Take a picture, it will last longer
A comment on my blog post from last week informed the content for the post this week. Here it is:
“…this is why when I see a photograph of myself I do an inspection of each & every flaw. Every bump & shadow I evaluate with the eye of a tabloid picture editor. This is at odds with the way that I live my life and the way that I dress, the way that I feel about myself and the way that I perceive myself when I look in the mirror.
My body dysmophia is entirely related to looking at photographs of myself.”
-Caveat Calcei of Law and Shoes
It made me think. It made realise, I sometimes still do the exact same thing.
I used to be much worse. I would never let anyone take a photograph of me; I would never take photographs of myself. I’d scrutinise every angle – my double chin, my clothes, the way my skin looked, my hair, my entire body. I felt there was no point in even dressing up, because that’s how I looked in photographs. I’d leave the house thinking I looked pretty good, I’d look in the mirror and be mostly happy with my reflection and then I’d see a photo and be almost devastated (I know, that’s dramatic, but it was honestly how I felt!). I’d apologise and make excuses for the way I looked (“tired”, “no makeup” “horrible clothing” “bad lighting”, I used them all) and make sure I was never in the same room with a camera.
As a result, there isn’t a great deal of photos of me throughout the years. Nothing to document what I’ve done or where I’ve been. I have my memories of times gone past, but they’re fading.
I regret it.
I don’t know when it changed. It might have been when I started making friends who regularly had their cameras out, who regularly documented aspects of their lives, who didn’t care about what they looked like in a photograph, because they knew what they looked like in real life, and were focused on the event the photograph was portraying, the memory they were remembering. I started thinking: I want to do this too. I want to not care what I look like in photographs.
It’s mostly worked. Like everything, it has taken time. It has taken time to see myself in photographs and not completely cringe. It has taken time to let someone take a photograph of me when I feel like I’m not absolutely 100% prepped and primed. I still slip up. I still look at photos and wish they didn’t exist; I still want to untag photographs of myself on Facebook. But I don’t. I instead focus on the memory that photograph brings, the good time I had, the bad time I had, the people I was with when it happened. I’m going to keep letting photographs be taken of me, and I’m going to keep being in photographs because I don’t want to lose those years. I want to look back and remember.
Sonya, my heart hurts reading this. When I see pictures of you (and I have never met you) I see this beautiful, vibrant, stylish girl who I’d love to hang out with. Your pictures drew me to to you in a way.
My husband’s mother never smiled in photographs – not once, not even on our wedding day. Somebody once remarked on seeing a photo of her that she had an ‘ugly’ smile. Is there such a thing as an ugly smile?
There is a way round this – your friends should take pictures of you on the fly & keep them to the one side. One day you will look back and realise just how gorgeous you really are. Hope that day comes sooner rather than later 😉
Awww, thank you. 🙂 My own mother doesn’t really smile in photographs. She doesn’t like her smile. I get that. I do smile, but I am not fond of my teeth, so I never smile with teeth. And that was after a comment that was made to me too. It’s funny how we let little comments dictate our lives. Funny and a little sad.
oh my – I’m the same! I’m ok with myself in the mirror, I like to think I look better in ‘real life’ when I’m in motion. My constant complaint is that cameras don’t like me, and it’s ok, I don’t like them either. I have a handful of photographs of me that I can tolerate and cycle them till I bore of them and eventually look at and find myself loathing, despite the thousands of photoshop filters I put them through. It doesn’t matter if my skin looks flawless in any one of them (which should be a big deal because I have rubbish skin), I will find something wrong with them. My eyeliner is uneven, my eyes are lopsided, I have 1.5 chins, my head is at an awkward angle, and most often – good god what a rubbish expression. And too cover up for these little insecurities, I grow my hair so I can hide in it in real life and in photos. My mum tells me not to, and that I should show my face, but to my mind, the hair vs. face battle is won by the hair – it’s nice, it has personality, but it doesn’t look awkward in pictures.
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I used to be very much the same. I have no photographs of myself between the age of about 13 and 21. I only have a few between 21 and 30.
I still have trouble with photos and HATE candid shots. I always have to be ready and composed and taking part in the photograph. I have a friend who is a talented and very experienced photographer of everyday people (BCC photographer for about 25 years) who taught me a lot about composing myself for photographs. So I can bring myself to have my photograph taken so long as I’m prepared and I choose to have my photograph taken.
But like you, I regret all those years that I didn’t allow it, because now I have no visual record of all of the wonderful times I had in my life across almost two decades!
I used to be like this too! Until one day I went through a butt-ton of photos with some friends. The ones I thought I looked best in were not always the ones the girls pointed out. I ended up realizing that all of my number ones were photos where I was totally conscious of the lens & trying to be camera pretty on purpose. The BFFs chose the photos where I was GENUINELY having fun and happy almost EVERY TIME.
Love this post 🙂
Thanks! You know, it’s kinda along the same lines for me and my friends. They much prefer the genuinely happy unposed photos rather than the very conscious photos. And my parents prefer the ones with less makeup, haha.