I'd like to start by saying that this article is more a pep talk for myself than anything, but I hope that my thoughts will resonate with some of you readers struggling with the same self-conscious issues that I struggle with daily. As a photographer I am much more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it. I never like how I look in pictures and I'm always quick to see my own physical flaws. When I see photos of myself I see my second chin growing before my eyes, my pudgy belly and legs, my too-large arms, my aging skin; the list goes on. I rarely let people take photos of me, and when I do it is with great reluctance.
The other day, walking through the house I paused at a photo of my mother and I. When that photo was taken I hated it. Don't get me wrong. I love my mom to pieces, but I hated the way I looked. My mother insisted we get professional portraits done together and, of course, I reluctantly acquiesced. You see, she was diagnosed with cancer and she wanted to make sure that she had photos taken with her family; not for her sake, but for ours. She passed away on Valentine's Day in 2011. Needless to say, now I cherish that picture that I hated so much.
Feeling sentimental, I went to my computer and started looking through old photos of my mom and wishing that I had more. More photos of her. More photos of me with her. Just more. Because photos and memories are all I have left of her. They are precious. As I was reminiscing, I started looking through photos of my travels with my husband and kids. Since moving to England, we have been very blessed with the opportunity to travel and see parts of the world we may never have seen had we not moved to the UK. In the last two years my husband, my kids, and I have traveled to Wales, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Norway, and a few places here in England. I literally have thousands of photos from our travels.
As I perused through the many photos, smiling because I love seeing my husband and kids enjoying their travel adventures, I realized that I wasn't in ANY of them. Now I was on a mission. I went through the images hunting for some of myself, either alone or with my family. Of the thousands of photos I had of our amazing travel adventures, I found five that I was actually in (all of which I've posted to this article). FIVE! Most of which were taken with a camera phone. Then it dawned on me. Someday, when I have left this world, my family will want to be able to reminisce through photos of me, and they will have quite a difficult time finding any to look back at.
This was a real wake-up call for me. My self-consciousness about having my photo taken is really quite selfish. I mean, if you think about it, why do we take photos in the first place? Sure, we can look through our old pictures and smile at all the fun we had with family and friends through the years. But ultimately, those photos aren't for us. They are for the family and friends that love us, because when we're gone those photos and memories, as I said about my own mother, will be all they have left of us.
I have finally realized that I am stealing away those treasures from my husband and children, who will someday want to look back at photos of me. They will want to look back at photos of me with them and the many wonderful memories we made together. Tomorrow is never promised. We need to make the best of the time we have now and record those precious moments for our loved ones, so that when we're gone they still have something tangible to remember us by.
From now on, I'm making it a point to get over it. I'm going to get over the fact that I hate photographs of myself and remember that those photos aren't for me. They're for my loved ones. They are documentations of our precious time together. I'm going to be that person that taps a stranger on the shoulder, hands them my camera, and says "would you mind taking a photo of my family and I?" I'm going to be that pesky mom that drags my husband and kids out to have professional photos done with me to hang on the wall in a nice frame. Because, even if THEY don't want their photo taken, someday they will look at a photo they once hated and be really grateful that they have that moment to look back on, as I do with the (once hated, now treasured) photo of my mom and I on the wall. Now I need to drag my dad out for a portrait to frame and place on the wall next to the one with my mom. :)
