Nate: You know, I keep thinking it’s going to get easier, but it just doesn’t.
David: No it doesn’t. It just gets more familiar.
Before MOMENTUM I was given little choice but to take and share a picture with my friend Syl, who requested it for proof that I actually possessed a face and so that she would recognize the near-stranger she was set to pick up in her zippy red car. That’s reasonable, I thought, then instantly fell into a panic at the idea of committing my face to film. Somehow, however, I managed to get the job done. The picture even looked nice! And I thought I could be done with such a distasteful task for at least another half-decade.
But during our visit Syl brought up the picture and my reluctance to make it. “Your kids are really going to regret not having pictures of themselves with you,” she said, and the guilt took even stronger hold. “But I know how you feel,” she continued, and she told me about a project she’d undertaken a year or two back in which every day she took and shared pictures of herself. “You should think about trying it,” she said. “You’d get a whole new perspective on how you look and your children would have images of you. And,” she continued, “Once you get going I bet you find that it’s not as hard as you think.”
Every day. For a year.
That’s three hundred sixty-five pictures.
But sometimes even the most daunting of projects can catch hold, and a week or so after I returned home I rounded up an unsuspecting child and before she could protest the first picture was made. In the intervening days I’ve posed with every permutation of my offspring, with the furchildren, and by myself. I’ve shot body parts, faces, extremities and the whole, as it were, enchilada. I’d like to say it’s getting easier but as is so often the case it’s only gotten more familiar: I die a thousand deaths as I post each image on Facebook and we’ll not even mention the approximately five billion ones that are discarded, aghast, before I find one that passes muster.
There is an upside. Even after so short a duration this project has already generated 2000 times the number of images of myself with my children as compared to the last three years combined. This is good, right?
Yes! – It is good. Your children and grandchildren will be pleased to have them, I am certain.
Grandchildren! GRANDCHILDREN!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:)
I have tons of photos of myself as a kid with my dad, even to our irritation. My mother was forever a picture-snapper on vacations, forcing us to pose here and there; or birthdays; or holidays. I got more irritated and embarrassed (as many tended to be in public) the older of a teenager I got but now I’m thankful that I even have these photos, as my dad died when I was 20. I’m really sad I don’t have many photos of him and I in his last two years – there weren’t vacations, as I was off at college, or my mother wasn’t around in my time spent with him.
So don’t do it for yourself, and forget about what you think of the photos. Just remember your children won’t look at them with the same critical eye as you do someday down the line when these represent memories.
That’s wonderful! I really like that idea and agree that it would be hard to do (we are the same way about photos). Your kids love you for who you are and the way you are, so they’ll always love the photos.
And I just wanted to say, your blog is usually the first page and always the first non-work related page I open in the morning. So many of the things you write about hit so close to home. It helps to know that others are working/struggling with the same issues and daily uproar.
My sentiments exactly!!!! On both counts.
I concur!
It’s a brilliantly simple, adorable idea, and I love it. Keep it up, and treasure the photos.
I too support the photos! I speak as one of those children without. I have 1 photo of my Mom, with me in it, and its one of my most prized possessions.
Our daughter was 10 months old when her dad/my husband was killed in a car wreck. I didn’t realize until it was too late that I didn’t have even one single picture of her and her dad together. I’m so glad you’re taking lots and lots of photos!
Something else I wish we had is video of him or them together. Since she was only 10 months old when he died, she doesn’t remember him. I’d give anything for her to hear her dad’s voice, his laugh, or see him smile. I could have given her that if we’d just taken the time…
So – I encourage everyone – take pictures, record videos – even if you just set the camcorder in the corner during dinner. My wish is no one would ever need it – but it’d be there for them, just in case….
Oh I am so sorry. You make a good point. :(