After their children took their class photos at Aboyne Primary School, located approximately 30 miles west of Aberdeen, Scotland, parents were shocked to be offered two variants: one with all the members of the class and one without children with complex needs.

Aberdeenshire Council said the decision was not made by the school, and the link to the photos was immediately removed, the BBC reports.

Natalie Pinnell, the mother of one of the children erased from the alternative photo, publicly denounced the incident in a Facebook post.

“This week, a photography company erased my child from a school class photo. Why? Was she not aesthetically pleasing enough?” the mother wrote on Wednesday (March 27).

Share iconA school photographer offered parents the option to choose between two class photos: one with the whole group and another that excluded students with disabilities

Image credits: Natalie Pinnell

Pinnell continued by sharing her reaction to the incident: “To say I am disgusted, devastated and absolutely heartbroken is an understatement. My daughter is AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL! Shame on anyone who believes that the erasure of ANY human being is in any way ok.”

She added: “The school were amazing. They were absolutely appalled.”

Pinnell shared that her eldest daughter was diagnosed with autism in 2017.

According to the World Health Organization, about 1 in 100 children has autism.

The term encompasses a diverse spectrum of conditions related to the development of the brain, which can manifest in some degree of difficulty with social interaction, focus on details, or unusual reactions to sensations.

Natalie Pinnell said her eldest daughter, who was diagnosed with autism in 2017, was erased from the class photo

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Image credits: Natalie Pinnell

“To say I am disgusted, devastated, and absolutely heartbroken is an understatement,” the mother wrote on Facebook

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Image credits: Natalie Pinnell

In the comments of the post, the mother wrote that she hopes that the “awful experience” will shed light on the issue of discrimination against children with developmental disabilities.

She also wrote that three other children were erased from the class photo.

Tempest Photography, one of the biggest school photography firms, informed that it had spoken to the photographer involved and the school and that it’s now investigating the matter.

Aberdeenshire Council reacted to the situation with a public statement, deeming the photographer’s actions “unacceptable” and apologizing to the parents.

Aberdeenshire Council apologized to parents for the “unacceptable” incident

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Image credits:  Aboyne Primary

“Why? Was she not aesthetically pleasing enough?” Pinnell asked after her daughter was excluded

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Image credits:  Natalie Pinnell

The Aberdeenshire Council wrote: “We are aware that following Aboyne Primary School’s recent school class photographs, links to purchase the pictures included images with and without complex needs provision pupils.

“Whilst this was not a decision taken by the school, we absolutely appreciate the distress and hurt this has caused some parents and carers, and we are sincerely sorry.

“The issue has been taken up with the photography company directly, as this is totally unacceptable.”

The council added: “Aboyne is an inclusive school, and every single child should be included, engaged, and involved in their learning and school experiences.”

People called out the photographer for discriminating against the children

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Parents have complained their children were being “erased from history” after a version of their school’s class photos excluded children with additional support needs.

A photographer working for Tempest Photography took separate pictures of the P5 class at Aboyne primary school in Aberdeenshire, with the children with additional needs reportedly removed from one set. Parents were then sent a link with both versions to choose from.

It was reported that a set of twins was split up so that the child who uses a wheelchair was excluded from one version.

Natalie Pinnell, whose daughter Erin was among those excluded from a set of photographs, told the Press and Journal: “I am absolutely heartbroken. Furious. A lot of the other parents have decided not to purchase their school photos in support. That means a lot.

“To give people the option to erase my daughter from history for the sake of optics is frankly inhumane. One of the cruellest things that I’ve ever experienced. Me and the other parents just feel devastated beyond belief.”

Pinnell said the school was not aware of the decision to take two sets of photos and investigated immediately once it was alerted by parents.

A second parent, Lisa Boyd, told the newspaper her daughter Lily – who is a wheelchair user – was removed from an alternative photo, leaving the nine-year-old’s twin sister devastated.

Parents have received an apology from the local council, which said the decision had not been taken by the school, and that the link to the photos has been removed.

The Cornwall-based photography company, which employs local photographers to take school photos across the UK, said it had launched an investigation. It said: “We are currently investigating the situation with the school and have no further comment.”

Aberdeenshire council said: “We are aware that following Aboyne primary school’s recent school class photographs, links to purchase the pictures included images with and without complex needs provision pupils.

