191/2010 switching roles, originally uploaded by rosipaw.
I wasn’t too keen on today’s Daily Shoot task.
Who are you? Make a self portrait today and show the rest of us what you look like.
In general, I’d rather stay behind the camera than be photographed myself. I’ve been like this most of my life. I get very self-conscious about posing, and quite honestly, I don’t think I’m very photogenic. Most photos of me are either with my eyes closed, or with a totally unnatural, wooden expression on my face. I just freeze in front of the camera. Lack of practice, my daughter – a real poser – would say. Sometimes I’ve thought that, later on, when my daughter possibly goes through all my photos, she will be wondering, “But where’s mum? What did she look like?” Maybe I ought to have more pictures of myself for her to look back on.
Actually, it’s a very challenging question to ask: who are you. How do you show to strangers the essence of yourself in just one two dimensional photo, or how much of yourself do you want to reveal publicly anyway? I guessed many people in the Daily Shoot group would go for abstract, symbolic self-portraits with artistically high-quality pictures. I, however, read the assignment quite literally. Deep inside I don’t feel much different now than when I was just a girl. It’s such a pity that my photographs don’t depict my inner self any more! Nevertheless, I wanted to try to be young again, so I decided to try a typical “teen-pose” in front the mirror. I asked my daughter to show me how it’s done. She’s a real pro at this, and willingly taught me the tricks of the trade. I wasn’t a very fast-learning student, though… Consequently, today’s pictures became just tongue-in-cheek snaps.
This happens more and more at school, too. I am learning to be the facilitator, and give up my position as the sole possessor of knowledge that I need to fill students’ brains with. Especially with technology, but very often with English vocabulary, too, it’s the students who, in turn, teach and guide me. It’s really liberating to free yourself from the idea that to keep face, you need to know it all.
