I confess, I take a lot of pictures of a lot of things. And in the digital age, why not? It's free after all and you can delete the ones you don't want later. So that's what I do. It's like a visual diary of my days. Except it never works out quite that way. Because things are never as beautiful as they are with the naked eye. And because in a diary you record the most intimate details of your life. But, pictures are the opposite.
The more real and pure the moment is,
the less likely I am to ruin it by taking a photo.
Which leaves me with a bunch of obscure photos that aren't truly representational of my life. Not that they are intentionally inaccurate. But, they are misleading because my photos are void of certain aspects of my life, mostly, my friends and my kids. As I have mentioned here before, my kids don't let me take many photos of them, let alone make them public on social media. Also, I will rarely interrupt something, like a dinner with friends to take a photo. And while I try to document the unsightly, with photos of me first thing in the morning without make-up on or pictures of squat potties. I do try to keep things presentable, pretty-ish (so people want to look at them on instagram) and try to preserve some decorum.
Because of these things, I still sometimes feel like a fraud.
Because I have more people that only know me soley through social media now. And I like to keep things as real as possible, without embarrassing my family or friends. Although I 've found that it's virtually impossible where my kids are concerned. I still try to take great care to protect my family, while presenting myself as the flawed person I am, not the person I want you to see me as. In order to own my mistakes, awkwardness and inner dork. To promote self acceptance through my photos and my words. But, I realize I'm probably bullshitting myself. And that none of this even matters. Because as much as society says that images complement words, the truth is
... images trump words.
Every time.
This is the crux of my love/hate relationship with the digital age.
1 comment:
Tough one. Even when we write, I feel it's the same dilemma. You can be really sincere and authentic all the time, to the bone, but if it's ugly, how would you sell it? Pretty always sells but life isn't always pretty and neat. Maybe that's why I go to YouTube to unwind. Pictures and words=videos, with enough pretty and a bit of reality. Oh whatever, what do I know? Good points though and thanks for making me think!
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