Photographic Autobiographies

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good tale as much as most people, a well spun story or fantastical adventure, or a thriller with just enough thrill to kind of tingle the back of my neck. But when having to choose just one genre of literature, I invariably choose biographies. Or autobiographies. I've often said that there are so many inspiring, death defying, injustice challenging, riveting life stories out there that I find myself less and less intrigued by fiction. I'd rather spend my time walking along side someone in their real life experiences. I want to gobble up all the fortitude I can muster from someone who's gone down a path that causes me to re-evaluate what I consider to be so darned important or challenging in my own life.

Biographies that influence me are often stories like Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt), from whom I recognized I'd rather be the oppressed than the oppressor, and Christy (Catherine Marshall) that stretch of a biography that draws upon the experience of the author's mother as a teenaged "Christy" who traveled into the dark recesses of Appalachia to learn from a young student that we ain't got no right to not like anybody that God Himself has created. Or, Nelson Madela's Long Walk to Freedom which requires no further explanation.

In a similar way, I see photographs. Sure, I like posed studio photos that capture the best of everybody in the shot, but they've started feeling a bit contrived to me, all a bit the same except for the subjects, and maybe a bit fictitious. Those photos are controlled, staged, one step out of real life drama and experience. According to me.

These days, many people have the means to provide the world with impromptu visual offerings of their life and experiences. I like seeing photographs of families, individuals, groups, friends, or strangers all caught spontaneously in a moment that matters. These moments tell a story of being somewhere, living and breathing and seeing and smelling and hearing and laughing or crying ... not thinking about the pose, not creating a fictional setting.

And now, added to the mix, we've got the infamous "selfie." As I gazed upon a particular selfie recently, it occurred to me that selfies get a bad rap. This person was sharing with me a part of a real life experience. I was getting to journey along with them just as I would in an autobiography. This selfie happened mostly because this happened to be a solitary "journier," a sole person with no one else to capture them in that moment that mattered. Artists have long provided much appreciated self portraits, interpretations of themselves. Now we are merely offering and receiving digital self portraits.

Henceforth, therefore, I shall appreciate the selfie, photo bombers and all. I shall remember what value there is in the moment shared, whether it be one person or a group who doesn't want to have to leave anyone out of the picture. Just as I might choose not to read certain autobiographies, I might choose not to enjoy certain selfies, and still, I am pleased that my new awareness is that Selfies = Photographic Autobiographies.