Perpetual Plan B

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Perspective

I don't know why I keep waxing philosophical these days, but another big issue keeps showing up that I want to share, mainly with girls and women who are younger than I am.

I'm not in photos very often for a couple of reasons.

1. I'm the unofficial family photographer, both because I do a little better job of it, but mainly because I am the one who usually THINKS of getting out the camera and using it.

2. I don't always feel like I look good enough to be in a picture. (I don't have on make-up, my hair isn't done, etc.) and when I do think I look okay, I'm too embarrassed to ask someone else to take a picture of me.

Well, I've just started developing all our old digital photos from when the kids were little, a month or so at a time, and guess what - I think I looked pretty good, much better than I do now.

It's that way with professional family pictures too. There are some that I really hated of me at the time, but now, five or so years later, I realize that I looked a lot better then than I thought I did, but I didn't appreciate it.
Even haircuts that I hated then look pretty good to me now, since my hair hasn't really gotten better with age.

One other thing I noticed is that I somehow always look mad or grumpy in photos at times when I didn't think I looked good and someone wanted to take a picture of me. I've finally also realized that I ALWAYS look better when I smile, even without make-up. I don't want my grandkids and great-grandkids to look at pictures of me and think that I was a grumpy old woman. (Even though my kids KNOW that I am, I want everyone else to at least wonder what I was like.)

So this has led me to just grin and bear it when photos are being taken. I want to look back in a few years and see how much better I look now.

(Oh no, how much worse will I look in five more years?)

2 comments:

Katie said...

I think you look great in pictures! I agree with always looking better with a smile, I usually cheese it up way to much when I don't want the picture taken, but I figure that it is probably better than the scowl I would rather have!

The Gathering Place said...

I am usually our photographer and if I am compelled to be in a picture, I choose the back row. But it is better to smile than to look grumpy. It is funny how bad we thought we looked in the past, but now we'd trade it for where we are now.