People occasionally die or go missing in unfortunate circumstances.
One of the minor injustices associated with this is having an old, grainy or unattractive shot of the victim in the media. This presumably occurs because there were no better photographs available at short notice.

This may have serious consequences - people may not be recognised from inferior images and thus valuable clues not reported to investigations.

The proposed service would (for a small fee) retain approved, suitable pictures to supply to all the press with minimum fuss in the event of newsworthy calamity.
The pictures would be stored digitally at high resolution, and originals returned. These could be updated as appropriate. Reminders would be sent at intervals to ensure photographs remained recent.

It would of course comply with the data protection act (UK) and not send out pictures without first contacting next of kin or performing other appropriate measures as necessary.
-- Loris, Mar 03 2003

Anything to do? http://aphs.worldno.../3493/SlowLoris.jpg
(google for) Slow Loris [pashute, May 31 2010]

Preregistrered press biography auction site Preregistrered_20pr...hy_20auction_20site
Similar [8th of 7, Jun 01 2010]

Why not store my obit, will, etc. also?
-- phoenix, Mar 03 2003


And I hope you will not object to my substituting a picture of Arnold Schwarzennegger for my own? (People have told me I look like him.) (In the dark with the light behind me.)
-- dalek, Mar 03 2003


what about accidents from which all possible imagery recognition were impossible... not much a picture can do huh?
-- jong-scx, Mar 04 2003


My wife has the wedding photos for friends; a corporate pic for the paper, a 3/4 facial snap plus dental records and list of distinguishing features for the cops.

As a practical joke, why not get a tatoo on the back of your neck saying. "Your name is Choudhry. You live in Andrapradesh. You have a loving wife named Sally". That way if you ever get amnesia, you could have a wild adventure in India ... until one day you regain your memory and kick yourself.
-- FloridaManatee, Mar 05 2003


We know someone who regularly rings the changes between "no facial hair", "moustache", "small beard", "big, bushy beard", "beard without moustache" (looks odd) and "beard with huge sideburns".

There are also about five variations of spectacles and contact lenses.

He'd need to store about 60 different pictures .....
-- 8th of 7, Mar 05 2003


And yet, *still*, he can't escape detection by your elf. Amazing.
-- thumbwax, Mar 05 2003


You can do this, I think -- but not for cheap -- by retaining a publicist. People with reputations worth managing professionally sometimes continue to employ publicists decades after they're no longer professionally active, or even well-known, as one learns when the obituary cites the publicist as the source for details of the person's last illness or death.
-- mouseposture, May 31 2010


Could I submit photos of someone else under my name?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 01 2010


[MaxwellBuchannan] That depends. Just how heavily retouched do they have to be to count as "someone else?"
-- mouseposture, Jun 01 2010



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