On Imperfection

I have boxes stacked upon boxes of printed photographs that tell the story of the first forty years of my life (and even more boxes and suitcases and slide carousels that hold the visual legacies of my parents and their parents). When my first child was born, I used a Canon point and shoot to snap a gazillion images of him at every stage. Most, if not all, of those images are entirely and beautifully imperfect. I usually missed focus or had my settings somehow off, or I was sleep-deprived and chasing a toddler and completely forgot to apply any rules of composition. None of it mattered, though, the images were just for me, and I loved them. There was no social media, and no one was viewing those snapshots as an example of the work I could produce. When I bid on a photography job, those photos stayed neatly in their boxes.

I still regularly take them out and pour through the images of my pre-instagram life, and all I see are my son’s dimples or the jumper I made for him with my first sewing machine. I’m transported to that afternoon in the park when he first put his wiggly toddler feet in the sandbox and I remember the feeling of the sticky breeze on that ferry ride when he was two and a half. It never even occurs to me that these images aren’t worthy because of their photographic imperfection. It’s possible, in fact, that they’re even more valuable to me for that exact reason. I was so firmly rooted in those moments, that I was only thinking about a quick snap to remind me later. No recomposing a moment or moving around to get better light or a more flattering angle. I just took the picture and resumed being present.

Now though, I grapple with my imperfect images. The voices of so many teachers and mentors playing on a loop, reminding me to “only show in your portfolio what you want to photograph professionally”. Sound advice for a photographer, to be sure, but what to do with the less than perfect photos? Doesn’t every image I put into the world become a representation of my work? My “personal” Instagram and Facebook accounts aren’t really personal, after all. So, instead of lifting my camera to my eye, I either don’t, or I take the photo and I’m afraid to share it, so it lives in the cloud, never to be seen again (because, digital).

This summer, I decided to get over myself and lean in to the imperfection. I’ve been posting my 100 Days of Summer images without overthinking which frame to select, (for those of you who aren’t over thinkers or second guessers, this is much harder than it sounds) and without any more editing than converting to jpeg (this feels something like I imagine going outside naked might feel).

A few weeks ago, I put a 40mm lens on my camera (because it’s the lightest one I have) and went to the woods. An exercise in letting go, I documented our week in all of its imperfection with that one lens. Beautiful and messy, fun, intimate, filled with connection, rest, food, and love. I’ll never look at these images and care that I cropped someone at the ankle or that I missed focus in the foreground. All I see is how it felt to be there. Those loop voices are starting to quiet down, and to my surprise, other external noises are dimming as well. The lesson for me has been in thinking less and feeling more.

It’s freeing.