“Eurgh, delete that please,” I uttered, shuddering.
My boyfriend was delighted with the picture he’d just captured of my son and I dancing in the kitchen. I felt differently. Where he saw joy, all I saw was a lopsided toothy grin and a fat arse. He wanted the picture framed. I wanted it binned.
In a world of social media addicts, we fall into two camps – those who selfie, and those who do not. But beyond the limitations of our own arm length, it seems women are becoming increasingly shy, more often favouring being the photographer at family gatherings than entrusting our images to others.
It’s a situation that makes professional photographer Rebecca Holmes sigh in dismay. A specialist in capturing happy, natural photographs of women and families, she’s on a mission to get more women in front of the camera. Why? This holiday season in particular, she argues, risks going undocumented. With fewer people gathering, the opportunities to be photographed will be reduced – and it is women who will disappear from the picture in a year that, believe it or not, we will likely want to look back on decades from now.
So, we sat down (virtually) with Rebecca to get to the bottom of the issue, and seek some professional advice on smiling naturally, rather than grimacing, in snapshots…
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