The image of a life
When's the last time you snapped a picture of a loved one in the middle of an argument or while standing in the checkout line waiting to pay for the milk? Life consists mainly of these uneventful events, yet we're unwilling to capture them. We take pictures of the special times and then put them in albums as a representation of who we are.
According to my albums I'm always dressed up, always smiling, always in happy company. I don't see that as having much to do with my person at all. I hate doing my hair and make up. I like to wear ill-fitting clothes and I rarely wear socks. The pictures represent a different me, the official me I suppose.
Though, me in class is an official me too pictures aren't taken there. When I graduated högstadiet and we sat in our homeclassroom, all dressed up with flowers in our hair I took some pictures of my classmates. We were all sitting in our regular seats but it still seemed like a fraud. I'm glad those pictures came out blurry, as they somehow are a blurred reality. We didn't have our usual arguments not the nit-picking of our teenage boredom. Still I put it in an album to be something to me, as the fake reality being worth preserving.
Perhaps it's the mere presence of a camera that makes the occation worth saving. The camera itself makes it a special occation. I've toyed with the thought to always have one with me, to look at the world through a camera lens. But that way, would I even experiance it, or would people, out of habit always smile at me?
In a way the camera phones have shifted this whole piece a bit. We always have a camera with us. Not always a good quality one. But at the same time the censorship has increased. We easily delete the pictures where we look odd because of the angle or our heads are half chopped off. My högstadiegraduation pictures wouldn't have came out blurry but maybe if I had had a cameraphone back then I would have taken random pictures of my classmates tossing chairs over our lockers or desperately screaming they need a pencil during the three years prior to that.
A picture says more than a thousand words, it's said. I don't believe that for one second! I can suck my gut in and smile for a picture, but I can't remain quiet forever. I'm not suggesting we should stop taking pictures, not at all, maybe just that we should be less selective of what we actually capture. I remember the big events fairly well while as all the unevents kind of melt together to make that blurr a nondigital camera has made of the greater memories.
According to my albums I'm always dressed up, always smiling, always in happy company. I don't see that as having much to do with my person at all. I hate doing my hair and make up. I like to wear ill-fitting clothes and I rarely wear socks. The pictures represent a different me, the official me I suppose.
Though, me in class is an official me too pictures aren't taken there. When I graduated högstadiet and we sat in our homeclassroom, all dressed up with flowers in our hair I took some pictures of my classmates. We were all sitting in our regular seats but it still seemed like a fraud. I'm glad those pictures came out blurry, as they somehow are a blurred reality. We didn't have our usual arguments not the nit-picking of our teenage boredom. Still I put it in an album to be something to me, as the fake reality being worth preserving.
Perhaps it's the mere presence of a camera that makes the occation worth saving. The camera itself makes it a special occation. I've toyed with the thought to always have one with me, to look at the world through a camera lens. But that way, would I even experiance it, or would people, out of habit always smile at me?
In a way the camera phones have shifted this whole piece a bit. We always have a camera with us. Not always a good quality one. But at the same time the censorship has increased. We easily delete the pictures where we look odd because of the angle or our heads are half chopped off. My högstadiegraduation pictures wouldn't have came out blurry but maybe if I had had a cameraphone back then I would have taken random pictures of my classmates tossing chairs over our lockers or desperately screaming they need a pencil during the three years prior to that.
A picture says more than a thousand words, it's said. I don't believe that for one second! I can suck my gut in and smile for a picture, but I can't remain quiet forever. I'm not suggesting we should stop taking pictures, not at all, maybe just that we should be less selective of what we actually capture. I remember the big events fairly well while as all the unevents kind of melt together to make that blurr a nondigital camera has made of the greater memories.
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