“Mind if I take a photo?”
“Go ahead—just make sure you get my good side.”
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had this interaction since beginning street photography a year and a half ago.
Generally speaking, the people of New York are generous with their image, and if they spot you trying to take a photo, they will smile, straighten their back, and strike a pose. Everyone wants to look good for the camera, even the ones who play it off with nonchalance.
What I’ve learned is “get my good side” doesn’t mean “capture what is most beautiful about me“; it means “make me look like how I’m supposed to.“
Each of us swim in an ocean of images and the world is constantly teaching us what a face, a body, a human should look like. Whether we like it or not, it permeates us. And people tend to imitate what they look at most.
The irony about people posing for the camera (at least in street photography) is that they often stop doing the very thing that made me want to take a photo of them. The more they try to look like how they’re supposed to, the less they look like themselves.
The chest expands, the lips get tighter, the chin tilts a little less daringly. Even if their appearance remains the same, you can tell the spirit has left them. It’s astounding how one camera can turn a whole man into a mannequin.
I like to joke that I have no good side. I tell people that God gave me a face for podcasting.
I don’t mean it, but people who aren’t used to self-deprecating humor usually get uncomfortable, while the people with gentle natures rush to disagree with me.
To be sure, I am more than aware of my shortcomings in the aesthetic sense. At thirty years old, I am more or less at peace with them.
In fact, someone asked me recently how much I care what people think about me. The answer is that I care deeply. There’s a big difference, though, between caring what people think and being afraid of it.
Being afraid is the art-killer. It’s the little death that blinds us to light and grace. You can see the same lack of grace (we can give the word its double meaning here) in the people who notice my camera on the streets and tighten up. The ones who beg me, “Please, don’t get my bad side.”*
I wish I could tell them that there is no bad side. Maybe there’s no good side either. Both stem from the same unrealistic idea about perfection. An idea which I am fundamentally opposed to— or, at least, that I find humiliatingly unattainable.
If there is a dichotomy, I don’t think it’s between good and bad. If anything, it’s between flawless and human. You can be perfect or you can be beautiful. But you can’t be both.
At least, that’s what I tell myself. And for now, I think it’s working.
*This paragraph riffs off George Herbert and Simone Weil
About the Author:
Bradley Andrews is a hopeful rabble-rouser on a mission to inspire the world. Stay in touch with what he’s doing by subscribing to a weekly digest of his activity through micro.blog. This will send you writing, photos, and other curiosities that you are guaranteed to love.
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