Photos and why I struggle with them…

Yours, Carolina - 19 Mar 17

On a recent trip to Paris my boyfriend took the role of official photographer to record our time there. Quite often we’re so busy having a good time we forget to take snaps, so he decided to make sure we’d have some memories to look back on.

Two things struck me about my attitude to the photographs. First was a reluctance to editing the pictures and deleting the ones that were duplicates or flawed.
This is a feeling I’ve had since having children. The precious capturing of moments of time you’ll never get back. I have thousands of baby pictures, unedited because I can’t bring myself to delete a single one (unless it’s completely blurry and unintelligible). For me there is something about a photo that is special. That moment in time frozen and never to be repeated quite the same.

Once I went on holiday with a boyfriend to Sorrento in Italy. We had a wonderful time exploring around the area. We took photos of Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius. All recording our brilliant adventure.
Then we broke up. And then, we got back together! We decided of all places, to return to Sorrento. It was where we had been our happiest.

Almost immediately it was obvious our relationship had shifted and this trip was going to come up short to the last one. How can you recreate happiness when you’re not happy? And is it possible that going back to such a beautiful place it will never be the same?
An experience to some extent feels like a standalone thing but actually if you’re feeling the same when you’re doing it again then it can be just as wonderful.
I think it’s all about emotions. The adage never go back, never try and recreate only applies if that relationship has sailed. As mine had.
A miserable scrabbling about trying to feel something like it was before.

Those first-trip photos were never joined by any the second time round. It went undocumented.

I think the Victorians felt that when they had their photo taken in the early days of photography, a bit of their soul had been taken. They were suspicious of it initially.

In the mid 1800s it was the practice to have photos taken to preserve the image of the dead. It was very expensive, the same price as having your portrait painted. And so this was often the first time a picture was afforded. These early photos were called daguerreotype – small, highly detailed pictures on polished iodine-sensitised silver using mercury vapour to fume it and develop the image.

Dead children and parents were posed in family pictures so that a group shot could be taken of the whole family. The dead appeared to be sleeping, and in some cases photographers would paint eyes onto the closed eyelids on the photograph to give it a sense of life.

My feeling about my children’s baby pictures is not so far removed from this. The desire to snap away and record those happy moments forever. Because time moves so fast and you never know. There’s a slight macabre undertone to it. And hence why I am so resistant to deleting images. And deleting that which can never happen again. A slight nesting instinct.

My boyfriend laughed at me agonising over which photo should make the grade and which should be trashed. In the end he kept all the imperfect ones too to appease me.

Going back to my recent visit to Paris, the other thing I noticed about taking photographs was that I didn’t want to trawl through all the ones we had taken while we were still there. Because we were still there!
I felt the time for review was retrospective. I was too busy enjoying the moment to want to edit it or glance at what had just occurred. I know what had happened because I was there! The time for happy reflection would come later. Or at least it would if he hadn’t buggered off home with all the memories safely stored on his laptop!

When I got married, both times dear reader, the wedding photos were my nemesis.

I’ve never been one to be comfortable having my picture taken, feeling I always look terrible in them and so must look awful in the flesh too. However there was no getting round needing pictures to frame the happy couples (both of me).

I felt afterwards they deflected me from the happiness I felt at the time. I had felt one way at the point of capture (in more ways than one) and then when assesing this moment, I then felt completely different, as I didn’t look in the picture how I was feeling inside at the time. If that makes sense.
I was standing feeling pretty or admired at the time, and in the photo I just came up short. I didn’t look pretty and so it sullied that moment for me.
I will always struggle with my image, although I’m getting more comfortable with it as I get older. But it is this feeling that it belies how I feel about myself and undermines my confidence. I think I’d be better in the pre Victorian days with a nice woodcut!

There are people, the boyfriend for one, who always ‘takes’ a good picture. It’s quite maddening. He is, of course, devilishly attractive with strong Latin cheekbones and warm likeable brown eyes. So he’s got a head start on me with my distinct lack of prominence in the cheekbone area and wishy-washy nondescript eyes, that even with make-up on do not appear anything other than small and unremarkable.

If there should be such a thing as a good picture of me, I am very happy. It is the one that slipped through the net dear reader. It is happily posted on social media and even sometimes given a frame, if it’s lucky.

I’m sure all of us are equally as critical of our photoed selves. Wanting the image our friends see to show us to our best advantage.
But for me, it’s about marrying up the me I feel inside with the me you see on the outside. I want them to be the same, then I’m happy and will stick myself in a celebratory frame.

It’s no coincidence dear one, that my profile picture is from my childhood. When I had a pretty face, blonde hair and impish smile. I am still that imp but a succession of accidents broke my front teeth, my hair darkened and my nose started its journey to replicate my paternal one. And from then, I have on the whole, not delighted in my picture as I once did.

Those tricky teenage years when your face is at odds with itself. Not fully formed and settled yet. Slightly puffed out and too distinct. Big grown up features battling it out on a child’s face. Then it evens out and the judgement begins on how much attractiveness you’ve ended up with.

I remember my relatives cooing at my blonde ringleted hair, my blue eyes. And being pimped-out to give kisses to friends of my grandfather. 50p a go.

The gangly darker-haired me didn’t get asked to visit the shady garages for money. Just as well.

Anyway, returning to Paris (I wish I was!). I am excited to see the pictures taken with the ridiculous selfie stick we took. The ones kissing at the top of the Eiffel Tower and snuggled up at dinner. I hope they remind me of the happiness I felt at the time, and I can put my ego to one side for the sake of a fun, happy moment captured like Tinkerbell in her cage, impatiently stamping her foot to be released and carry on zipping happily and mischievously about. That’s me.

Yours, Carolina

Yours, Carolina

Writer and aspiring novelist who loves Jaffa Cakes, Michael Buble, Colin Firth, Audrey Hepburn, dramatic eyeliner and laughing until it hurts. Has children, which is nice. Once drank a whole bottle of tabasco sauce for a bet. Childhood crushes included Poncherello from Chips, Monkey (from Monkey Magic), Mr Claypole from Rentaghost and both of the Dukes of Hazzard boys. Doesn't like noodles.

View profile for posts, events and more info