Don’t Take My Picture…
I hate having my picture taken- always have.
Some people LOVE the camera- I would rather be behind the camera. I figure there are probably more pictures of the back or side of my head than full or partial face- and I like it like that.
On Facebook, I have an old photo of me when I was about eight or nine hanging out at the house my parents still live in.
Recently, one of my friends from high school got in touch and asked if I would be posting something more recent. Trying to explain that I pretty much look the same- my standard “slightly taller and much heavier” wasn’t cutting it.
So, instead of doing something more productive last night (and because I was having a decent hair moment) I decided to take some self-portaits.
I did not look like me.
It was me but it wasn’t me.
I freaked out a little.
I took a few more shots to see if it was just a fluke but it wasn’t.
The pictures turned out the same- looking like that of a stranger. My eyes look bigger, my face appears heart-shaped and I look like I have cheekbones.
I asked my bf to take a look and he was a little puzzled. We both know it was the angle that “warped” my face but that didn’t make it any less freaky. If these pictures were in a stack of photos and he flipped through them without being told there were ones of me, he wouldn’t have picked them out.
I asked him to take a shot head on and it was the normal blech.
I started to wonder….
What does it say about me that I liked my “not me” pictures better than the “real me” pictures?
But then, how does one really define the “real me”?
This moment was like something from a book or movie.
Is this how people react when confronted with their twin/not twin? Or a Freaky Friday situation?
Then I wondered if this was how people who have undergone plastic surgery react to their new face(s).
My disconnect was disconcerting. Even though I knew intellectually that it was only because of the angle of the shot, I was still weirded out. What would it be like to look in the mirror and have a stranger’s face stare back at you?
I couldn’t imagine what this would be like but I think I can imagine it now.
