I tweeted recently that I'd decided that I would quite like to fall in-love with a photographer. The reason? I'd come across some pretty black and white photos of some celebrity, taken by her besotted, photographer boyfriend or husband. I really can't remember who it was or any big details, other than how lovely the woman looked and how easy it would be to fall for her ethereal, wistful, face as she gazed out of a typical, English, chocolate-boxy, cottage window at a countryside vista. Tiny slithers of sunlight highlighting a small, straight, narrow, nose. A shadow tripping gently into the slight hollow below her cheekbones.
When the photographer loves his subject, then the viewer often feels like they could too. Photographers somehow transpose their feelings for the subject through the lens and onto the image. He makes her seem as beautiful to us all as she is to him. (Yes, I'm using stereotypical, gender-specific, pronouns. I'm just lazy and it's just easier, okay?)
I don't think anyone's ever taken a 'nice' photo of me, exept me. It makes me wonder if I've ever really been loved. *Roger Moore eyebrow lift at reader* Usually, if someone else takes the shot, I'm all double-chins, facial hair and wrinkles. And, whilst I'm all too aware that that's the reality, I want someone to see passed that and 'make' me pretty. I want to have that photo to look back on when I'm sat astride a commode in a nursing home, so that I can point to it on the wall and exclaim to the carer who's wiping my bum, "See! I was loved AND I was PRETTY!"
After thinking about this on the day of my Twitter declaration, it occured to me that my brother does the magic-photographer-in-love thing with his girlfriend. He is, after all, a photographer in all senses of the word, although it isn't his paid 'occupation'. His girlfrind, Sandra, is undoubtedly pretty anyway, but his love for her is layerd over the reality in his photographs of her and we see her as he sees her. Pretty, multiplied by a gazillion. Sometimes, it's like a glow and I'm not talking about Photoshop touch-ups.
Do you know what I mean?
When I was little, and I thought about the love of my life and all romantic things cancerians usually stuff their heads about, I always imagined he would be a photographer. I have always thought about that magic you say of looking at yourself from another eyes.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is so true that if he makes the photo I look better. But it is also true that when you feel inside that you are, once you've "learnt" it (and everybody can) you can show that beautyt everywhere.
You're beautiful in my eyes, wonderful woman.
I had that once, but I left him, because he sweated on me.
ReplyDeleteIt's just an illusion, a fraction of a second taken from a lifetime and a lifestyle - she's not photographing your "angry face" or your "watching eastenders pose"or your "just woken up and need a coffee" grunting. Like Senora Gata up there says, you have to feel it to be it, Sandy : )
I think this is more to do with how you view and project yourself than me being able to make a sunject beautiful.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love some photographs that I have taken of you that you have absolutley hated, especially the candid ones when I was going through my "people in real life" phase inspired by Richard Billingham, but I was trying to capture a realism that is rarely shown in studio portrature.
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