Awkward Family Photos, '80s Style

And the '80s was full of awkwardness because IT WAS THE '80S

Not a day goes by that I’m not grateful for modern technology. It’s easy to prevent taking life for granted when you remember old hardships that the latest in science made obsolete. I was explaining to my son recently what it used to be like to take photos.

“You either had to carry around a camera, which were huge and clunky until the mid-’80s when they came out with smaller ones and disposable ones—”

My son interrupted, “Disposable? You just threw it away?”

“Yeah, the film developer tossed it out after developing your pictures.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Yeah, so you had to either always have a camera on you or you had to pay a professional photographer with a studio and good lights to snap your family pics. And when you dropped your film off at a business that prints out your pictures, you had no idea what the photos would look like until you paid the developer, and you had to pay for all of them, even the terrible ones that were blurry. And sometimes that could take up to a week! Then at some point I remember when 2-day or same-day film shops opened up, that was exciting. And then eventually 1 Hour Photo! Back then there was no way to edit the photos at home, unless you were a computer whiz with special software, but most people couldn’t do that. Nowadays, we can see every picture right away and either perfect it before sharing it or delete it before anyone sees that you had spinach in your teeth. No money wasted on ugly pictures you had developed and printed.”

A few days ago I happened upon one of the most awkward photos from my family, a picture that always makes me chuckle when I see it. This reminded me of AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com, so I spent, like, an hour perusing other people’s embarrassing photos and laughing myself to tears. Yes, I know the world is in dire straits right now but maybe it wouldn’t be if everyone laughed at ridiculous family portraits. Anywho, I realized while wiping my laugh-tears away that the awkward family photo is a bygone era, and suddenly I was a bit sad that our children’s children’s children won’t have hilariously bad family photos to one day laugh at (unless they create them on purpose, which is a thing, but let’s be real—faked awkwardness isn’t as funny).

Without further ado, here are some of the best awkward family photos, ‘80s style.

I imagined the photographer being inspired by the movie poster for National Lampoon’s European Vacation but the wife was like ‘I didn’t break the glass ceiling with my permed hair to end up hugging my husband’s leg in pictures so I’ll be hugging his shoulder instead’

Photoshopping the wedding couple floating above their wedding like a couple of ghosts isn’t creepy at all, because they’re smiling… like happy ghosts

The person who submitted this picture is one of those (now grown up) kids who said their father remembered the studio’s photographer seemed hungover and I reckon his instincts were right

These awkwardly overlaid photos with silhouettes were so all the rage in the ‘80s that I bet even your family has one in an old, yellowing photo album somewhere…hidden away in a dusty attic…probably

I love awkward baby photos because they always look like they’re freaking out, like they’re experiencing their first existential crisis

Remember my awkward family photo I referenced earlier? The one that always makes me chuckle when I see it? Here it is:

OMG my brother’s outfit…his glasses…my pigtails tied with those marbles and yarn, and my mom’s fabulous head of hair! It’s too much! But what’s funniest to me is I’m all sunshine and lollipops in front of 2 people who look like they’d rather be anywhere else.

In 1981, a couple of years after my parents divorced but before my mom met my eventual stepdad, it was just my mom, older brother, and me. My mom had a professional photographer come to our place that day, where he promptly set up that horrid greenish-gray backdrop. My mom had spent the morning fussing over us and forcing my brother to pose even though he’d come down with the flu, which explains why he couldn’t muster a smile…but also LOOK AT HIS OUTFIT

Side note: whoever invented those marbles for tying little girls’ hair was a sadist who deserves to be buried up to their neck so we can pelt marbles at their face