Ever since my business partner and I started setting up our
new company, she had been warning me that we were eventually going to need to
do a photo shoot.
She's a photographer as well as a designer, and she already
had her own company and website as well, so getting a professional photo of her
for the site was no problem. She had a whole line-up of favorites.
But all I had for a head shot of myself was a cute snapshot that my
daughter had taken on my birthday last year.
"It's okay for now," my business partner had said
diplomatically. "But at some point we'll need to get professional shots of
you for the website."
I'd been delaying it and dreading it in equal measure. Since
reaching my mid-forties, I've become almost phobic about getting my picture
taken. Last year, a couple of high school boys who were doing a project on
community journalism wanted to videotape an interview with me. The fear of how
I would look on film caused me to perspire through the entire interview.
Despite promising to send me a copy of their finished product, they never did,
and I'm convinced it's because they didn't want to embarrass me with how I
looked on screen.
My business partner must have grown weary of my deferrals
every time she suggested a photo shoot, because Sunday morning she sent me a
cursory text. I thought she was just letting me know what time she'd pick me up
for the trip we'd planned to the beach to take some landscape shots for an
upcoming project, but her text made it clear that there were other purposes to
the trip. "Wear a white shirt and tan pants," she wrote. "And
makeup."
So this was serious, and sent me into a fresh tailspin of
worries about brow creases and crow's feet.
Not that my quasi-phobia is strictly the result of aging. At
25, in the hours before my wedding ceremony began, I stood in the sunshine
outside a pretty little New England chapel while our wedding photographer did
shot after shot. "Karen, it's just me," I said finally. "How good
do you really think it's going to get?"
So I try to avoid photos. But my business partner is really
good at what she does, and one of the things she does is photography. She made
me feel comfortable with a relaxed pose and a beautiful background against the
whitecaps of Plum Island. I started to feel less self-conscious as we proceeded
through a series of shots. I laughed a little. I imagined that the blue sky and
bright sun and sharp breeze blowing my hair around might compensate for the
crow's feet and wrinkles.
And in the end, it really wasn't so bad. I've seen only a few samples
of the photos, but I think they
turned out okay. And that reminded me of something: that's what usually happens
when I see pictures of myself. They really aren't so bad. I'm really not so
bad. I worry so much about how the pictures will look, and then I find myself
looking at a picture of a pleasant-looking, smiling, cheerful middle-aged woman
with a few crow's feet but nothing all that hideous.
The pictures showed….me. No cover girl, but a pleasant
person with an inoffensive appearance. If it didn’t forever quash my phobia, it
reminded me of a simple truth: a smile does a lot. I looked happy and
approachable in the photos, which is really just what we needed for our
website. It would do. I would do.
I may not be ready for my close-up, to paraphrase the classic movie line, but I’m okay with a
mid-distance shot profiled against the ocean on a beautiful fall afternoon.
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