Be in the Pictures
“I’ll just step over here.”
Have you heard this as you’re about to take a picture with mom? Or, better yet, have you said it yourself?
So many times we pull ourselves from being in front of the camera. Whether we think we look too tired, or too grey, or our arms are too flabby. We may be bloated, or have some sort of skin irritation. But, we make the choice to NOT be in the photo.
The problem is, though, years down the road, when you look back on your photobooks, or when your kids or family members take that trip down memory lane, you will be missing. Yet, all they’ll want is to see you. They want to relive the moments that they spent with YOU.
The other day, I was working with a client who had recently lost his mom. We were gathering all the images and he made a comment that he wished he had more recent pictures of his mom. You see, as she had aged, she had gained some weight, had become greyer, and and she didn’t like the way she was aging. In his eyes, she was still beautiful. But, in hers, she wasn’t.
So, as his own kids grew and the moments with grandma became fewer, the time that they spent together became more and more meaningful. Yet, she still didn’t want to be in the pictures.
Now, all he wants, is pictures of his mom. From the moments when she was a young mom with him to when she held her first grandchild, to her last days. He just wishes he could see more of her.
“She stopped liking the way she looked and stopped being in the pictures. Boy, I just wish we had more pictures of her!”
This is the comment that resonates with me. Please don’t be the person who’s children say this when you are gone.
I have organized a LOT of photos. And, I have seen a lot of pictures, from babies to weddings to seniors. The constant emotion that I feel, along with my clients, is the joy from that moment. What is captured in a photo has very little to do with how someone looks.
Often times, there is the primary picture-taker. In my life, that was my dad. He was the one holding what I always referred to as the “dad camera” (in other words, what we now see as the DSLR - the nice, big “fancy” camera). I do not ever remember my mom taking the camera and my dad posing with us.
Nowadays, I think it’s easier to have variety in who is taking the pictures because we all carry our cameras with us everywhere we go. But, if you find that you are the one who is consistently pausing a moment on vacation or during a family event to capture that moment, but you yourself are not getting into the picture, that needs to change. YOU need to be in the pictures too. YOU need to hand your phone or camera off to someone and ask them to capture that moment with YOU in it.
So whether you pull yourself out intentionally because you don’t like the way you look, or you inadvertently are always behind then lens, making sure to get INTO the pictures is one of the lessons that I have learned as a photo manager. The beauty you currently carry is enough. It’s more than enough.
It’s time to get in front of that lens and smile.
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