I’ve been looking at some old photos recently. Sorting them through. Deciding which ones I want to keep or throw away. Some hold memories of times with friends or family, or of someone significant who is, for whatever reason, no longer around. Some only bring a tinge of sadness and that small dull ache felt when something touches upon a sore memory, a war-wound endured at some point along my life so far. Photos often function as a means by which a moment in our lives can be lived again, and as I was sorting through photos today I felt both the pleasure of reliving a smile and the pain of recalling injuries sustained. (Incidentally, I wouldn’t want to deny myself of either).
As well as recalling memories, photos are also incredibly good at reminding us of who we were at a certain time in our life. But, on the other hand, have you ever had that feeling of disorientation when you stumble across a photo of you where you don’t recognise yourself? But that’s not me! I don’t remember my hair being that long/short. Nooo, I never wore that did I? God, don’t I look slim/fat/like Gwyneth Paltrow. Ok, so I’ve never looked at a photo of myself and thought “Oo, don’t I look like Gwyneth” (although it’d be a rather grand day if I did) but the point is that photos can sometimes confront us with an image of ourselves that we don’t recognise – and sometimes don’t like.
The great thing is, of course, that if they’re our photos we can simply throw them away or stick them under the duvet, behind the radiator, in the microwave maybe. If they’re on Facebook we can ‘un-tag’ them (a very rare feature of Facebook I actually like, and have found useful on more than one occasion). But when they belong to someone else, well, that’s a bit trickier. Short of breaking and entering I can’t really sneak round to my best mate’s house and steal back those embarrassing photos of me when I was thirteen and had bad hair, bad glasses and even worse dress sense.
So it’s an inevitable fact then that somewhere out there, under someone’s bed, on someone’s bookcase of photo albums or (horror of horrors) on someone’s mantelpiece, someone is holding onto one of those “but that’s not me!” photos, and there’s not really a lot you can do about it. Those pictures, sadly, are you, they’re part of your life story, and they reveal a truth about you that’s undeniable.
After all, the camera never lies, does it?
Maybe not. But what about a portrait? I recently spent an afternoon visiting the National Gallery. I went to see the Christen Købke exhibition, Danish Master of Light, and it got me thinking about portraits and pictures. As I sat and looked around the room at Købke’s portraits I wondered what it was - if anything – I could learn from these paintings and, on a broader scale, what it is I could learn – if anything – from any portrait. Does a portrait portray a truth about the character of the subject, their story, their virtues and vices? Or does it present us with a lie, an illusory image designed to seduce the viewer into a particular way of seeing the sitter?
One obvious difference between a photo and a portrait of course is the role of the artist. Now, I’m not for a second suggesting that photography isn’t also legitimately ‘portraiture’ in the fullest sense of being an art-form, but the photography I’m referring to here isn’t art photography, but ‘snapshot’ photography – the type of photos taken on a night out with the girls or by your dad when you’re least expecting it at some family ‘do’. No, in portraiture there must, by necessity, be an artist who creates, whereas in snapshot photography there need only be someone who points and shoots. So, given the essential role of the artist, what is their job as the portrait artist – to recreate a ‘true’ image of the sitter or to interpret and inspire a specific perspective?
In either case, whether a portrait portrays or betrays a truth or lie about its sitter, what is it about that afternoon spent at the National Gallery that stuck with me and got me thinking? And why would this, and the process of sorting through photos, prompt me to emerge from my blog-writing slumber and write another post? Well, it all comes down to this – whether it be the art of portraiture or the artlessness of snapshot photography, it’s all a question of image.
I worry about image a lot. And no, not because I’m horribly vain, but because I’m horribly human. Its part of being human, I think, that we reflect upon who we are and how we present ourselves to the world. Most of us check ourselves, even if only cursorily, in the mirror before we leave the house. If going for an interview we don our best suit or slip on our smartest heels. We buy a new dress or shirt for a first date and spend hours preening ourselves in our bedrooms, checking our hair, putting on make up. Why? Because we care how we look. We care how we come across to other people. And because we want to be in control of how other people see us. And of course it isn’t just a question of our physical selves. Do we not all strive to present outwardly that image of ourselves that we most want the world to see? An image of strength, of confidence, of intellectual or physical achievement. We don’t tend to want the world to see those bits of ourselves we’re not so keen on – our insecurities, our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses. Isn’t it fair to say that pretty much all of us attempt to keep these bits hidden away from people, at least from those we don’t know, have only just met or perhaps just don’t trust?
In this sense then it seems to me that we are all our own portrait artists, each of us standing with brush and palette in hand and a canvas before us on which to create an ‘image’ of ourselves. We all have a certain degree of control over the “snapshot” we provide of ourselves to the world and a certain degree of control over which snapshots get stuck in the photo album and which end up in the bin. But that control is inevitably limited, for at the end of the day there will always be someone who sees us differently to how we see ourselves, and more often than not this is in fact the case.
I know there have been times when I have felt my brush and palette being taken away from me and an image painted of me which I neither recognise nor like. This can be as uncomfortable, if not more, as seeing one of those “but that’s not me” photographs. When this happens its good perhaps to remember that we can reinvent and recreate ourselves as many times as we want on our canvas – there’s no limits to this and no limits to the images of ourselves that we can present to the world. If we feel ourselves trapped inside a picture frame of a portrait of ourselves that we don't like then there’s nothing else to do but to force yourself out and slip into your artist’s smock. Hold the brush rather than be the canvas, choose your own palette rather than be coloured by another’s image of you - the chances are you’ll end up with a far more beautiful and brilliant artwork than you could ever imagine.
It’s a bit of an epic this post, admittedly, and so I wanted to sign off this piece with some wise words. As is my way I went on a search for a good quote. Now, I have to admit I’m not really a Star Trek fan, but after stumbling across some quotations from Deep Space Nine on Wikiquote (as one does) I must say I’m seriously considering becoming one. I was amazed by the sheer philosophical brilliance of quotes such as
“There comes a time in every man’s life when he must stop thinking and start doing.”
“It takes courage to look inside yourself and even more courage to write it for other people to see.”
And finally,
“Females and finances don't mix” (my personal favourite!)
Geeenius!
So, it is with the wise words of Jadzia Dax that I’ll sign off for now;
“If you want to know who you are, it's important to know who you've been”.
What better reason then to dig out those old photo albums...... Those old pictures of you never lie you know.
* The image used is by Jeremy Lawrence, www.futtfuttfuttphotography.com
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