I'll be completely honest and say that it makes me feel slightly awkward because it's a major component of the resume and yet is completely irrelevant for deciding if he's qualified or not. To me, it's distracting and actually makes me feel slightly pressured to cut him some slack because he put in extra effort on making the resume pretty.
All that said, for someone who hasn't even started college yet, I think every little extra bit helps. I would never recommend this for an experienced hire or someone who's had several internships already in college, but for someone trying to break in for the first time any way you can find of displaying your interest and passion is going to help some.
I review resumes and have a say in hiring decisions in my company. I would probably have a tendency to disregard this resume because of the picture. It is pretty distracting and frankly makes me uncomfortable. I don't wish to evaluate a candidate based on their looks but this one says "my looks are important to my job qualifications." Perhaps I'm old fashion and this is over the top but it just rubs me the wrong way and I feel the "type" of candidate who includes a picture like that isn't the "type" of candidate I'd like to have on my team. It comes off to me as narcissistic.
Perhaps the younger, hipper crowd appreciates this sort of thing - if you are going for that type of work. Long established companies might pass this one up.
I might be completely out in left field here though.
I think it may be a cultural difference thing. In many parts of the world, including Eastern Europe it is common to provide your age and a photo on a resume.
Distracting? You can't see the photo when you're looking at the 'resume' part of the page.
It's pretty a standard marketing format - big friendly picture of one or two people from the waist up, whether it's a support person speaking into a headset or a hard-working suit-wearer tapping into a computer.
All that said, for someone who hasn't even started college yet, I think every little extra bit helps. I would never recommend this for an experienced hire or someone who's had several internships already in college, but for someone trying to break in for the first time any way you can find of displaying your interest and passion is going to help some.