Photogenic

My dad tells the same joke whenever anyone says he is photogenic. He replies that he must not be very attractive in actuality, and that the person's surprise at him looking good in a photograph somewhat corroborates this.

I was thinking about my dad's joke a few weeks back when a friend was over at our house looking at a family photo I have framed on our wall. "Meg, you are so photogenic!" she declared. And my dad was right--she seemed surprised I looked good in the picture.

That I'm photogenic is the most common compliment I receive. I can only count on a few fingers the times anyone has told me, in person, that I was beautiful. And that's okay. I may not give good face, but I take a damn fine photo.

A good picture of you can really boost your self esteem. It almost undoes the damage done by catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror when stepping out of the shower. But these kind of elevating images come few and far between. They can't just be a picture other people declare is good-- a photo taken at a low angle in which you are wearing a tank top on a humid day, that your sister swears is the best picture you've ever taken. But one in which you finally see a captured image of how you always thought you looked.

Given our digital capabilities, smart phones and the world of social media, taking an abundance of pictures is standard. Manipulating them with filters that brighten the skin, or enhance the colors, is easy. And storing them in cheap, readily available memory is encouraging. In the modern world there is no excuse for not constantly documenting your life.

Which is why I've mostly forgiven my parents for the pathetic lack of pictures there are of me growing up. I've seen one Polaroid in which I look to be about three years old and another at my high school graduation. In the middle are a few with my siblings and at camp with my friends. But trying to convince me I was actually raised by my family is challenging for my parents. There's simply not enough evidence.

My child, however, will one day marvel at the vast collection of pictures I have of her. Thousands of pictures. All of her many expressions, outfits, milestones, trips, toys, parties, meals, doctor's visits and play dates. One day she can look back and see how much her parents loved her, how much we captured, witnessed and were excited by every f**king thing she ever did.

And if I took the time to divide the pictures into two categories--the ones her father took and the ones her mother took--she might even be able to discern the different ways in which we raised her. Because nothing shows the differences in parenting style like your time behind the camera.

My husband's approach to photography is far different than my own. I am creative. He is precise. I'm wired. He's patient. I'm performance. He's direction. I'm big-picture. He's detail.

And we both capture fantastic pictures of our daughter.

Jim crouches down beside her and waits. I stand near him biting my nails, tapping my foot, and sighing loudly to encourage him to just snap the picture. To snap a bunch of pictures. I want to be deafened by camera clicks. Instead, he waits. And waits. And though I think I should have heard at least twenty shutter sounds, I hear only one. When I later see that one shot, it's gold.

When I take pictures, I'm not interested in the details. I'm wanting the atmosphere. I roam around my child and snap and snap as she is doing whatever she's doing, mundane or fascinating. She may or may not look up and most often she flashes me a uterus-cramping smile. And later, when I look through all the many, many shots, I can always find one. And it's gold.

As he tells it, Jim's time at film school taught him explicitly how to use cameras of all kinds. But even further, film school taught him the concept of framing and lighting a shot. He's dabbled in freelance work and has a high-end camera. So, if I'm wanting perfect pictures of my child or my family, Jim's the guy. And he gets the shot the first time, every time.

Jim sees photography as a science, with right and wrong ways of doing it. My friends, who are truly talented at it, see it as an art in which passion and talent are key. Not surprisingly, I see it as a form of communication. I'm engaging a subject and capturing their response. And so, in the difficult times and the beautiful moments, photographing my child is another way I'm engaging her. Talking to her. Telling her story.

Sometimes we hire a professional so that we can both be in the frame with our child. We wear clothes I spent time fretting over and huddle together as an outsider captures us from a different perspective. And the opposing parenting styles are just as evident when we are on the other side of the lens. I am brilliant at getting my child to smile; Jim keeps her from getting hurt on the props.

Our obsession with pictures isn't just about our child. It's about documenting trips together, big and small. Snapping pictures of elaborate meals I've concocted, furniture we like, unusual bugs in our garden. Jim and I have an unspoken rule in our life together: live it fully and document it well.

And I can take these pictures of beaches and bugs and the baby, and I can print them large and frame them well and decorate our home with the beautiful moments of our life. Looking at these stops time. Lets me remember the good and the bad for eternity. Pictures capture our existence. Ensure our legacy. How else could you prove your child scored the winning goal? Or that Mariah Carey lost the baby weight?

Pictures. The proof of life.

When I want to feel strong and determined, I pull out pictures of me in a full body cast after my car accident. I look at pictures from our wedding when I want to feel beautiful. Pictures of my honeymoon make me giddy. Pictures of my college roommates make me homesick. Pictures of our newborn in the emergency room make me ache. Pictures of my pug make me laugh. Pictures of my dad make me smile. He's very photogenic.

I can look at the large black and white print of our child and remember how proud I was to capture her first enormous smile. And remember that it took me 37 pictures to get that single one. Immediately after I captured it, she threw up.

Or the picture Jim took of me on our honeymoon on the deserted beach we found that gray, drizzly day. He fussed at length with the settings on my inexpensive point-and-shoot, had me sit on a large piece of driftwood, faced me in the direction of the rain and wind and captured an image in which my joy is most pronounced.

Perhaps the most significant is the picture of the three of us that hangs in our bedroom. Lowery was just a month old and I was struggling through the darkest period of post partum depression. Like a robot, I went to get her out of her crib as she was crying, and I brought her to Jim. When I placed her beside him she was immediately soothed. I remember looking at them thinking that I should love this more. That I should feel my heart swell just looking at my loving husband and my beautiful daughter lying in bed cuddling on a lazy Sunday morning. And yet I felt that somehow that moment, that phase of life, would never pass. Would never improve. Would never be enjoyable.

But something made me go get the camera. Go through the motions of snapping a few pictures of the two of them lying there together. And I began to cheer up slightly as I watched her nestle, snuggle, and even smile slightly, in the crook of her daddy's arm. I became almost happy as I snapped and snapped and snapped the two people in my life that I felt I didn't deserve. As if I was finally stopping to look at them. And this feeling, this first flash of happiness in weeks, made me crawl in bed beside my husband and child. All three of us, in a quiet morning together in bed. Then I held the camera out and above our three heads because I had a brilliant thought:

Take a picture.


It will last longer.