As We Digress: Photograph at the Studio

This experience never ceases to revolt me each time I'm at a studio for a personal photograph; this time, it's a graduation photo. Those trips depersonalize the whole beauty of a portrait of you. You're there with a complete stranger who wants to make you look good the way he/she wants. A beautiful photograph should capture the essence of you, not capture the way the photographer thinks is beautiful.

A photograph is the still you, that's why the photographer should know you personally, and that's why the most beautiful photographs are those taken by people who know you intimately, or by someone who knows what you're like. At least that's the case with me.

So, since there's graduation-photo traffic (because the university only gives the graduation gowns to one specific studio) I had to leave a studio-full of students yesterday (a minimum of 75 students) and come back first thing in the morning. 8 in the morning is not the best timing to have your photograph taken, because not only have you just woken up, but interaction with a complete stranger with a camera just wouldn't get you anywhere.

So there I am, with make up on (the very least possible, only enough to define the sleepy eyes) at 8 in the morning, sitting in a dark room, with the photographer asking me to change about 3 different gowns because none of them zip well, and I ran out of patience trying to fix the stupid zipper when it finally works. I sit on a stool, and the photographer holds the camera and says: "okay, now smile" without one drop of emotion spilling out of his voice, and I throw in my very shy smile, and he takes 8 other shots, asking me to tilt my head to the right, then to the left, then give him a bigger smile, to which I obliged hatefully (it completely showed on my face as I viewed the shots later). After he finishes he asks me if I need to throw in other poses or props, to which I hastily replied with a sharp no. Ok, it was sharp in my head, but came out nicer. The reason I'm against the whole photo thing is the following story.

These graduation pictures are supposed to go on the year book, which I wouldn't really mind had not this thing taken place. A friend of mine had her picture on there too, and on a summer day her mother got a call from a lady claiming to have pulled out their number from the directory. The reason of this call was that the lady's son wanted to propose to my friend. A complete stranger wanted to visit her in her own home with his mother tagging along so they can ask for her hand, out of nowhere. This, my friends, is the reason I don't want my photo on there; not because I'm afraid people would call me up and ask for my hand, as freaky as that might be alone, but it's the mentalities of those people viewing this year book, which is supposed to be a book with the main events of the academic year of 2009/2010.

Eventually, I went for the very first shot the photographer took of me. I wonder how it's going to turn out.