A Missouri family's portraits have gone viral, and it's not hard to see why.
The below images have been shared nearly 200,000 times on Facebook.
It spring 2017, the Zaring family was contacted by a middle-aged woman who marketed herself as an experienced professional photographer.
Having just gotten married three years ago, Dave and Pam Zaring figured it was time to get their first professional photos taken as a happy blended family.
So, the couple went to the popular Forest Park in St. Louis, roughly 45 minutes north of where they live in Hillsboro. There, they paid the photographer a little less than $250 to snap beautiful pictures of them with their two sons Cade, 12, and Connor, 8, along with Dave's mom Sharon.
Weeks turned to months and Pam nearly forgot about the photos. Then, earlier this week, the photographer reached out to say she was done editing the photos and would send them by mail. On Thursday, a package arrived containing a disk. Pam opened the files.
"I've never laughed this hard in my life," Pam said.
The faces staring back at Pam looked more like paintings than portraits.
"My kids were so confused," Pam said. "They thought we were playing a joke on them. They just kept saying they looked like Lego people."
According to Pam, the photographer claimed her professor never taught her how to retouch photos and offered to re-shoot the images.
"I told her we were good," Pam said.
Pam has asked for the original photos, but she doesn't want a refund. In fact, she has found humor in the whole ordeal. She hopes the photos can be an icebreaker in the insurance office, where she and her husband work.
"This has been worth every dime that we spent," Pam said.
In the end, Pam encourages people to do a little more research before having family portraits done. But, she hopes nobody hates on the photographer because the images, however unique, have brought her whole family joy.
