Existing in photographs

Existing in photographs – it’s a thing and it’s important.

So many of us duck, dodge, dip and dive when a camera is pointed our way. Who wants to be immortalised when we’re not feeling our most beautiful? We’re not as young as we used to be.. We’re having a fat day, a bad hair day, I couldn’t be bothered getting out of my tracksuit pants day… We have this bizarre notion that somehow we’ll be judged for how we look in photos or that we’re not worth capturing unless we can be Vanity Fair perfect.

I think back to my childhood and okay, it was prehistoric ie, before digital cameras and selfies… but there is still a mismatch between the number of photos of me as a kid and the number of photos of me as a kid with family members.  Heaps of me next to a landmark, me next to a random animal, me next to a sign (which probably had some significance that has been lost over time), me and my sister next to all the above, but sadly there are very few photos of me with my mum, or me with my grandparents.

When I look back at old photos, I don’t knit pick the appearance of those in them but remember their personalities, the warmth, the love, the relationships and what was happening at that point of time in my life.

We really shouldn’t need to feel perfect to be photographed.

In fact we shouldn’t feel bad for showing the world we’re human or vulnerable or real.

And sometimes it’s good to savour the everyday – capture the simple things because they are what matter.  What’s boring and routine today may become a warm recollection in the not so distant future.  So here is Richard existing in photos, doing an everyday thing with Riley: reading her his favorite book.

originally published 23 Feb 2017 via Richard|Mayle Portraiture