A short post about photographs

I’m not an ugly guy. Let’s be honest, I’m not exactly Brad Pitt either, but I rate myself a cautious 6.5 on the Completely Arbitrary Aesthetic Assessment Apparatus (patent pending). I might increase that to a giddy 7.5 if I’m wearing nice clothes or the light is especially bad. I wish I could say that looks do not matter- but as long as they do I feel blessed to be of average attractiveness. I am all too aware of the alternatives, dear and soon-to-be-horrified reader.

The technological revolution of the late nineteenth century exposed a shameful secret about a small but significant fraction of the populace. These people looked just like everybody else, had similar features and so on, and generally passed unnoticed in the crowd. Some were even considered pleasant to look at, perhaps even handsome. It was only the new art of photography that exposed these charlatans to the rest of the world. While they appeared to be of regular appearance when in motion, the still image revealed their true, hideous visages.

Families and friends would be shocked at the change, disgusted by the very images they had sought to take, to keep and treasure. These ‘unphotogenic’ people would become the scourge of the captured image, ruining portraits and crowd scenes alike with their deformed, gargoyle-like countenances. I know this story all too well because… I am unphotogenic.

I mean, really. Is it too much to ask for a printed image to accurately represent the face I see in the mirror each morning? OK, I’m no Adonis, that much we’ve identified. But am I truly the shiny-faced balloon man that I see in my new Facebook photos every Sunday morning? I have been told on more than one occasion that I have a nice smile. Were those kind words spoken in truth, or were they really a horrified reaction to the manic cartoon character grin that I seem to consistently sport? I know my eyes point in the same direction in real life, so why can’t they manage it in pictures?

In order that this pain might be minimised in future I hereby present a list of classic errors made by those that would have their image immortalised. Heed my words, and may the secret uggos among you forever remain a secret.

1.Hush your gums. If you aren’t smiling, keep your flippin’ mouth shut. In a photograph no one wants to see any of the following: your tonsils, your epiglottis, your fillings, your chewed gum, the lipstick on your teeth.

2.Try and face front. I have only a passing acquaintance with the back of my head. I would probably be able to pick it out of a police line-up, but I don’t have a collection of photos devoted solely to it. At least, I didn’t, until people started taking photos of me in public. Now I have a huge public collection of pictures of my head from all angles, none of them flattering.

3.Stay still. Some of the most famous images of the 20th century are of bodies in motion, of dancers, sportsmen and soldiers. You are none of these people. Getting photographed will expose your movements as what they really are- a collection of stop-start jerks and flailing limbs. If you are being photographed while dancing, multiply this by a reasonable figure. Say… a million.

4.Time your pose. SmilesmilesmileBLINKsmilesmilesmilesmileRELAXsmilesmile. Guess when the flash went off?

5.Blow your nose. Yet another snap ruined because you’ve got a sugar frosting of ketamine around your nostril. Makes you really wish you hadn’t accepted your mother’s friend request, doesn’t it?

6.Concentrate. Normally it doesn’t take much of a conscious effort to keep you features aligned. Unfortunately, photographs and alcohol go together like… well, like photographs and alcohol. It will take mental fortitude to keep your features from melting like Morph under a hairdryer.

7.If you ain’t got it, fake it. You should have at least one ‘go-to’ pose for when the camera appears. This is your last bastion of control, with which to deflect the harsh light of photo-reality. Chaps, just make a gun with your fingers and point it at the camera. Ladies, put one finger to your lips and look beatifically into the sky. Come on people, work with me here.

8.Know when to quit. Maybe this will be the one. Maybe this will be that new profile picture I’ve been waiting for. Maybe this will be my next Christmas card. Maybe this will be the one my girlfriend likes. Maybe… oh, who am I kidding. Maybe I should just face the other way. Sigh. One more for the back-of-the-head collection.

Annulus

Here's a story for your delectation. It's called 'Annulus' and it's about... actually I have no idea what it's about. It's got a bit of sex in though. Thoughts to verbalslapstick@gmail.com. Enjoy!

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZC6fkPHcTeWZDRicnZjMl8xaGtoc2ZoaGM&hl=en

Mo' money, fewer problems

I am growing a moustache to raise money for prostate cancer research. The 'stache won't be doing the fundraising itself, obviously, that is left to you good people and the fine folks at Movember. You can sponsor me here, should you wish, or why not sign up yourself, and change the face of men's health by growing something on yours. Go on, do good- don't shave.

