courage and glass
I'm going to be terrible at this. I don't know what to do. I don't like getting my picture taken. I've never done this before. I never like pictures of myself. I just don't photograph well. <CLICK>
Bon is too generous a subject to voice quite that much objection, but there's always that undercurrent. And those objections are so common that you can't even say that they render a subject ungenerous. Bon's generosity perhaps comes from the fact that she knows me, trusts me to know her. And so we accept some degree of hesitation as a given and we push past it, and eventually it dissipates. We play in the winter light of her windows and she's so patient -- with me as much as with herself.
Faced with a lens, everybody resists -- even if they've asked and paid me for a shoot. It's a phenomenon that I don't understand, from behind the camera. I may as well be one of those halloween dentists with the giant powerdrill and the blood-splattered white coat, the way that people step back and wince. But when I'm in charge, all I see is that she's in perfect light, or his eyes are all juicy next to that window, or her curls are the curls of my six-year-old fantasies. When I'm in charge -- self-portraits included -- I refuse to entertain those objections. Foolishness. Everybody looks beautiful and they're nuts to not know it and now shush and just look at me the way that you always do.
But then Krista, who works at Atlantic Photo Supply (my lab, mentors, and fire-lighters) sees me on Spring Garden Road and tells me that she's got a style blog, and she likes my jacket, and could she go and grab her camera? And everything in me clenches. I can't even tell you about all the clenching because there are some young people who might read this someday and I don't want them to find out about that kind of clenching because the children are our future. We're between the Roots store and the Starbucks and Krista transforms in front of me to the five-fingered man with the torture chamber underneath the tree with the secret door and if she presses the shutter, she's going to suck five years of my life out of my brain. That kind of thing. CLENCH.
The whole interaction took about four minutes, and three of those minutes were her trying to find her coat. But I stood there doing whatever's the opposite of basking in the way it felt and it felt like much longer. Contemplating the clench. Why is it so impossible to trust someone else? Are photographers the worst subjects?
I remember Ryan telling me to breathe. Breathe, Kate. Breathe. I didn't know how to stand. I didn't know what to do with my hands. Dammit, I was going to be cooler than this. I'd been so determined to give myself over the way that Bon did, breathing and not clenching. Not wasting Ryan's time. But then I also remember: whenever anyone else has a camera out in his presence, he buries his face in his drink or drops his napkin or contracts a five-minute-long case of Bird Flu and makes himself scarce. And he's nuts, because he's got a great face.
The roundabout point is that it's a constant labour to look courageously at glass and trust the person wielding it. Bon is my model and my teacher. Someday, I'm going to be like her. Someday.
Self-portraits are one thing -- you've got editorial and mechanical control. But how do you feel about the prospect of entrusting someone else with your portrait? Have you ever done it (beyond snapshots), or would it feel too indulgent or too strange to even seek it out? Why do you think that is? If you did, what kind of image would you want? What would you wear, and where would you be? Would it be a little theatrical or straight-up? Set the scene. I'm curious.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Reader Comments (28)
I dunno. *big sigh*. I'd.. hrm... I do the same thing.. that "oh shhh, you're gooorgeous. I promise I'll only keep the good ones. that that that! that right there. magic!" but if someone did that to me I'd be nervous and angsty and I wouldn't believe it.
I am determined, however, to let someone try, and to let myself try. TBD, I guess. xo
I know Bon did this at 40, so that gives me just over seven years to have a think about it. I'm sure I could rustle up the courage by then. At least I think so.
Fancy a trip to Australia?
xo
Luckily, one of our best friends is a crazy brilliant photographer (http://melbarlowandco.com/), so this question is easy for me to answer. She shoots us (mostly kid one) at least once a year when she visits. But this summer, as we were reeling in grief, we spent a few days in the desert together, and she took photos of us in 100 degree temperatures with nothing but dry, arid desert in the background. That is about as ideal as gets right now.
Ahhhhh....
It's even better than the bourbon. And it's good bourbon.
Wish you were both here.
being in front of the camera makes me want to cry. seeing shots of me after make me want to kick things. and i know it is in part due to inability to actually see myself. see myself clearly when reflected by another. which is funny because i always feel connected to my inner me...and am shocked by the outer.
i could go on and on about body image, yadda yadda, but one thing i find interesting is that after time passes and i look back on the photos i once wanted to kick, i, ah, see a beautiful woman. and that makes me cry a little more because i need to learn to see her in the moment not after 6 months of separation.
okay, enough self therapy...
ideal shoot? well rested me, in comfortable clothes that do not bind, in light like the window above with friend behind lens that tells me to relax and then, i do. that would be ideal.
or dancing. someone that would shoot me dancing. or doing yoga because that is when i feel free and beautiful in the moment.
bon, dammit, you are stunning in so many ways. you too, kate.
You, your friends and family - do they all have great faces? Or are you willing to tell them they have less than great faces?
Sure, judge me as someone who has a less than "great face", and also unwilling to compromise about face values.
