Smile For The Camera

Here’s some free advice: never stop a friend or loved one from taking your picture; some day, it may be all that people have to remember you by.

This is really something that always annoyed me, when you try to take someone’s picture, and they get all agitated about it. Some people aren’t comfortable with themselves as they are, but we should also realize that when someone wants to take a picture of us, it’s not because they’re trying to embarrass us later on or because they want to start a lame meme on the Internet; it’s because every single minute of every single day will never come again. Pictures and video are ways for each of us to hold on to those moments as we remember them, for reasons we want to remember them. They aren’t just for glamor shots.

I bring this up for two reasons. Last November, a good friend of ours was killed in a car accident the day after Thanksgiving – Black Friday – by an early-morning deal-shopper who claims to have fallen asleep at the wheel. In the days that followed, I was going through my photo and video collection for pictures of our friend, to give them to his wife. Many of the photos were used during his memorial service, but I always wished that I had more to give. He left behind a wife and two small children who will always have memories to share, but only a finite physical record of his face and his actions that will never feel like enough of a record of his life as it was.

This morning, as my daughter was getting ready to head out to catch the bus, I picked up the video camera and just started recording her putting on her jacket, heading out to the driveway, jumping rope…waiting patiently to go to school. I thought about all the times she had done something spectacular, or funny, or cute, or was just sitting at home, doing homework or just being herself. All of the stuff that I had never thought to capture in any way was now gone forever.  I grew up in a time when instant Polaroids were in vogue, but video recording was an expensive and complicated affair. Consequently, I only have a handful of photos of my life until now. I regret not being more gung-ho about chronicling my daughter’s life up to this point, both for me, for her, and for her eventual family to see how she grew up.

Don’t stop people from taking your picture. Don’t be shy. Don’t turn away, and don’t complain. People are taking your picture because you’re special to them and they want to remember you as you are at that point in your lives.