Picture Perfect

Once upon a time, I wanted to be an actress.

Because I am who I am, I was always realistic-bordering-on-fatalistic about the whole process, assuming that I’d have to find some other job to pay the bills, but at least I could do theatre. Life took me away from the stage, although whenever I have the chance to act, I always remember how much I love doing it. Aside from a lack of ambition, however, there’s another big reason I’d never have made it as an actress:

I don’t photograph well.

Friends and family will decry this statement (they’re sweet), but in general, I don’t like the way I look in pictures. Which is why while most people of my generation have thousands of photos on Facebook, I have 212 – 80% of which were uploaded and tagged by someone else. Candids are the trouble – my contacts usually create red-eye, I’m never properly made-up, etc., blah blah blah. A lot of women critique their appearance too harshly, and I could blame it on our society’s obsession with manufactured beauty, but I think that’s a bit esoteric.

I just don’t like posing, and since I hardly ever let people take pictures of me, I ran into a bit of a problem last October when I wrote an article for the LGBTPOV blog on behalf of Asexual Awareness Week. The editor asked if I had a headshot he could use alongside the article – and I realized that the only pictures I had from the last couple of years involved a costume. (Or really horrible lighting.)

I ended up sending a close-cropped, Photoshopped picture of me in my Nerd Herd outfit from the previous year’s Halloween.

Well, thanks to my close friend and the talent behind Jeanette Mills Photography, I’m in much better shape for next time. And a next time there will be. I’ve decided what my Mayan Project wish is: 2012 is the year I get something published. I’m not going to be a professional actress, but I am a writer, and I even have a master’s degree that says I’m a ‘professional.’ I don’t know what publication it will be, but if this is my last year on earth, then I want to see my words in print before the world ends. One month down – 11 to go.