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

[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...