Photographic Memories Haunt Present-Day Picture

There are folks I know with whom the camera has a love affair.

Not model and actor types, whose stock in trade is on-film beauty. But regular people, like you and me, whose printed image transcends their flesh-and-blood reality . . . who look relaxed and radiant in print, no matter the camera angle or the state of their hair that day.

I am not one of them. My history with the camera is a tortured one, making us less camera-and-subject than hunter-and-prey.

You might recognize this feeling: The photographer turns the lens your way and your smile turns to a grimace, the muscles in your cheek begin to twitch involuntarily, your eyes glaze and widen, or start blinking uncontrollably.

And no matter the image you’re going for, you know what the result will be: The double chin shows, the smile is crooked, the entire front of your hair is askew. And your eyes give you the look of a deer caught in headlights, because that’s exactly what you feel.

For me, the worst part of this job is having to sit for a photo. I went through that agony again last week for this newspaper; the end result is at the top of this column.

“OK, shoulders facing me, but cock your head to the left. Eyes to the right. Chin down; no, up more. Wider smile; not that wide. . . . Now, relax.”

Right.

Over the years, I’ve grown detached from the finished product, and accepted the logic my children offer, in their glass-half-full vision of the world:

“It’s OK if it’s an ugly photo, because then when people meet you they’ll say, ‘Oh, you look so much better than your newspaper picture!’ ”

But this time, I figured I’d go for broke and enlisted Times photographer Clarence Williams, who won journalism’s Pulitzer Prize last year. Never mind that he’s made his mark shooting drug addicts and criminals and grieving families. He believes no one is doomed to look ugly in print.

“Anybody can be photographed beautifully,” he contends. “It’s a matter of being in the right hands, in the right surroundings and in the right mood.”

The lens only sees and reflects what’s there, he says. And if the sight of a camera fills you with loathing and fear, your discomfort is bound to show up on film.

Much of our apprehension, he suspects, comes from being “photographically abused” as children. By school photographers who force you to square your shoulders and stare straight ahead, your mouth twisted into whatever fake smile they decree. And by parents who fail to capture their children unposed, in joyous moments, and rely instead on the “Arms down! Now, look at me!” approach to photography.

A few bad experiences can haunt you for a lifetime, convince you that the camera is your enemy.

I can trace my own apprehension to my school picture in seventh grade, when I was obsessively wedded to a hairstyle I thought made me look cool . . . until I previewed my yearbook photo.

It involved parting my hair on one side, pulling a huge chunk across the top of my head and pinning it down over my other ear. In my mirror, it looked pretty. In my picture, it looked like a small, furry animal was nesting on my head. I never faced a camera with confidence again.

Most photo-phobics have similar horror stories, I’d guess. Experiences that make the prospect of a photo session feel like being forced in front of a firing squad . . . without benefit of blindfold or cigarette.

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I wish I had my daughters’ equanimity. They approach the annual school photo ritual as an opportunity to shine, a chance to ditch blue jeans and uniforms and don Sunday dresses and party shoes.

I listen to them chatting at the kitchen table. “So what smile are you going to use?” her sister asks.

“This one, I think,” the little one says, tilting her head and parting her lips in a shy half-smile. Her sister shakes her head: “Try this one,” she smiles broadly, so her eyes crinkle and her dimples show.

They dash off to the mirror to compare results, to choose from the grab bag of smiles they seem to have at their disposal.

I wonder then if that’s the secret, and think of all the money I wasted on makeup lessons and new hairstyles. The next time I think I’ll spend less time preening. And more time practicing my smiles.

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Sandy Banks can be reached at Sandy.Banks@latimes.com.