Former home of the compassionate telepath
6.22.2008,12:30
photographic memory
one. children are beautiful in a way that no one else is. I know this to be true because we relentlessly seek to capture their images like we are building a dam against the impending flood of adulthood. the result is that I have a far better sense of what I looked like as a child than I do as an adult.
two. my most recent photo album spans about four years, from august 04 to last summer. I'm not the kind of person who takes pictures most of the time. I prefer memories to frozen images that impose their own form on a memory. when I take pictures, I worry that those are the only moments I'll remember, and all the moments in between will be lost. so I take fewer yet.
three. the one person who seems to always make me look beautiful on film is Cam. I can't believe he manages to transfer his biased eye onto a camera, but the camera does seem to come out convinced.
four. I counted. there are 5 photos of my mom, 6 of my sisters, 6 of my grandma, 3 of my grandpa, 8 of my cousins, and 3 of cam's family. there is but one picture of my father. still, it is enough. every time I reach that page, I flip past it without looking.
five. I rarely like photos of myself, and I make up different reasons. I used to have lofty justifications. they say the poet Sappho, after allowing one likeness of herself to be produced, refused to allow any others, believing that the likeness was ugly. they say this is because her face was always in motion, and seeing her features still made her seem a stranger to herself. I empathize.
six. now, I have new reasons to pile onto the old. my favourite pictures of my self these days are all the partial and accidental. in anything deliberate, I don't see myself. half a face and elbow beside the north saskatchewan river. my jawline at my mother's wedding. my feet and the top of my head on my sister's old balcony. in these accidental angles there is something more familiar. I look different these days, but certain lines stay true.
seven. the anitclimax. it's too mundane to be irony. this is an entire post about photographs with nary an image (and it intends to stay that way).
two. my most recent photo album spans about four years, from august 04 to last summer. I'm not the kind of person who takes pictures most of the time. I prefer memories to frozen images that impose their own form on a memory. when I take pictures, I worry that those are the only moments I'll remember, and all the moments in between will be lost. so I take fewer yet.
three. the one person who seems to always make me look beautiful on film is Cam. I can't believe he manages to transfer his biased eye onto a camera, but the camera does seem to come out convinced.
four. I counted. there are 5 photos of my mom, 6 of my sisters, 6 of my grandma, 3 of my grandpa, 8 of my cousins, and 3 of cam's family. there is but one picture of my father. still, it is enough. every time I reach that page, I flip past it without looking.
five. I rarely like photos of myself, and I make up different reasons. I used to have lofty justifications. they say the poet Sappho, after allowing one likeness of herself to be produced, refused to allow any others, believing that the likeness was ugly. they say this is because her face was always in motion, and seeing her features still made her seem a stranger to herself. I empathize.
six. now, I have new reasons to pile onto the old. my favourite pictures of my self these days are all the partial and accidental. in anything deliberate, I don't see myself. half a face and elbow beside the north saskatchewan river. my jawline at my mother's wedding. my feet and the top of my head on my sister's old balcony. in these accidental angles there is something more familiar. I look different these days, but certain lines stay true.
seven. the anitclimax. it's too mundane to be irony. this is an entire post about photographs with nary an image (and it intends to stay that way).
