都经不得拉近了拍！

[Lu]

I'm translating a short story into Dutch and came across a sentence that I can't figure out.

 

Photographer 周师 is hanging out with a few former classmates. He brought his camera (of course).

周师举起相机，对着走近的叶羽，又对着另外两个老同学，左对对右对对，却摇着头一直不按快门：“唉，都经不得拉近了拍！”

 

(叶羽 is the name of one of the former classmates.) My translation (don't mind the style):

'Zhou Shi lifted his camera and pointed it at Ye Yu, and then at his two other former classmates. He pointed it to the left, he pointed it to the right, but he shook his head and didn't press the shutter.' And then he says “唉，都经不得拉近了拍！”, what does that mean? I can read all the characters but I don't understand any of the words here except 拍 (to photograph). There are no typos, I checked. Pleco knows a few of the words but it isn't helping.

 

Can anyone shed some light on this? Many thanks in advance!

[Insectosaurus]

And it's not that he wants them to move closer together so that he can fit them in one frame?

[jannesan]

经不得 = can’t bear ?

so it’s something like “why can’t you all bear to stand close to one another for the picture”? does that fit into the context? 

 

 

[pinion]

I think 拉近 here is zoom in, and I agree with @jannesan that 经不得 = can’t bear, but in the sense of "XYZ doesn't bear looking at," i.e. is unbearable to look at. So in other words, I think 周师 is calling all of them ugly. Does that make sense in context?

[Jim]

None of you are suitable for a close-up, as @pinion says; are they all getting older now? Maybe they've just all got grey and wrinkly.

[Lu]

All of them getting older, uglier and unsexy-er is a recurring theme in this story, so that makes sense!