It's always nice to have an unbraced photo. I would love to ask for one. But as a person who never bother to provide photos, mainly for privacy reasons, I usually don't.
It would be reasonable to expect a person who ask for a tillering advise to mention such a kink even before asked. He even asked us to ignore the sloppy splice job, when it looks good enough for me. When I said by design, I just meant "knowingly". Most people who bother to splice limbs would not knowingly use a limb with a kink. Just my common sense expectation.