My sister (Thanks, V!) took the photo above during spring break, when we were traveling together. (As an aside, I highly recommend Nashville as a great city for a family vacation. I can give reasons sometime to anyone who wants to hear my thoughts...or maybe I'll write a Why Nashville post and force my opinions on lots of people as I do every week.) Shortly before she captured this image, we took other photos of ourselves with an old friend of ours (Hi, BT!) in front of a different Nashville mural. Our first plan was to take a group selfie (groupie?), but when a stranger appeared nearby, we asked if she would be willing to take the shot. She complied. The photo, from a few feet away rather than taken at arm's length, was much better than it would have been without that woman's help. (Thanks, total stranger!)
Whenever I travel, if I see people trying to take a selfie or a groupie in front of a vista, I offer to take the photo for them. My bonus dad (Hi, NB!) was the first person I saw make such an offer, and I knew immediately that he was right to insert himself into those moments because even though people won't always approach others to ask, they frequently prefer a third-party photographer so that they can have a better shot and all be in it.
Oddly, or not if you've been reading my Why Wednesdays for a while, none of the above thoughts were what led me to want to write a post about taking people's photos. (Realizing once I start writing that my idea has multiple facets I hadn't considered is one of the great joys for me of having started this blog more than five and a half years ago.)
My first idea about taking photos came from one of the 2025s at my school saying that she didn't want to be in a photo I was taking. Most of the teens I work with are delighted to be 365ed. (I hope you're on board for my turning my Instagram project's name into a verb. Since I started that endeavor almost a decade ago, I think verbifying its name is fair use. Please don't correct me if I'm wrong, including about using "verbifying" above.) Some of them ask me to take pictures and others send me emails with images they'd like me to feature, but every once in a while, a student denies my request to be in a photo. Obviously, I never push them.
But I do think that they might not be thinking about the benefits of having me take their pictures the same way I am. I see several plus sides to having lots of different faces appear in my hotchkiss365 photos:
- Several parents follow my posts and are delighted to see their children participating in wholesome on-campus activities.
- Hotchkiss365 creates a lasting record of some of the positive events at our school. Someday, kids who are currently in their teens might want to look back at and/or show future friends what happened at their high school.
- While most of our students have phones and social media full of selfies, the ones who don't have such large digital footprints might someday want to see what they looked like at sixteen or seventeen.
So the next time I say, "Can I take and 365 your picture?" or "Do you want me to take that photo for you?", I hope you'll give me your consent. Someday, you might be grateful for the change in perspective. Please share your responses in the comments.
Agreed. I used to hide from photographs, but eventually I realized I often regretted it later. It’s nice to be included in memories.
I know I like having photos of you!