ninanevermore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ninanevermore) wrote2006-06-06 02:35 pm
ninanevermore) wrote2006-06-06 02:35 pm
Entry tags:
Monday - A face to forget
Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about how there are so few pictures of me in existence. My mother-in-law and a couple of distant friends have been asking me to send photos, and I've tried to tell them that there are none to send. Since high school, I have made a great effort to always be behind and not in front of the camera lens. It has occurred to me that when I die, there will be little photographic evidence that I ever existed.
It's not that I'm ugly. While I'm not about to win any beauty pageants, my features are not unpleasant. In fact, I can confidently say that they have a sort of cherubic charm to them. My feelings about my face can be compared to my feelings about certain sofas that I've come across; the sofas aren't unattractive and may even be very comfortable, but they don't suit my taste and I wouldn't want to own them. Except that since I already do own my face and I lack the money or the inclination to have a plastic surgeon issue me a new one, I'm stuck with it.
Cameras are vexing to me. I like them when they are in my hands and I am pointing them at things and other people. I like capturing images and saving them for posterity. But the lens has never been kind when pointed toward me. Even my childhood photos, taken when I was at that point where even the plainest person is kind of cute, look dorky. If I looked as bad in real life as I do in most pictures, I would put a bag (like the one worn by the Elephant Man) over my head before venturing out in public. Just as many fashion models look better in photos than they do in person, I am one of those people who looks okay in person but who comes across as painfully unappealing in photos.
This has led to my long-held belief that it is better to be plain but photogenic, rather than good looking but non-photogenic. If you are photogenic you will be remembered for ages to come as having been beautiful. If all of the pictures of you are bad, your attractive decedents will look at your photos 100 years from now and thank their lucky stars that they take after the other side of their family. Physical beauty lasts only a few decades; ugly can last an eternity.
It did occur to me this weekend that if lightening were to strike me, my son would have little besides my drivers license photo to remember me by. Mind you, my drivers license photo is actually good. That is how weird my face is. Cameras that flatter other people makes a mockery of it, but the camera at the Texas Department of Public Safety, which was designed by evil scientists to make even the likes of Angelina Jolie look like a ragged-out hag, managed to flatter me. On this day of June 6, 2006, this alone is an indication that I could be the antichrist, for no human being created should look good on their drivers license.
Yet here I am. Damien, eat your heart out.
This weekend I set about taking some pictures so that my son would have something to remember me by, in case my drivers license gets burned up in the lightening strike. I refuse to go to a professional photographer, because I don't want to pay a sitting fee for something I'm probably going to hate. I've had professional photos taken in the past, and they aren't any kinder to me than your average snapshot. I have a broad face (thanks to my Viking ancestors) that comes out looking even broader. I have good cheekbones, but they get flattened out by the lens. My round nose has a tendency to look bulbous. Because my skin is so fair, the slightest blemish shows up as if accentuated in neon. I actually feel physically sick looking at photos of myself, which I know is pathological. People much uglier than I do not have this reaction to images of their own faces. Someday, someone may name a syndrome for this reaction. I would like it to be called, "Nina Erickson Syndrome," since I believe that I am the first person to document it and I want credit.
In the end, a handful of the pictures I took did not get deleted (though most of them did). I found a few that don't disgust me completely. For anyone who is curious, I look somewhat like this:
Until I can afford new furniture, I have a sofa that I don't like and that doesn't match my house. I have covered it with a slipcover, but it only helps so much. To my mind, my face doesn't match my personality and I don't much care for it, but like my sofa, I can't afford a new one.
Still, I take comfort in the fact that if you go by drivers licenses, I am as beautiful as any woman on earth.
It's not that I'm ugly. While I'm not about to win any beauty pageants, my features are not unpleasant. In fact, I can confidently say that they have a sort of cherubic charm to them. My feelings about my face can be compared to my feelings about certain sofas that I've come across; the sofas aren't unattractive and may even be very comfortable, but they don't suit my taste and I wouldn't want to own them. Except that since I already do own my face and I lack the money or the inclination to have a plastic surgeon issue me a new one, I'm stuck with it.
Cameras are vexing to me. I like them when they are in my hands and I am pointing them at things and other people. I like capturing images and saving them for posterity. But the lens has never been kind when pointed toward me. Even my childhood photos, taken when I was at that point where even the plainest person is kind of cute, look dorky. If I looked as bad in real life as I do in most pictures, I would put a bag (like the one worn by the Elephant Man) over my head before venturing out in public. Just as many fashion models look better in photos than they do in person, I am one of those people who looks okay in person but who comes across as painfully unappealing in photos.
This has led to my long-held belief that it is better to be plain but photogenic, rather than good looking but non-photogenic. If you are photogenic you will be remembered for ages to come as having been beautiful. If all of the pictures of you are bad, your attractive decedents will look at your photos 100 years from now and thank their lucky stars that they take after the other side of their family. Physical beauty lasts only a few decades; ugly can last an eternity.
It did occur to me this weekend that if lightening were to strike me, my son would have little besides my drivers license photo to remember me by. Mind you, my drivers license photo is actually good. That is how weird my face is. Cameras that flatter other people makes a mockery of it, but the camera at the Texas Department of Public Safety, which was designed by evil scientists to make even the likes of Angelina Jolie look like a ragged-out hag, managed to flatter me. On this day of June 6, 2006, this alone is an indication that I could be the antichrist, for no human being created should look good on their drivers license.
Yet here I am. Damien, eat your heart out.
This weekend I set about taking some pictures so that my son would have something to remember me by, in case my drivers license gets burned up in the lightening strike. I refuse to go to a professional photographer, because I don't want to pay a sitting fee for something I'm probably going to hate. I've had professional photos taken in the past, and they aren't any kinder to me than your average snapshot. I have a broad face (thanks to my Viking ancestors) that comes out looking even broader. I have good cheekbones, but they get flattened out by the lens. My round nose has a tendency to look bulbous. Because my skin is so fair, the slightest blemish shows up as if accentuated in neon. I actually feel physically sick looking at photos of myself, which I know is pathological. People much uglier than I do not have this reaction to images of their own faces. Someday, someone may name a syndrome for this reaction. I would like it to be called, "Nina Erickson Syndrome," since I believe that I am the first person to document it and I want credit.
In the end, a handful of the pictures I took did not get deleted (though most of them did). I found a few that don't disgust me completely. For anyone who is curious, I look somewhat like this:
Until I can afford new furniture, I have a sofa that I don't like and that doesn't match my house. I have covered it with a slipcover, but it only helps so much. To my mind, my face doesn't match my personality and I don't much care for it, but like my sofa, I can't afford a new one.
Still, I take comfort in the fact that if you go by drivers licenses, I am as beautiful as any woman on earth.