Camera shy

Standing at the end of the slide from the backyard Bouncy-Bounce at a neighborhood party, I did the unthinkable. I slung my camera over my shoulder, balanced it on the small of my back and took a turn at playing catch.

Silly mommy.

Ittybit had been having the time of her life. At 17 months old, she was finally free. Inside the inflated room she defied gravity with wild abandon. Up until this point she had been happy to have her father’s arms at the ready. This time, though, only mommy would do.

It was a children’s party and I had been milling around taking pictures at kid-eye level; getting my lens as close as humanly possible to the water, and keeping my fingers crossed that the sand would stay on the beach.

It had been a success up to this point. As the family photographer, I had amassed a veritable treasure trove of colorful shots of children doing what they do best: engaging in joyful noise. I quietly observed and tried to translate those observations into images that could stand on their own.

I could only hear her constant giggle when I felt the clunky camera body slide off the flat of my back. Instantly I felt a weight in my stomach as it contracted into the realization that the weight of it would hit her squarely in the forehead.

Game over.

“She’s going to hate you for that one,” says my conscience.

Often, when I raise my camera, a collective groan trickles through the room. My family loves me, and they complement my abilities, but they don’t always want to indulge my passion for collecting all their moments for posterity. I worry that my friends chatter in my absence that they would rather I take a walk and aim my lens at the proverbial tree falling in the forrest. Sometimes I can hear them whispering to each other:

“Does she HAVE to do this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t she have enough pictures yet?”

“One would think so ...”

I have become so sensitive to the perceived criticism that I have politely asked family members if they would mind being photographed, almost as if they were strangers.

I muddle on with my obsession none-the-less. I use only the light available in the room to minimize my impact on the event, and I force myself to be satisfied with what I have when the gazes coming back into my viewfinder turn icy.

I know there will be only one good image for every 100 mediocre ones. I can wait for another opportunity. Magic, after all, only lasts for a moment.

I suppose having my own child become a casualty of this obsession put it in perspective. For three days the camera never left my bag, and I used that time to reconnect with the person I was trying to lock away in a photo album minute by minute.

When I picked up the camera again, it came with a new sensitivity. A new idea of what it was I was trying to capture: A life that I was shaping. Not just physically but psychologically as well. Yes, I wanted to watch her discover things, but I also wanted to be there. I wanted to be in the moment, too.

We try to balance work and family, but how do we balance parenthood and building a photographic record of that history?

Like every obsessed parent, I was showing rafts of personal images to a friend, and as he marveled at the sheer amount of photographs I had amassed of my growing girl, I voiced my concern about the intrusiveness of having every moment documented and preserved

He stopped me.

“I was the youngest of nine,” he said a little mournfully. “I think she will feel lucky. ... My folks have exactly one picture of me under the age of 10. I wish I had something to look back on to show I’d once been small.”

Perhaps that’s the way I shall have to look at it. Something to look back on to show we were here, we were happy and we were loved.

And, of course, it wouldn’t hurt to keep a small supply of Band-Aids handy, either.