“Whilst this was not a decision taken by the school, we absolutely appreciate the distress and hurt this has caused some parents and carers and we are sincerely sorry. The issue has been taken up with the photography company directly as this is totally unacceptable.”

The council added: “Aboyne is an inclusive school and every single child should be included, engaged and involved in their learning and school experiences.”

Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, said that omitting children who have complex needs from some school photographs was “shameful”.

He told PA Media: “It should never have happened at all. I don’t want to see another single example of that anywhere in Scotland. It’s not acceptable, not right. And I’m pleased the council responsible has apologised.”

A photography firm apologised to parents after it offered alternative class photos without children with “complex” needs.

Parents with children in Aboyne Primary School, Aberdeenshire, were stunned when children with additional needs were removed from one set of photos taken by a photographer employed by Cornwall-based Tempest Photography. Parents had been sent a link with two versions of the class photo to choose from.

“Recently, after capturing a class group photograph, one of our photographers took additional images of the class group which omitted some members of the class from the photograph.,” Tempest Photography said. “We deeply regret any upset this has caused and would like to sincerely apologise to the parents and children affected.

Has this happened at your school? Get in touch with us here at webnews@trinitymirror.com

“We are a family-run business and photograph at schools across the UK, and would like to reassure our customers that this is not standard procedure for our company and we are taking this matter very seriously. We are committed to implementing meaningful changes to prevent such an occurrence in the future.”

Mum-of-two Natalie Pinnell was stunned when she learned parents were being given the choice to remove her nine-year-old daughter, Erin, from the class photos. She said the decision had “devastated” the family.

The mum told the Press and Journal it felt like having her child “erased from history and told the paper: “I am absolutely heartbroken. Furious.”

She added: “A lot of the other parents have decided not to purchase their school photos in support. That means a lot. To give people the option to erase my daughter from history for the sake of optics is frankly inhumane. One of the cruellest things that I’ve ever experienced. Me and the other parents just feel devastated beyond belief.”

“You can’t erase them because they’re inconvenient,” the businesswoman told MailOnline. “It’s devastating to have your child be erased from a photo or give parents a choice whether she should or should not be included.

“She is the most beautiful human being. Who could do this? I’m grateful that she’s not aware of it because the damage that would do to her self-esteem would be devastating. But I’m having to tell my other daughter about what’s happening to her sister. I’m not sure I’m going to sleep tonight.”

Ms Pinnell said she would never use the company again and that it undermined the work of the primary school. She also described the incident as “painful” and called on other schools to cut ties with Tempest Photography.

A second parent, Lisa Boyd, also told the newspaper her daughter Lily, a wheelchair user, was removed from an alternative photo, with the nine-year-old’s twin sister devastated.

An Aberdeenshire Council spokesperson told The Mirror: “We are aware that following Aboyne Primary School’s recent school class photographs, links to purchase the pictures included images with and without complex needs provision pupils.

“Whilst this was not a decision taken by the school, we absolutely appreciate the distress and hurt this has caused some parents and carers and we are sincerely sorry. The issue has been taken up with the photography company directly as this is totally unacceptable. Aboyne is an inclusive school and every single child should be included, engaged and involved in their learning and school experiences.”

• Has YOUR school been affected? Email stewart.carr@mailonline.co.uk

By Andrew Young

Published: 11:02 EDT, 29 March 2024 | Updated: 11:11 EDT, 29 March 2024

A photography firm which ‘deleted’ children with disabilities or with special support needs from school photos asked a five-year-old girl with super-strength glasses to remove them because ‘her mummy would like a photo of her looking pretty’, MailOnline can reveal.

Tempest Photography which takes official school pictures across the UK was accused of ‘inhumane’ behaviour this week after it removed three children from group pictures at a Scottish primary school.

Parents were sent internet links giving them the option of ordering pictures with or without classmates who were disabled or have additional support needs, prompting one mother to say she felt like her daughter had been ‘erased from history’.

Now another outraged mother Natalie Wild, 45, has revealed how a photographer from the same company asked her daughter Tilly who has serious eyesight problems to take off her thick glasses for a picture.

Ms Wild, a commercial property developer, said the request made her daughter feel ‘vulnerable and scared’ as she relies on her 17 times magnification glasses, and considers them to be part of her.

She complained to the company after the incident in September 2022 when Tilly was in Year One at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Primary School in Spinkhill, Derbyshire.

But after she was told that it should not have happened, another photographer from the firm made the same request to her daughter on the company’s return to the school to take annual pictures last September.

