A phrase you often hear when it comes to children is “they grow up so quickly”. Not quickly enough, though, for Texas-based lifestyle and family photographer Ashley Evans. Oh no, she’s been force-growing babies in Photoshop by giving them teeth. And, yes, that’s just as terrifying and hilarious as it sounds! When I first saw one of these pictures scroll up my Facebook feed, I skipped by it. But then I had to scroll back because something wasn’t right about it. Then it struck me what it was. I couldn’t look away, so, DIYP got in touch with Ashley to find out more about what has now become the Babies with Teeth project… and why?!?
The whole thing started as an experiment with the FaceApp mobile app. She wanted to see how her young 2-month-old son would look with teeth. When she saw the result, she then went on to try it with a baby photo of her daughter, too. She just could not stop laughing (and it’s easy to see why).
After posting the images to a small Facebook group, she became inundated with requests from other mothers to do this to their children, too. She soon realised, though, that FaceApp wasn’t going to be able to cut it. While it sometimes did an ok job, there were a lot of images that it just didn’t know how to deal with. So, she switched to doing them in Photoshop. Ashley has received so many requests, that she says it’s kind of spiralled out of control now. To the point where she’s made a Facebook page to show them all off. In just the first 24 hours of the page’s existence, it saw over 1,500 new followers and even more image submissions. Each image on the page includes a description to represent who she imagines they are. We asked Ashley what sort of reaction she’s had to the page, as it is both hilarious yet really really creepy. Ashley says she does still sometimes use the app on some images, but much of the time she loads them into Photoshop. The lighting and position of the babies in a lot of the shots is something the app can’t deal with. And as many of the images submitted are made with mobile phones, they don’t always offer the best starting point. So, Photoshop offers more control to help things match. EVERYONE wants me to put teeth on their babies. My husband is annoyed with it. The captions for the images are as hilarious as the images themselves. Ashley says that they just pop into her head as she’s making the images. I think most of us have met the types of people described in the captions at some point in our lives. With the project becoming so popular, we asked Ashley if she plans to continue it… So, if babies didn’t freak you out enough already, you’re welcome! If you want to see more of Ashley’s Babies with Teeth (which you should, because there are many amazing ones on there!) or wish to submit your own little darling for the Photoshop treatment, then head on over to the project’s Facebook page. If you want to see more of Ashley’s more normal photography work, be sure to check out her own Facebook page. Images used with permission.
