Sometimes imperfection is just perfect

Photographs have been on my mind of late.

Stacks of pictures, filling plastic storage hampers. Computer disks, carefully labeled and stored in a three-ring binder. A camera storage card, jam-packed with pictures.

I'm up to my ears, it seems, in photographs.

It all began with graduations. As I was shooting pictures at this year's ceremonies, I realized that in three short years, my child would be graduating.

That stopped me in my tracks.

After I quit hyperventilating, I realized that I had been sadly negligent in my duties as a mother. While thousands of pictures have been taken of Drew over the years, relatively few had been put into albums, labeled and archived. The storage boxes held many, the computer disks even more. Those hadn't even been printed out.

Then came the wedding of my nephew. I'd just gotten a good start on my resolution to print out, label and organize Drew's pictures when that photo-heavy occasion rolled around.

Suddenly, I was sorting through hundreds of new pictures, deleting the ones with eyes closed, heads turned, and the unfortunate grimace or two.

It got me thinking that, perhaps in this age of digital photography, we're losing something in our historical record.

When I look at family albums of my growing up years, I see squinting faces, dark shadows, a shot or two with a brother sticking his tongue out to the camera.

I see, in short, our unvarnished history.

When I can review, instantly, every shot I take, the final photos turn out aesthetically better, but sometimes with a bit less heart.

My album shots have very few squinting eyes, no rabbit ears placed behind an unsuspecting relative's head, and there's nary a shot with a telephone pole growing out of grandpa's cranium. They've been banished.

The artistic photographer in me can't bear to see those less-than-perfect shots printed out. So, they languish on the disk, if they even make it that far.

There's a reason that, when looking at our family albums, it appears that my son and husband have been on some great father-son vacations. Actually there are two reasons. Number one, I'm the one behind the camera lens. And, number two, I am notoriously unphotogenic.

So, moving forward I vow to print those "oops" shots. I will grin and bear my utterly horrible grimaces for the camera. I will pretend I'm back in the days of my growing up, when what you took was what you got.

Perhaps there's even time to get a "rabbit ears" shot or two.