Laser Background Portraits

Confirmed 68,465

About

Laser Background Portraits are photographs in which the subject is posed in front of a background featuring criss crossed glowing lines. The background is often mocked online for its cheesy aesthetic, which was commonly used in American school yearbook photos during the 1980s.

Origin

During the 1980s, many public schools in the United States partnered with the photography company Lifetouch^[7] to shoot yearbook portrait photographs. A popular background uses in photo shoots during this time featured a criss cross grid featuring glowing neon lines, often referred to as a "laser background." On December 17th, 2007, the single topic blog Sexy People^[6] highlighted a photograph of a teenager with long hair leaning against a step ladder in front of a laser backdrop (shown below).

Spread

On September 30th, 2008, blogger Lindsey Weber launched the "We Have Lasers!" Tumblr^[1] blog, which highlights portrait photographs with laser backgrounds. On June 25th, 2009, Weber published an article about her blog on the Internet culture site Urlesque.^[5]

On July 13th, We Have Lasers was featured on the Internet news blog BoingBoing.^[9] On March 3rd, 2010, the single topic blog Awkward Family Photos^[2] highlighted a portrait of a man holding a cat in front of a laser background (shown below, left). On August 26th, BuzzFeed^[3] posted a compilation of several notable examples of laser background portraits. On October 26th, 2012, user kazmataz on the crafting site Instructables^[10] published a guide for making a laser background school portrait costume (shown below, right).

On November 21st, a Lifetouch school photographer participated in an "ask me anything" post in the /r/IAmA^[8] subreddit, claiming that the "eighties style" laser art background was not available in her camera system. On April 16th, 2014, BuzzFeed^[4] highlighted a photograph of former 98 Degrees band member Nick Lachey wielding a toy gun in front of a laser background (shown below).

Notable Examples

Draven Rodriguez' Yearbook Photo

On September 7th, 2014, New York-based high school student Draven Rodriguez posted an Instagram of his senior yearbook portrait in which he is posing with his cat in front of a laser background and a digitally composited image of his face overlaid in the background (shown below, left). The following day, Rodriguez uploaded a second version of the photo in which a close-up of his cat's face is shown in the upper right-hand corner (shown below, right).

On September 10th, Rodriguez posted an online petition^[13] titled "Get my Photo into the Yearbook" in order to support his submission of one of the Instagram photos for his senior portrait yearbook photo. In the first 24 hours, the petition gained over 5,100 signatures. In the coming days, the stunt was reported on by several news sites, including Jezebel,^[14] The Daily Gazette,^[15] UpRoxx,^[16] The Daily Dot,^[17] New York Daily News,^[18] The Huffington Post^[19] and E! Online.^[20]