Vignettes: In the eye of the beholder
As a photographer I am the beholder of my community, and beauty is in my eyes.
Photo: Tim Andries
When I was studying at photography school, each first year student was assigned a second year student to photograph for a class called Photographic Lighting. The intent was to practice lighting in the studio and the portrait was to capture first-year impressions of our upper classmates. We all drew names; my piece of paper read “Lorissa”.
Lorissa and I ran in different circles so I did not know her well. My interactions with her, while few, were always pleasant and friendly. Also, she was beautiful. As a result I was nervous and a bit intimidated as we set in to the shoot, but we conversed, she co-operated, and before long I had what I needed. The Lorissa I knew — a bright smile and a warm, equable countenance — had presented herself to my camera, and I had captured her.
As I was printing the assignment and preparing to hand it in, Lorissa asked for a copy. I made another print, slipped it into an envelope, and gave it to her as we left school for the weekend. When she took the envelope my heart sank and I felt my stomach twist.
The real Lorissa, that beautiful girl who had sat for me to make her portrait, bore at least twenty small moles on her face and down her neck; the Lorissa on the paper in the envelope showed none of these marks.
It was then that I understood all too poignantly and much too late what I want to tell you now, that every photograph is a statement. I had carelessly bowed to a pervasive and sinister idea that beauty meant perfection. I declared the same when I cloned out Lorissa’s moles. Worse, I said as much to her when I gave her the picture. Instead of affirming the beautiful girl that I saw and that she was, I told her that she ought to be perfect, that she was not.
The photographer’s craft is to see light and to creatively compose the object of that light within a frame. In doing so we take the truth and tell it. It is a declarative act that, when focused on the image of another, bears significant weight. The tools we use are capable construction or destruction, the same as a hammer. Seek to understand what it is you see; be careful about what you tell. Beauty is in your eyes, and you tell it with every photograph you make.
Tim Andries
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