In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Natalie said: ‘I knew it was school photo day because parents had been asked to make sure their children were smart.

‘Tilly came out of school at the end of the day with the print out of her photos and handed me two different lots.

‘I said, ‘Oh, why have you got two photos?’, and she replied that the photographer had taken her glasses off.

‘I thought, ‘Oh right’, and I walked back to the cover teacher who said she didn’t know that the photographer had done that, and she was so sorry.

‘I asked what the reasoning was behind it, and she didn’t know. But Tilly said that the photographer had told her, ‘I would like a picture of you without your big glasses on’.

‘Her glasses are incredibly strong. Often glasses are three or four plus and over six is considered strong, but her’s are 17 plus because she has no lens in her eyes.

‘The photographer told my child ‘mummy would like a photo of her looking pretty’. I was absolutely horrified that they could say that to my five-year-old child, especially when you can see she needs these glasses and vanity doesn’t come into it.

‘I was absolutely furious, and I literally cried because Tilly was just five-years-old and had gone through so much already with her eyesight issues.

‘I just bobbed down and asked her how it made her feel. She said, ‘Mummy, I was so scared. My glasses are like my legs and help me see where I am going and how I walk.’

‘We went home, and I rang Tempest. The lady on the phone tried to play it down and said that she had been asked to take them off because of the glare on the glasses.

‘But I told her that they did not have that problem the previous year when Tilly was in reception and had her photo taken.

‘I just didn’t buy it. I said it wasn’t acceptable in this day and age when we celebrate all differences and disabilities. For them to remove my child’s glasses was just disgusting.

‘She asked to pull up the photos on her system, and when she looked at them, she said, ‘Yes, I completely agree with you. There was no need to take them off because there was no glare on the photo. We’ve taken those off for a vanity reason.’

‘I tried to take it further with them, but I got absolutely nowhere. I got an email from a regional manager who regurgitated the same line. He then had the cheek to say that he knew how I felt because he had a granddaughter who was blind.

‘There were other children in Tilly’s class who had less strong glasses, and their parents all told me that they had not been asked to take them off.’

Natalie added: ‘The new school photo day was coming round last year, and I told Tilly to not under any circumstances allow the photographer to take her glasses off.

‘The teacher knew that I was really mad about it because I had tried to get the school to stop using the company and everything.

‘When Tilly came out of school, the photo was lovely and showed her in her glasses. But she said that once again, the photographer had asked her to take them off.

‘She had refused, and the photographer asked her teacher to make her do it, but the teacher replied: ‘Absolutely not’. Thankfully she was very forceful, and told the photographer that they had no right to ask her.’

Natalie said: ‘As a parent of a VI (visually impaired) child, I belong to a lot of different forums to see what changes are happening in the world.

‘I mentioned this incident in a group, and so many people had been through a similar experience with Tempest, being told that glasses had to come off because of the glare.’

Natalie did not complain again to Tempest, but instead took the issue up with Royal National Institute for the Blind.

She said: ‘We were looking at whether it went against the Disability Act, but it was a bit of a grey area.’

Natalie who lives in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, with Tilly, now seven, her brother Colby, 13, and financial planner husband David Wild, 44, was ‘horrified’ to read the story about children being ‘deleted’ from pictures at Aboyne Primary School in Scotland.

She said: ‘When I was complaining to Tempest, I told them that there was no way they would ask a child to get out of a wheelchair to take a better photo, so why should glasses be any different?

‘But reading about this latest incident, you can imagine that they would. We are all equal. Tempest are a huge company and have pretty much cornered the market in school photos. They need to sort this out.’

Natalie said her daughter had suddenly developed eyesight problems at the age of two and a half when she woke up one morning and said: ‘Mummy, mummy, my eyes are not working’.

It was discovered that she had severe cataracts and had to undergo seven operations to remove them, but surgeons also had to take out the lenses of both her eyes to avoid complications.

Natalie added: ‘She has got vision, but she has to use these magnifying glasses for her to be able to see. For someone to remove them, you can quite clearly see they are an aid. They are not there for vanity or to correct a tiny bit of eye difference.

‘She wears them all the time. She is absolutely amazing and is flying away at school because she is very intelligent. She does gymnastics and trampolining in her glasses. They never come off.

‘The first time they put glasses on her, she kept them on for an entire year and even slept with them on every single night because she was so scared that her eyesight was going to go again. It just gets me that someone could have done this to my child.’

