I’m one of those people who hates to be photographed. In snapshots, I always seem to be caught at the exact moment I look my worst. When I look at them later, I always cringe. I focus on the bags under my eyes, or the way my chin looks like it has doubled, or how much heavier I seem than when I last looked in the mirror. Consequently, at family outings I am the person who is nowhere to be found when the cameras come out. I was okay with this until last winter when my mother died.
After the funeral I sifted through piles of photographs- black and whites from the fifties, colored ones that had yellowed with age, even faded Polaroids from the seventies.
Images of my mother smiled back at me from all stages of her life- Mom swollen with pregnancy. Mom dressed in a black lace party dress and red lipstick. Mom disguised as Elvis for Halloween. Mom digging in her garden.
Some of the pictures are flattering. Some are not. In most of them, she is surrounded by her family. There she is with Dad. Here is one with my siblings. And in this one she is with all of her grandchildren. However, there were no images of my mother and me together. There are no reminders of how close we were, of how we laughed together, and worked together, and loved each other.
I realize that this is because I avoided having my picture taken, and now it is too late. I wonder if I will remember, and if my children will remember. And I wonder how their children will know.
When I look at photographs of my mother, I don’t see the lines on her face or that her chin had doubled. I see the love in her eyes, and the laughter in her heart. For me, looking at her images is comforting, and uplifting, and precious. Her images warm me and make me smile.
They remind me of how capable she was, and how she enveloped me in her long arms and how she was strong and gentle at the same time. I look at the gray eyes in her photographs- eyes that were stern when I was disrespectful, and steady when I was afraid, and soft when I was sad. I have the same gray eyes. Someday, my children will need to look at my picture and remember my eyes. But just as I cheated myself out of photographs with my mother, I have cheated my children out of the same thing.
So I’m rethinking this camera shy thing I’ve had going on. Maybe I’ll consider sitting in front of a camera- especially if the photographer can disguise my double chin and baggy eyes. After all, even Momma G can learn a new trick or two.
. . .
Garrie Madison Stoutimore is the author of the blog, A Cup of Tea with Momma G and a mother to three grown children.
(All mother and daughter images provided by Dachowski Photography.)
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