Melissa

Melissa is the daughter of a friend of mine and she hates having her photo taken. She hates it almost as much as her mother and me. Regardless of how much she hates it, she is a very pretty girl and this shows very clearly in the resulting images when she does get in front of the camera.

I don't know what it is about the camera but personally I shy away from it every time. I don't like the way I look in a photograph and usually focus on the negatives of the image rather than the whole. So when someone tells me they don't like themselves in a photo I first ask them what it is about the photo that they don't like.




Is there a way we can avoid that happening, or find a position that doesn't accentuate the bit that is not liked. Usually the answer is yes we can avoid it when just a little bit of thought. We do have a good side and a bad side - no argument there - it's just finding which is which and recognising it. As a photographer it means looking with the finished image in mind and making whatever small changes are required to achieve a positive outcome.