Professional enough to be hired, but I could be wrong. So let me know what I will say though Is that the following year the group photos were taken indoors? I don't know if anyone else did this but every single year for photo day I had the same hairstyle my hair would be straightened with a small plate on the left every time If I was feeling particularly quirky one year, I might have put the plate on the right side instead That's how the cool kids do it My school had a strict uniform for the most part and photo day was always happening during summer The summer variation of this uniform was very simple. Everybody wore the same thing. It worked But guess what? So our team has been thinking Let's just do photos in the winter for no reason at all Deal it took forever to get this group photo taken the female winter uniform could have a lot of subtle and not So subtle differences a white shirt is mandatory But you could wear a long skirt or pants or a vest over the shirt or even a little tie What is this since all the girls would rock up in different uniforms? It proved very difficult for the photographers to make the photo look symmetrical before they would take into consideration Boys and girls the tall people and the short people and that was it this time They were more or less playing a jigsaw puzzle with misbehaving juveniles set at the highest difficulty Because this process took so long the last scheduled class for the day would literally have no more than 10 minutes for photos Before their buses would arrive to take them home by this point in the day people's nicely done hair became scraggly messes including mine I Mentioned this in a previous video. Some of you guys might remember but when I was younger I had a very difficult time forcing a smile for cameras Oh my god, my idea of a smile was stretching my mouth on either side. That's it Remember that slope I mentioned earlier. That's exactly what happened to my mouth when I did this How was this a smile the photographers would take the photo look at it and then make me take it again I had no way of changing this face and I could tell they were getting frustrated Okay, smile Okay, let's try that again, but put more happiness into it. Okay God, okay, imagine you just want a million dollars. Whoo The worst part of all of this is that my mom got these photos after they were printed and sent out and then redistributed them throughout our whole family far away in another part of the country in the living room of my parents house It still makes me cringe to this very day. Thank God my smile has improved since then One year the photographers were desperate to get better photos They had a tripod set up and on top of it was a stuffed monkey The photographer would try way too hard to try and make this a fun element to the photo taking process making each kid say Monkeys they also did this for the big group. Okay guys big wide smiles. Say monkeys Okay, one more time guys Now that brings a tear to my eye. Let's say it one more time Anyway see me here I always had to sit in the front row due to being a very small human this year However, I was moved away from this area joy filled my little heart. I felt ten feet tall. I was growing. I Later found out that this was because of my uniform not my height Let me have my moment That's all I can remember from this early stage of my school life So I'm going to leave it there. However part two about high school photos is coming. You guys are not ready for that Huge thank you obviously goes out to Alex for playing the role of the photographer This was a super fun collab and I love what she was able to do with the character her links are on screen Ed in the description below go support her if you're not already