In Defense of Self-Portraits or, "Dah-ling, you look mah-velous!"

Ok, so we all hate photos of ourselves. I don't like getting my picture taken because I never like the way I look when I see the photo. I compare myself to the way I looked ten years ago. I was thinner; my hair had less gray in it; I had fewer wrinkles. What I usually find myself saying is, "Don't aim that camera at me -- I look terrible!" And the last thing I thought I'd ever do is . . . take a photo of myself deliberately!

Ok, so no one looks as "good" as they did ten years ago - why would we expect to? Isn't that just silly? Ten years of living is going to leave its mark on us, especially if we are living life to the fullest. Every gray hair has its story, every wrinkle, too, and would we honestly give up a single wonderful meal shared with family and/or friends in order to carry just one or two fewer pounds?

So let me put in just a few words in defense of self-portraits, in favor of jumping into (instead of out of) group photos, and of allowing others to point their cameras our way because we do want to be captured in all our glory and with all our imperfections because . . . ten years from now . . . we aren't going to look as good as we do today, right now!

That's right - ten years from now we will look back at the pictures and say "whoa, baby, I looked good!"

My advice? Get out that camera, hold it at arm's length, point it at your face and take a photo because, dah-ling, you look simply mah-velous!