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Photography has long become a familiar part of life, and we are all its objects. And yet, some not only do not strive to get into the frame, but by all means avoid it. Is there something wrong with them?
There are those among us who run from a photographic lens like fire. For example, 33-year-old Galina. “I don’t like myself in the photo, not because I think I’m ugly. It’s just that there is a noticeable difference between my idea of myself and what I see on the screen or on paper. And she is not in favor of photography! I think I’m better in life.» Better in real life or worse in pictures?
Psychoanalyst Virginie Meggle considers this attitude “more a sign of real freedom than an expression of vulnerability”: why should we force ourselves to fix an image that we don’t like?
Why don’t we like to be photographed?
I am critical of myself
“Photography stops movement and turns off the life in us,” continues the psychoanalyst. “Looking at yourself in such a frozen state is disturbing, especially for those who lack a good attitude towards themselves. They see nothing but flaws.» And they do not realize that others can treat them much less critically than they themselves.
“No one perceives objectively our body, which we show to others,” adds Else Godard, psychoanalyst and philosopher. “We look at it from the inside, and our view is influenced by life experience, today’s mood and much more.” Perhaps time will pass — and we ourselves will see the same picture in a completely different way.
I don’t want to be an object
Photographing an event or a person means turning them into objects that can be symbolically possessed, the American novelist Susan Sontag believed. Virginie Meggle does not refute this: “The first mirror in which a child is reflected is the look of his mother. So wrote the famous child psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott. The mother who inspires confidence knows that the ultimate destiny of the child is to no longer belong to her.
It can be hypothesized that those who do not like to be photographed lacked a loving, tender, invigorating, liberating look to absorb. Such people were the objects of unconscious death projections, depriving them of their freedom. For them, avoiding the lens means escaping such projections and trying to exist outside the view of others.
It’s hard for me to find my place
So, Galina does not like herself in photographs, but she regrets that she is not in family albums, her rightful place among relatives is empty. “To refuse a photo means to get rid of oneself, to voluntarily erase oneself from history,” says Virginie Meggle. — And in this case, one should ask the question: what is it about this place that makes it so difficult for me to be there? What exactly is the discomfort?
This is the riddle that we need to start with if we want to participate in the modern social game: taking pictures and taking pictures.
What to do
accept yourself
Ideally — with all the shortcomings. True, for this to happen, it takes time and firm intention. It is also helpful to remind ourselves that photography is not part of who we are. It does not define us, and we are not obliged to comply with it.
Be the boss
Why not transform from an object into a subject — from a subject of an image into a photographer? This is a good way to assert yourself. You can also try yourself in the selfie genre. This is how we get a photograph that captures not someone else’s view of us, but our own. In addition, we can choose the moment when we like ourselves.
Conclude an agreement
If your loved ones want to take pictures of you, set a condition. Explain that you have a special relationship with photography and ask them to take it into account. You can arrange to be given to choose from a series of shots the one you like best. Or warn that you agree to post the picture in the family album, but not on Facebook (an extremist organization banned in Russia). You can also ask to make it available only to a certain group of friends, and not to everyone.