filters and overlays

The adage "looking at the world through rose colored glasses" needs a little updating. It's 2013, for crying out loud. How about "looking at pictures of the world through multiple photo filters and cross-processed lens effects".

Yeah.

We crop and edit and overlay and blur and color adjust to create a mood, a feeling, a certain impression on those with whom we share these pictures from our lives.

I got to thinking...this means I can take all the boring, mundane, and un-picturesque and in the matter of a few seconds + finger flicks, I have a dreamy representation of what my life is in that moment. I can make you think that I take afternoon tea in front of a large window daily to rejuvinate my chi. I don't. And even on this day, at the very moment I was taking this picture, the dog was leaving me a present in the hallway. I left my tea unfinished. It's cold now, still on the table next to the empty bowl that once held marginally tasty apples.

Not that it's a bad thing. I guess I'm just noticing it these days.

See, all I have to do is take a drive down my road, take a picture, crop the trashy mobile home off to the right out, the "herb" garden off to the left, tweak the coloring so that it looks a little more, say, dreamy, overlay a tiny bit of texture and for all you know I live in the most picturesque rural valley that Sunday drives and fingerless gloves were invented for. It could be a kind of false pretense but only if I'm hoping to dupe you by making things look better than they really are. Only if I'm hoping to give you an impression of things only half right.
Then again, there is a reason I stopped to take that picture. The way the sun was cutting in through the frozen, heavy air. The way my eyes zeroed in on that one swath of light. Mostly I just wanted to show you the parts that I thought were most beautiful. I don't want to bother you with the rest. I wanted you to see it how my mind and heart saw it for those few seconds.

This is the land that's been up for sale since forever. It's beautiful but nobody seems to want (to afford) it. I have a filter that says "open. alive. peace." and I slapped that baby right over the empty, devalued piece of earth. There was a miserable cold that bit at my fingers that morning. That cold that means the winter return of the ever present black ice streak on the road behind the frost line. A girl rolled her car on that piece of road last year. Had to walk a mile to her boyfriend's house in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold. She's right as rain now, if not still a little shaken up with each pass of that part of the road. I don't know how to add that layer to the picture and probably it's not really my layer to add. I just add my own "I love that this land is still open and that I can see the shape of the trees" filter over it and it seems so much more in tune with how I want to keep seeing it.

We can even add things that aren't really there, by golly. We can say "this is my normal life and I want it to be seen as beautiful. I want it too look like I dream for it to look". Nothing wrong with that as long as you're doing it for you. But I kinda think that you have to be willing to look at the unedited version of the picture for just as long and with as much affection as you do the edited version. All that tweaking and fudging ought to bring the focus in on what you saw was beautiful before it was edited. It still ought to tell the truth...unless you're trying to make up a story, of course...in which case I hope you...WE...know the difference and own it.

Oh yeah. One more thing. Try to avoid holding your unedited pictures up against others' edited pictures. It'll make you start questioning the exquisite beauty of our own {unedited} life.

Just sayin'.

Comments

[carlanda williamson]

great post steph. this land is your land, this land is my land.....someday!
xo

[Silvia]

I love this post today. Thank you. x

[Judy Wise]

You are such a breath of fresh air and TRUTH. Nobody's life is pretty all the time. xox

[Jenn Jorgensen]

So true. Life looks perfect on instagram. No one takes pictures of the present the doggies leave us in the hallway!(that cracked me up!!!)

[J a n e W y n n]

There are times when sharing the tough parts of life through photos is really important.

Then there are other times when sharing a fantasy really helps dealing with the crappy reality. I will take both. They balance out life nicely I suppose. I appreciate those who document and try to slow time.

(*Some of my most cherished photos I have taken were those of the death of my Mother...Of the days when I would just cry and capture the moment. The sadness is so hard and honest. Wouldn't have changed it for the world-would never have wanted to miss it-as it is now, my therapy.)

xox

[CraftyHope]

Nice!