Shoot Me, And Don't Miss

I have had the experience now a few times of being photographed by people I would call professionals. I'm not talking about the guy at Sears who takes the family photos, nor do I mean the embattled school photographer (who in my memory re-defined the struggles of Job). No, I mean professionals of somewhat higher caliber than that. It's an interesting thing to contrast their results with those of the average shutterbug friend of mine.

The thing is that there used to be some people with cameras taking pictures, and now everyone's got a camera phone to take shots with. As a result, there are more pictures of me than there used to be, and it's probably so that in some respects the quality is worse. This is in spite of the incredibly more prevalent ability to modify a picture after the fact. It used to be that what came from the photomat was what you were stuck with, and yet I think we were doing better then.

In any case, I find that most people seem not skilled enough to make me look very good. I don't mean to knock them. Rather, I am a rather difficult specimen. One must employ some rather extreme measures in order to really make me look presentable. It takes a talented, driven artist to really get the most out of me, and there aren't too many of those, I think you'll agree. The casual photographer has only the exclusive opportunity to capture me in candid moments.

It takes a professional to get my eyes right, though. I happen to consider them one of my best features, but they are like wild animals. They just won't be tamed easily. You can admire them from a distance, but caging them within a photograph requires skill. The best can get them looking as blue as they are in real life, but an amateur is really playing with fire, for they will turn lethally red if you do it any way other than exactly right. That's just a warning, not a threat.