Photo Scanning Captures American Awkwardness

AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com Features American Families In Their Most Hilariously Uncomfortable Moments

Thanks to the wonders of photo scanning, the Internet is full of photo-based blogs and Websites that feature pictures of e everything from classic cars and Hollywood stars to sports legends and recording artists. But there is one increasingly popular photo blog that is all about depicting scanned photos of the average American, or more specifically, the average American family.

We all love our families. These are the people we most identify with, the people we trust. But as Mike Bender and Doug Chernack happily point out on their blog at AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com, family is also awkward. Just because you share a last name, that doesn’t mean your personalities don’t clash. And when the inevitable uncomfortable moments get immortalized on film (and digitized through photo scanning) an awkward family photo is born to the Internet. 

Childhood friends Mike and Doug launched the blog in May of 2009, after the two laughed at an awkward vacation photo in Mike’s parents’ house. The two friends realized that everyone must have these hilariously awkward family images, and decided to make a Website devoted to the sharing of the little gems of awkwardness in an open forum. What began with about 10 of Doug’s and Mike’s own family photos has now become a viral Internet sensation. This endlessly entertaining compendium of uncomfortable poses, creepy smiles, bad hair cuts, and crying or frightened-looking children attracts hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of visitors each day, along with hundreds of daily photo submissions coming from Brazil, Russia, China, and everywhere in between.

In May of 2010, just one year after launching their site, Mike and Doug released an Awkward Family Photos book, which has been both critically acclaimed and extremely successful. Following the format of the website, the book features comically uncomfortable family photos, accompanied by witty captions provided by Mike and Doug. Book reviewer Jennifer Weiner called Awkward Family Photos more than just a book: “it’s a public service on the page, a living, breathing, laugh-out-loud reminder that no matter how badly you dressed, how oddly you posed, and how weird Uncle Dave who lived in the basement was, somebody out there had it worse. Particularly the girl on page 77.”

Therein lies the real appeal of these Awkward photographs – as much as we hate to admit it, they remind us of our own families, so we can all relate even to the most bizarre of the bunch. Filmmaker Judd Apatow put it most succinctly, saying, “This is the best book of embarrassing and strange photos of people who look like my family that I have ever seen.”

To see more embarrassing family photos that have been immortalized through photo scanning for all to enjoy, visit http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/.