Wordless Wednesday – the importance of the self-portraits

I know this is supposed to be a photo speaking for itself without the need for words, so if you prefer that – don’t read any further and thanks for stopping by!

A few months ago I blogged about how I tried to avoid being in pictures as much as possible because I thought I wasn’t thin enough, young enough, pretty enough etc. etc. etc. I always felt self-conscious posing in pictures and always worried about how they would look.

I knew from experience that I should make more of an effort to be in pictures. After all, when my mother passed away she left a very good history of herself in pictures, and she never balked at letting me take pictures of her. I  certainly appreciate that now because I have so many photos to look at and remember her. When the time comes, I want my kids to have some pictures to remember me by too.

So I started to go through my Flickr account and I was kind of surprised to see that I had over 100 pictures of myself (out of thousands!) in there already!  Some alone, but mostly with my kids or Mr. Pete, commemorating a special event or a certain period of time. Truth be told, seeing them all together made me feel happy because I could remember the circumstances around each photo.

I’ll probably never be a great selfie-taker, like Kim Kardashian – but I’m not really interested in that anyway.  I’m more interested in capturing the history of my family as it happens, so that our snippet of time on this earth can be documented, shared and cherished with our children’s children. And I guess since I’m part of that I should make more of an effort in front of the lenses, as well as behind them!