To the girl who hides from the camera:
I keep asking you this, but I haven’t gotten a decent answer yet, so I’m going to ask you again: what exactly are you trying to prevent? Yeah, yeah, I know, you don’t like your picture taken. But why is that?
You might tell me that you don’t want people to see you, but that doesn’t make sense. We see you right now. You’re laughing, you’re avoiding the camera. You’re looking at me right now to tell me that the camera is your mortal enemy. Friend, people see you all the time.
Okay, so people seeing your happy, smiling face isn’t the problem. Something makes photographs different from real life. We can work with that. I have an idea: maybe photographs bother you because they mean people are going to look at you for the sake of looking at you. They aren’t just going to be in the same place as you at the same time by happenstance; they’re going to look at a moment that we choose to capture so they can see you there. It’s something intentional. Is that what bothers you?
I can understand that.
But here’s something you might want to think about: What are you sacrificing when you take yourself out of this picture?
You know this scene. We're all together, for once, and it's pretty great. You're surrounded by your favorite people, and you're doing something memorable, something you've enjoyed. We don't want to forget this, and we're visual creatures, so we decide that it might be nice to have proof our our togetherness to look back on in the future. We decide to take a group photo. We start figuring out how to arrange ourselves, and you duck away, maybe covering your face, definitely protesting. You "hate having your picture taken."
In the moment, I get it. If you're going to have an image of your face captured and shared with the world, you want to make sure your hair looks decent, you want to look like you've gotten enough sleep, and you want to check to make sure your teeth look clean. You might want makeup on. But think about the future and take a moment to ask yourself: How would people see this in forty years?
I can tell you. If you duck out and let this group picture happen without you, you might, in the moment, "spare the internet" the trouble of you not looking like a model. But this moment won't last long. Soon, that picture will be something of an archaeological mystery on social media: you're gonna have to dig to find it. No one is going to care about that disobedient chunk of ponytail or that that light and angle make you look like your uncle. The picture will become what it was meant to become: a memory.
And as for the people who don't have to dig? The people who keep it in easy reach? One day, they're going to miss seeing you in person. Life separates people. It changes people and their circumstances rapidly, unpredictably, and permanently. One day, friend, I'm going to look at that picture and think back to that day and remember, vaguely, that you were there with us. I'm going to close my eyes and try to remember what that version of you was like. I'm probably going to miss her a lot. I'll wonder if that was the year you had the bangs you hated. I'll try to picture your smile. I'll be heartbroken at how hard it is to remember. I won't want to remember Facebook-perfect, fresh-makeup you. I'll want to remember my friend and what she was like when her normal, average, everyday life shared space with mine.
Friend, I'm not putting the camera away because I don't want to lose these memories. These are days worth keeping safe, and you are a precious part of them. I can't make you stay in the shot, but I can ask you to reconsider. This you, the ordinary one, the one with the crazy baby hairs around your temples and the crooked smile and the unusual shoulders and the acne, is the you I love dearly and want to remember forever. Will you please help me save this moment for the day when I close my eyes and wish you were here?
