My boyfriend hates having his picture taken. I get it—I’m the same way. It took everything we had to get through our pregnancy photo shoot. We spent the whole time joking around to make ourselves feel more comfortable, even though the photographer was a friend of ours.
But deep down, he loves taking pictures of his little family. His dog was his number-one star for years. Then we came up with the idea of taking pictures of our feet for all our “firsts”—whether it was at a ski resort, a tea shop, or even while camping. That’s changed recently with the arrival of our daughter. The thing is, it’s not that he takes pictures—it’s that they often don’t turn out very well.
When they’re blurry, he blames it on his cell phone, saying he should buy a better one. To tell the truth, it’s not just the blurriness that keeps my husband from taking good photos. In fact, he’s not a photographer—period. The basics of framing and angle just don’t come naturally to him. Let’s just say it doesn’t flatter anyone to have a double chin in a photo.
In the last photo he took of us, I look like a squirrel stocking up for winter, with my cheese sandwich in my mouth. If only I had a warning before he pressed the button!
Sometimes we’re apart for a while because of his work. Our solution to help cope with the distance has been to send each other photos of ourselves or our day. At Christmas two years ago, I sent him a photo of all the cereal I’d spilled on the floor while doing my third back-to-back set. Or the time I came back from the grooming salon and our dog looked like anything but our dog. That’s how we stay close even when we’re far apart. I can tell you, sometimes I don’t even recognize my husband. I have a good laugh when I get a photo of his face that fills my phone screen.
But when I look at the photos my husband takes, I tell myself he’s trying to capture those moments that belong to us. Despite the poorly framed and blurry photos, I always manage to see the love he has for me and our family. His clumsiness with the camera is part of his charm—something I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.