Laughing at the man in the mirror

Last Friday night I sat down with several friends in a living room lit by candles to watch TV medium Derek Acorah contact the spirit of recently deceased King of Pop Michael Jackson. Now that sentence reads like the opening splash panel of a Transmetropolitan comic, but that is genuinely what I did with my Friday- my housemates were keen to watch it and I thought it worth it just to remain in their company.

This sort of thing is so far removed from my normal viewing habits that it might as well have been Ricky Tomlinson presenting an episode of America’s Next Top Model where the contestants have to show off jetpack flightsuits designed by chimps. If it isn’t The Wire or Buffy I’m not really interested. I would much rather have watched something else, while secretly hoping that THAT show would be interrupted by an emergency news broadcast detailing the shocking Michael Jackson led outbreak of zombie celebrities. But I had enough cynicism and Pringles to get me through the most painful televisual encounter, so I sucked it up.

I would like to say that I spent the whole two hours indulgently but sarcastically mocking the show and my friends desire to watch it, and well… I did, really. I spent two hours laughing- mostly at the witticisms of my friends but partly at the ludicrous nature of the whole situation. Hearing Acorah mumble his way through an unconvincing séance in his faint Scouse brogue while June Sarpong phoned in surprise was unintentionally hilarious.

When I started planning this blog post in my head, this is about where I began a diatribe against ‘mediums,’ Sky Television for publicising them, and the public for being taken in by their cynical, oily remit.

I got about half way through sketching it out before I noticed a vague feeling itching at my psyche, a sort of toothache of the soul. It wasn’t much to begin with, but the more I planned it out the uneasier I felt. I recognised it quickly, because I’d felt it before, when I was planning another blog post. It was self-disgust.

Ages ago I started to write a blog post about the Jeremy Kyle show, which I had begun to watch occasionally in the company of a female friend. I criticised Kyle, obviously (because he’s a tedious, self-important grief vampire with a gimlet eye and possibly no soul), and then I began to criticise the people who watched the show.

I got quite a long way into it before I realised that my narrative voice had begun to resemble some freakish amalgamation of every Daily Mail commentator ever. This was something of a shock to me, as not only do I prefer The Guardian, I also hate the Daily Mail so much that I occasionally reverse the top copy on the stack in newsagents so that people might be spared the inescapably primal fear inspired by its headlines. Most of the posts on verbal slapstick describe my attempt to draw some pithy life message out of a fairly mundane event, so I was perturbed by how quickly my content devolved into a simple, savage invective against a group of people I knew absolutely sod all about.

I realised I was doing it again with this séance thingy. I was preparing a tirade against a group of people who I considered inferior because they did not share my views: that mediums are either deluded or shameless exploiters of grief and uncertainty, and that there is no afterlife that we can comprehend and that even if there is why the hell would people who had made it there give a crap about a subsection of British society who were watching Sky1 on a Friday night?

My views don’t really matter (although they are, of course, completely correct). I can express them however I want, but it’s not really cricket to criticise those that do not share them, especially in light of the following:

Did anyone that watched the show really believe that Acorah was channelling the spirit of Jackson? Really? That if the ultimate question about life and our existence, that which has baffled scientists and theologians for millennia, had been answered by the appearance of a dead man’s spirit live on national television, and the world’s most popular entertainer and possibly most recognised figure in the history of mankind was communicating with us from the afterlife in front of our very eyes, June Sarpong would interrupt to let us know we had to go to commercials? Was an advert about Stargate Universe and one for a Glade plug-in THAT much more important than the undiscovered country beyond the veil?

Sod it. Maybe people do believe in that sort of afterlife. It’s not like I can construct an argument based on proof to go against theirs. And why shouldn’t they? It’s a cold ol’ world out there. The markets are recovering at a snail’s pace, the planet is heating up, the twins stay on X Factor every week. Whether belief in the afterlife is comforting or not, it certainly brings some extra enjoyment to a Sky1 special.

Everyone has a few guilty pleasures. The séance show turned out to be one of mine. So it seems a little hypocritical to make fun of those that might have enjoyed it for more direct reasons. From now on, no media is safe, but its audience is off limits. I get enough self-disgust from my substance abuse, thank you very much.