JACKSON, Mich. — An eight-year-old Michigan girl finally got her chance to shine in front of the camera this week at a photo shoot lead by a Chicago photographer, WILX reports.
It was a happy turn of events for Marian Scott after she was not allowed taking her school picture because her hair’s color was not natural as the school’s handbook dictates.
“It was fun. You got to pose and got to be yourself,” Marian said.
She proudly wore her red braid extensions, the same ones that kept her from getting her school photo taken back in October.
Although her confidence shines in the photos, it took a lot to get here, as Marian says she felt she lost a part of herself on school picture day.
“I could feel it,” Marian said.
This ultimately is leading her parents to pull her from the school.
“It started off great and we got to third grade, and then when this happened. It was enough,” said Doug Scott, Marian’s father.
Jermaine Horton was one of the dozens of photographers who saw her story and drove hours to put on a professional photo shoot and give her a new wardrobe for free.
“Confidence is a process, especially when you are rebuilding someone’s confidence, especially a child because they are so fragile,” Horton said. “So we want to make sure that she feels not just great that day but going forward that it’s ongoing and she still feels that support.”
Both Marian and her family are forever grateful for both the positives and negatives throughout this whole experience.
Doug Scott, Marian’s Father: “With the negativity that people were saying, it was kind of like ‘should we have done this’? You know and since then I tell myself every day ‘yeah, you should have done this,'” Scott said. “Because it’s only going to get better and people are only going to become more aware, and hopefully we’ll be able to deal with these situations in schools better.”
Marian’s dad hopes this episode leads to more conversation about equity in school policies.
Not only did the photo shoot help Marian get her own confidence back, it has inspired others to do good works as well, Horton said. Thousands of people have contacted him from around the world to express thanks, and say they would like to do the same thing.
“I wasn’t expecting the reaction – I knew it was going to get picked up by a few people in the photography community but I had no idea it was going to do what it did,” he said.
Horton said the experience actually inspired him to help even more people get their confidence back. He’s heard from parents of children who are going through difficult life experiences, like being badly burned or injured. He plans to continue the work in a new initiative he’s calling the Art of Confidence project.
