Somewhere around 1000 words

[mrissa]

I may hit more than that today, but it seems like a decent estimate. And my birthday pictures are up, here.

So I'm pondering: do you have different standards for what makes a good picture of a friend or loved one as opposed to a good picture of some stranger? I'm torn on this one. I'm not sure what I think. I don't think good pictures have to be flattering pictures in either category. But I guess with friends and loved ones I have more of a sense of whether it's characteristic or not, whether or not it's flattering, and an otherwise nondescript photo can delight me if it's "really" how the person looks to me. On the other hand, a really well-done photo of a friend or loved one can make me evaluate the lines and planes of their face and/or body in ways that I don't usually think of doing. I don't think of my friends as works of art but as people. And I am not a visual artist myself at all, though I like some. (That is, I don't know how to take photos that good, but I definitely know how to appreciate others'. Hmm. Also I'm personally fond of some painters, sculptors, photographers, etc. and even a few writers who are much more visually focused than I care to be.)

Sometimes I'm startled when I see myself in pictures, because it's recognizably me and yet...well, I think of myself as bigger than that, for one thing, and I don't mean in the simplistic "photo on the screen is two inches tall and I am five-foot-six" way. Also, expressions feel a lot more exaggerated from in here than they look from out there, with a few deliberate exceptions. Do you have that, or the reverse, or something else entirely?

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Silly Yoon, you've been reading the Novel Gazing archives, which are not richly abundant with Timprov pictures but have at least a few. (He's 6'2" and big, so yes, probably bigger than you.)

Half of my pictures from my high school trip to France have scottjames's shoulder on one side of them or another. Half the time it's so little of his shoulder that you can't even tell what it is unless you know, just a denimish looking line to the far edge. But I knew, and it amused me.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Viking blood. It makes me non-little.

Well, mrissa, what's your excuse, then? Is it the English blood?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, the tiny tiny English, a very small people, in no way affected by Viking largeness of the past.

I have no excuse.

[cooperati.livejournal.com]

this is funny. i saw a detailed drawing of an ancient east anglian ship's front prow as it was being unearthed either at or near sutton hoo, in suffolk(a frequent stop for vikings). it was the head of a viking-looking man, carved out of wood, but it looked like my dad with a beard! mind you, my family hasn't been in england for almost 400 years. but, being 6', like my dad and his dad, and my being 330 lbs without looking 330 lbs, i can admit there's something more than just a simple western european stock to my makeup.

-=T=-

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Most of the photo links are not broken. Some of the early ones maybe didn't get loaded when I changed servers. And then, of course, there are the three my psychotic cousin asked me to remove.

I think of myself as large-boned because ScanAms are known for it. Ah well.

[baronlaw.livejournal.com]

I remember what "expression" I was shooting for when they are taking the picture. Then later on when I see the actual picture I am always amazed by what my face is doing.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. I think some people (the photogenic ones) have a much better idea of how to make their face look a certain way.

I do certainly have different standards for a picture of me or someone I care about than strangers: in the fomer I want them to look good or at least nice, whereas in the latter interesting will suffice even if it doesn't look like someone you'd particularly want to know.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

I like pictures which capture a facet of my friends' personalities. (Like the grumpy-Scott photo from the ren-faire trip) Otherwise, sure, esthetics are nice. Combine the two and I'd dub it an excellent photo.

[splash-the-cat.livejournal.com]

a sense of whether it's characteristic or not

That's the big one for me. fairmer was baffled by one of the pictures I requested be reprinted from her wedding, because she didn't think it was very good. But the expression was so characteristically Mer that I thought she looked fabulous.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

"One of." Or maybe "all of the ones" where Mer was making a goofy expression...

But hey, it's good to be loved for who you are. :)

I'm all about keeping the "bad" photos (as long as they aren't just thumbs-over-the-camera-lens) of friends and family, but I do have some standards based on... well, in part, how happy people are in them, I guess.

I also like stories in my pictures. I do not need fifteen consecutive pictures of my grandma hunched over her birthday cake, blowing out the candles, when the only change between pictures is the number of candles on the cake. One will do well, thanks. But I was the only one in the family who wanted fifteen non-consecutive pictures of her work with a traveling minister's tent revival in the '20s. (shrug)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I understand why my mom wants the same posed pictures every major holiday, to track changes that don't seem major until all of a sudden you realize that everybody looks much, much different. But I can understand the story pictures, too.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I suppose there's a story in the minute changes, too. (frown) Ooh, I hate when I do that...

[oldmotherchaos.livejournal.com]

In general, I want a photo of a friend/loved one to remind me of the things I value in that person -- that may mean discarding the most 'photogenic' images for pictures with a hint of life or motion or character. By contrast, I want pictures of strangers to be striking. Again, photogenic rarely cuts the grade; I'd rather see seams, lines, planes of shadow, and things that evoke stories of what that person's life is like.

Then again, I always want desperately pictures that friends have of me to be as photogenic as possible because I tend to feel I need all the help I can get if I'm not just going to look like a sack of potatoes. I never promised to be consistent :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

So you're allowed to like your friends even if they look like potatoes but not the reverse?

[oldmotherchaos.livejournal.com]

Well, it's more like 'to have depictions of' rather than 'to like', but, um, yeah. That's the theory. *shame-faced grin*.

In practice, none of my friends take the blindest bit of notice of my piteous whinings on the matter anyway!

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Who took the photo of the Falls hangin' on the wall there?

K.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We got it at an art fair. I believe the photographer was Doug Ohman (though I have a hard time reading the signature); he did some of the photos for a book called Minnesota Treasures: Stories Behind the State's Historic Places (the author is Denis P. Gardner). We got into a lovely discussion of regional photography while I was writing my check for the photo.