SABLE, Minnesota — Sable Elementary will hold a second picture day October 16 after six pupils failed to appear in portraits taken during the school's September session. The children attended their appointments and were seen by the photographer, teachers and classmates. Their families will receive new packages at no charge.
Brightline School Portraits photographed 312 pupils in the gymnasium September 18. Students sat on a low stool in front of a blue cloth backdrop while a classroom aide checked names. Photographer Ross Ives took three or four frames of each child and showed a thumbnail on the camera screen before sending the next student forward.
When printed packages arrived Monday, six contained images of the empty stool and backdrop. The labels, grade levels and order numbers were correct. In two photographs, the stool cushion remained compressed where the child had been sitting. In another, the backdrop was partly hidden by the shadow of a pupil who was not otherwise visible.
Principal Dana Holst said the children were from four grades and had no classroom, bus route or extracurricular activity in common. Attendance records and the aide's checklist place all six in the gym. No child missed lunch, instruction or transportation because of the session.
Brightline reviewed the original files rather than relying on the printed copies. The full-size images also showed an empty station. Ives said each child had appeared normally in the immediate preview and that he would have repeated an empty exposure. Camera timestamps fit the appointment order without a gap long enough for an unnoticed absence.
Digital cameras can display a cached preview briefly before writing a file to storage, said imaging technician Priya Menon, who is not employed by Brightline. A failing memory card may corrupt part of an image, though it more often produces blocks, color bands or an unreadable file than a clean background. Menon has not examined the camera or card.
The six pupils have continued attending school. Holst said staff addressed teasing after two children were called invisible during recess. Families were asked not to circulate the empty portraits with the pupils' names attached. One parent kept the package; the others returned prints to the school for the vendor's review.
Teachers supplied ordinary classroom photographs showing each child earlier and later that day. Brightline also checked the class group images. Five pupils appear where expected. The sixth stands in the back row, but her face is covered by a bright oval matching the backdrop color. Children beside her said she was not moving when the group photograph was taken.
Ives tested the same camera in the gym Thursday using the principal, two teachers and an empty stool. Each person appeared in the saved images. He replaced the memory card, cable and flash transmitter and will use a second camera for the reshoot. The original equipment has been sealed in a case pending inspection by the company's repair contractor.
The school will offer families either the new portrait package or a refund. Yearbook staff have been told to wait for the reshoot before laying out class pages. Holst said no pupil will be marked absent from the yearbook because of a vendor problem, and counselors are available if the attention continues.
Before sealing the original memory card, Ives powered the camera once more with Holst present. Its thumbnail strip showed all six missing pupils in their scheduled frames. When he opened the first image, the pupil remained visible for about three seconds, looking slightly to the left of the lens. The screen refreshed without a button press and showed the empty stool. The other five thumbnails changed at the same time.