Sally, I always fancy that! Soon as I open up my cupboard for tea and find all the mugs packed with hundred dollar bills.
Josh, wow. She's wonderful, and I can't think of a better portrait for that moment. It *is* ideal. I'd love to see it sometime.
Amiee, I know... I feel exactly the same way. Same clench and the same regret for it.
et, oooh.... that's fun. The kind of judgmental world I live in includes whole rooms filled with honey-dip doughnuts like the balls at Ikea except you get to eat your way to the other side. And crayons never break and there are wads of hundred-dollar bills stuffed into mugs by the cash-stuffing elf while everyone sleeps and milk never curdles and toast never burns and whenever it's late-February you get to blink your eyes like BLINK! and then you're in southern France or Mexico or Belize with no clothes on and sand in your ass and a drink in your hand. http://www.chookooloonks.com/1000-faces/
Straight-up - to me, those are the best photos. Interesting angles, unusual poses (like Bon on a table, how do you come up with that?? I love it) and amazing light make the perfect photo and you can do all of that in your sleep. I'm still trying to figure it out but its fun.
Next time we're home we can go to the beach and you'll let me take your photo and you can tell me how to do it better, and I'll be grateful. And if I'm lucky you'll take a few shots of me... without Sadie or Maeve around and I'll feel foolish and silly and awkward but I'll appreciate it too.
Starrlife, the camera doesn't see that, though. Not when you give it time and patience. The camera sees *you*, and not how you insist that you appear in the world (with your age or size or flaws-first). I wish I could show you. It would be an honour.
Becky, yes. Karen's a force. Everyone is beautiful, and nobody believes it, and this is the great comedic tragedy of photography. Her body of work illuminates that so well.
i positively Cannot Imagine shining that sort of light on my plain, mama self. and i came to the conclusion that:
i'm hiding my beauty behind some sorta perceived homeliness and as much as i champion myself free from this culture's ideals and expectations (because Real Women are truly gorgeous to me) i still don't find *myself* beautiful.
and - that? was a sad realization. so ima light up that candle and shove it in deep and shine some light on my own self-perception.
thanks for the inspiration for illumination.
I love your work. I love my brother in law's work, and still, I can't. Which is stupid, because I don't feel silly standing in front of you. I guess I just don't think people really look at me. Like really really LOOK at me. When they do, EEEK. Hide.
That said, I love Dave & Bon's idea. I would like to get over this already. I'd love to be able to do it. I'd love to have pictures of me the way my family sees me. And they love me, so it can't be that bad. :)
I am terrible in front of the camera. I freeze. I worry about someone not <getting it>. I worry about stupid double chins, wonky eyes, bra straps showing....and I can go without breathing for about 5 minutes if someone is pointing a camera at me.
Given the past year...and some....I have mulled over doing the same thing. contacting you and hiring you to do a "state of Natalie's union". it seems like a good time to this.
Maybe this summer....when more dust has settled....and we can haul out the roller skates in a random parking lot.
Secondly, isn't having your picture taken the WORST? I've actually hired a photographer to take pictures of me next month just to give me some practice being on the other side of the glass. Just so, you know, I can see how everybody feels when I'm shooting at them. I'm already sweating and it's three weeks away.
and yes, Misty & Amiee. exactly. the clench. the sense of being self-indulgent, then foolish. then the big loud voice that screams not pretty enough. the fear you're going to FAIL, be judged for putting yourself out there.
hence the tie, i suppose. my way of hiding, refusing to try to look like somebody else's idea of a woman.
nobody escapes it, i don't think. we are all trained to judge ourselves against magazine covers, even the women ON the magazine covers. nobody wins. Starrlife, i'm pretty sure we're all hostage to vanity.
this felt a bit like ransom.
many of the photos still don't look like my idea of me. or what i see is my own mask, the discomfort, the effort to try to get beyond. but. the couple where what i see is me looking into the face of my friend? those i am stunned by, even for all the self-consciousness i still recognize there.
and yes, et, i am feeling a little sad Kate never told me once in the whole shoot that i had a great face. she did mention in the editing process something about a great rack, though. so see, she has discernment...
That said, I've been toying with the idea for some time now to have my friend take photos of me dressed in a Moulin Rouge-style getup. Something fun. Big wig. Lots of makeup. Maybe I'll even wear fake lashes.
Somehow I think I'd feel less crippled in front of the camera if I could pretend it's not me.
I'm usually the one behind the camera, not in front of it. The rare times I see photos of myself I am usually surprised at how different I look to how I feel - far more wrinkles, chins and bulges than I'm consciously aware of having. At my 40th we set up a photo spot so that I could actually BE in photos with my friends and hopefully not cringe about how I looked. Because most weren't super keen on getting photographed it became a game of what silly things we could do, and we were so busy mucking around that the vast majority of the photos are rather unflattering. But I (mostly) don't care because I'm with people who matter to me and we're having a great time. Which, at the end of the day, matters far more than how lopsided my smile has become. :)
But one day a shoot of just me by someone else would be intriguing. I wonder what they'd see and who I'd be in that moment.