Teenage Photos - SHORT ESSAY
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I don’t have any photos of myself as a teenager. They do exist
– my family have most of them, in files on computers - but collectively, there probably
aren’t enough to mark the months of my life. Any print outs were ripped to
shreds and binned years ago.
When I hit eleven years old, I stopped being in photos. I would
completely refuse to pose for them and shout at my parents if they tried to
take a candid shot. If groups of friends wanted a photo, I’d offer to be the
one to take it. For school trip photos or family gatherings, I became adept at
standing at an angle, ducking my face, or finding some way to conceal myself
from the camera without anyone noticing until it was too late. I found it secretly
hilarious when people would say ‘Oh no, you can’t see you in that one, Cara’,
as if that wasn’t the best possible outcome.
I should say – I have never, at any point in my life, like
photos. A significant factor is that I am actually, objectively, horrible at posing
for them. I manage to blink in every single flash photo and at least 90% of
non-flash photos. Its almost impressive, but not, because I have to look at
them afterwards and cringe at my stupid expressions.
But in my teenage years, this cringing reaction morphed not intense
feelings of worthlessness. It’s not a unique feeling – with each day I
progressed through puberty, my self-esteem plummeted. Everything about my body
distressed me, and when I saw a photo of it, I felt like I was seeing proof that
everyone else could see what I saw in the mirror. Ultimately, my biggest fear as
a teenager was the simple act of being seen by someone else. Photos only
multiplied the chances of that happening.
The other day, I found a photo of myself when I was eleven.
It was probably one of the few photos I couldn’t avoid, and one of the ones
that led me to dramatically fighting with anyone who tried to take one from
that point on wards. I could only look at the photo with sadness. I remember the
bad years all too well.
The thing is, looking at that photo, I can see what it was that
I feared. My skin is terrible, and teeth are wonky. Only now,
almost a full decade later, can I recognise how little this really mattered. I had
just hit puberty! I was supposed to have bad skin. And I don’t look – contrary
to my previous beliefs – like a sum of bad spots and bad teeth. I just look
like a person – a human. I look as good and as bad as everyone else.
It has taken me years to be able to see my photos for what
they are – snapshots of a person. Photos of myself as a teenager are just
photos – of a teenager. They show the place and the time and the stage of life
that I was at. With the distance of time, I can now look at the old photos of
myself with the same levels of criticism I have when looking at photos of everyone
else. I can see the original intention behind the photo – the desire to capture
a memory – from a birthday party, a family holiday, a rainy day spent in my
sister’s bedroom listening to music. I can see the value of the photo, and I can
see why my parents so desperately wanted to take them.
I wish I could say that taking photos now has become easier for
me. It is true that I don’t fear it as much (and I don’t make other people’s lives
so difficult when they want to take them), but I will probably never be happy in
front of a camera. And that’s okay.
Ultimately, if I could speak to my teenage self now – there is
so much I would want to say (that is another blog post entirely), but I wouldn’t
ask her to take more photos. The pain was so extreme and the memories so close,
I can still reach out and touch it. Refusing a photo was my best defence mechanism.
Denying my body’s existence was the closest I could come to being at peace with
it. And now, years later, I have to come to peace with that. I have the
memories, if not the proof.