Photographer

Having my photograph taken felt odd. I mean, I have my picture taken all the time - family snaps, even the odd, misguided fan who somehow recognises me and asks for a picture of the two of us together. But having someone - a professional photographer, no less - coming especially to take my photo makes me oddly aware of my face, the face that I barely notice when I shave.

When the photographer arrived, she was very nice, but I had the impression that she was looking at my face rather than at me. I imagined that she was seeing me as an arrangement of shapes and textures. She asked me to smile but I found that I simply couldn’t. A smile happens beneath your attention. Once you think about it, a smile becomes an unnatural thing.

In the end, the picture that she took showed me staring defiantly, glaring at the camera. My agent loved it, equating the expression with a confrontation with, I don’t know, Society or established values. But I was unnerved by the act of properly looking at myself. The picture was of someone, not older, necessarily, but more serious than me. And, in looking at my face, I found myself looking inward. Evaluating more or less dispassionately the person that I was. That I had become.

There is a, probably discredited, trope that members of some remote tribes fear that having their picture taken involved the taking of some part of themselves. It seems to me that this is not only wrong but that the opposite is true. Having your photograph taken gives you back part of your soul.