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Lylah M. Alphonse's Blog

Where'd I go?

I was sorting through photos for our Christmas cards when I noticed that I don't have a single, solitary shot with me in it. Plenty of great photos of the kids, a fantastic one of our three oldest with my husband, cute pictures of the littles two with my husband or each other or their big siblings or grandparents, but photos of any of them with me? Not a one.

Where'd I go?

13 comments so far...

One day a couple years ago, my husband and I were looking through old photos of the family. I was putting together a scrapbook that depicted my husband's first 10 years together. He finally came to the realization that we have almost no pictures of me. He couldn't figure that out.

I reminded him that I am always the one who takes the pictures. A lightbulb went off.

I would have to say that my husband is great. Since that day, he has made a point of making sure I am now not the only one taking the photos. Many times he will now be the one to grab the camera. We have many more pictures of mom.

Flag as inappropriate Posted by Kimberly Reddington on 11th September 2009
Everyone beat me to it. Where are you? Behind the camera. That, of course, means not that you're vanished in your family: it means you're central to your family, the hub, the core, the thing that holds it together. I imagine that most of the time, you don't mind this role at all.

But once in a while, we all need to hand the reins - and the camera - to someone else.

Flag as inappropriate Posted by MaryP on 6th December 2007
Dancinmama, that's exactly what I felt!!!

Flag as inappropriate Posted by Lylah M. Alphonse on 6th December 2007
Its quite a check-in moment to realize that you get so busy taking care of everyone else sometimes that you do disappear....

I remember having a similar experience last year and being a little angry for a moment before I realized that I was the one who needed to make sure I was in there participating and to remind my family to take care of me sometimes too...!! (without my having to ask..)

Flag as inappropriate Posted by dancinmama on 6th December 2007
Does your camera have a timer? Make that your goal for this week (you have 3 days left) . . . sit it somewhere . . . fluff up that do and just snap one . . .

I like the 365 days idea . . .

It's also kind of fun to ask your children to take shots of you . . . even though they may be a bit off, or blurry, that's a memory in and of itself :)

Flag as inappropriate Posted by Naomi on 6th December 2007
Ladies, thank you so much for all of yuor comments. I stopped feeling sorry for myself long enough to remember that my little brother got married last year, and I raided his stash of wedding photos and found one of me dancing with my husband. I figure... aside from growing a little more gray and gaining a couple more pounds, we don't look much different now than we did last year. So, problem solved. And the wondering-what-went-wrong part of my problem is sovled, too -- thanks to all of you!

Flag as inappropriate Posted by Lylah M. Alphonse on 5th December 2007
hand over that camera!

well i have to say we actually have pictures of both of us because we fight over the camera LOL!

Flag as inappropriate Posted by Kate on 5th December 2007
Same here... I'm the one who takes all the pictures in our household... especially with the new addition to the family... all i do is take pictures... bc if my husband takes them - they come out completely blurry!!!! So I don't have a lot of great shots of myself :(

Flag as inappropriate Posted by Victoria on 5th December 2007
You should head on over to flickr.com and check into the 365 self portrait group. It's a project I participated in. You take one self portrait every day for a year. It was a lot of fun to do!

Flag as inappropriate Posted by KathyHowe on 5th December 2007
I noticed the same thing! The only pics of me and the girls are the ones I've taken by holding the camera out and pointing it at is. Some of them are good, though, so I'm using one of those on our holiday card.

Flag as inappropriate Posted by Mandy Nelson - Dandysound on 5th December 2007
That's the hazard of being the one operating the camera - in my family, it's my husband who's usually missing from pictures, because he'd rather take them than be in them. Most of the pictures of him were taken with my camera - and in them, he's taking a picture of something! :-)

But yes, you need to be in those family pictures too, Lylah, so hand over the camera!

Flag as inappropriate Posted by Florinda Pendley Vasquez on 5th December 2007
I'm the one who's usually taking the pictures, too (ironically, I have no eye for photos... but I figure that semi-crappy shots are better than nothing)! And I feel silly insisting that someone take a picture of me. But I think I'm going to have to round everyone up and insist...

Flag as inappropriate Posted by Lylah M. Alphonse on 5th December 2007