Tempest Photography which is based in Cornwall could not be contacted today about Natalie’s claims as its switchboard was unmanned due to it being a Bank Holiday.

In a statement released to the BBC, the company said it ‘regretted any upset’ about alternative school group pictures being offered with or without disabled children or those with additional needs.

The firm said: ‘We are a family run business and photograph at schools across the UK and would like to reassure our customers that this is not standard procedure for our company and we are taking this matter very seriously.

‘We are committed to implementing meaningful changes to prevent such an occurrence in the future. We deeply regret any upset this has caused and would like to sincerely apologise to the parents and children affected.’

Natalie Pinnell, 38, told MailOnline the ‘inhumane’ decision to omit her nine-year-old daughter Erin from her class photo at Aboyne Primary School had ‘devastated’ their family.

She said: ‘You can’t erase them because they’re inconvenient. It’s just not OK. It’s devastating to have your child be erased from a photo or give parents a choice whether she should or should not be included.

‘She is the most beautiful human being. Who could do this? I’m grateful that she’s not aware of it because the damage that would do to her self-esteem would be devastating.

‘But I’m having to tell my other daughter about what’s happening to her sister. I’m not sure I’m going to sleep tonight.’

Natalie, who runs a business management and strategy company in Aboyne, said she had been sent an email from the school with two photo links – one that included her daughter and one that didn’t.

Lisa Boyd’s nine-year-old daughter Lily Nicolson, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, was also omitted from one of the class photos, along with another boy.

She said: ‘This is clear discrimination and shouldn’t happen in a school or anywhere.

‘It is the worst that Lily has been treated in her entire life. The school is so inclusive, Lily is included in everything the school does.

‘Her twin sister, Iona, is in a different class and I only got one photo for that class, but I got two for Lily’s – one without my kid in it. It’s horrendous.’

Eliminating the need for a mirror box, neatly sidestepping a litany of associated drawbacks — from physical depth and weight to shutter shock and lens design compromises — has been a defining feature of the mirrorless revolution. By relying on the sensor readout to monitor what the camera sees we’ve been treated to innovations like 100% focus area, silent shooting, real-time exposure preview and more… but losing an optical path from lens to eye is a sad price to pay for all this power.

Looking through a DSLR’s optical viewfinder is one of the most gratifying experiences in photography. The immediacy, the clarity, the sense of being truly ‘in’ the scene is unmatched by a screen or electronic viewfinder; even as EVF resolution, frame rate, and colour accuracy improve, it will never truly match the real thing — like looking out of a window versus watching a TV feed of the same view.

Bringing an optical viewfinder to one’s eye is immediate. The ambient brightness closely matches the experience through the finder, the view is crystal clear regardless of the light level, and as one’s eye moves toward the finder it’s drawn in seamlessly. Compared to EVF glare, the noisy rendering of low light scenes, and the delay as the EVF activates and attune-able but nonetheless existent lag and limited frame rate, the optical viewfinder is an organic experience that makes a camera feel much more like an extension of our bodies. Mitigating the EVF standby delay with always-on settings may help, but only serves to further reduce the problem of mirrorless camera battery life — getting 800 shots out of even a mid-sized DSLR battery is rarely a problem precisely because of the optical viewfinder design.

The difference becomes more stark at the lower end of the market. Top flight mirrorless solutions like the Canon EOS R3, Sony Alpha 9 III, and the Nikon Z9 may have eye-watering resolution, magnification that exceeds flagship DSLRs, and frame rates so high and latency so low that lifetime sports and wildlife pros are beginning to warm to them, but these cameras are not mass market fodder. It’s still more common to see serviceable but modest resolution, size, and latency even at the high end of the ‘prosumer’ level of the market, where the DSLR sister model’s mirror and pentaprism will outperform them in sheer joy of use.

DSLR isn’t going to be the focus of manufacturers going forward, but it’s not fallen off the face of the Earth — if your first dalliance with cameras was mirrorless and you’ve never had the pleasure of using an optical viewfinder, I urge you to try it. Not only are there current DSLRs from both Canon and Nikon that contain many of the technologies found in their mirrorless products packed into the larger form factor, but yesterday’s flagship DSLRs cost today’s entry to midrange mirrorless offerings — and you might just find that a more direct relationship with your subject injects something intangible into your photography experience.