The Zog Blog

On the day Daniel was born, I followed in the footsteps of several friends and started a photojournalism project.

We call it “365″, and the concept is simple: A self-portrait each day for a year. You may use anything you like (including other people) to frame the shot, but you must actually hit the button. I first seriously considered it because as Daniel’s birth approached, I was struck by how little I remembered of Jacob’s first year. I (correctly) predicted that the boys would be regular guest-stars in my self-portraits, and I hoped that a daily photo would provide a good reminder of the ups and downs of this year. A way to combat the lack of long-term memory storage that sleep deprivation can cause, a way to hang on to that newborn experience since we wouldn’t be getting it again.

It’s already succeeding in this goal–in fact, it’s a little alarming how quickly I can forget the feel of Daniel’s limp little weight in my arms, the smell of his tiny newborn head, the way those first smiles knocked the wind out of my chest. He’s so autonomous, now. Likewise, it’s easy to forget both the good and bad parts of Jacob’s third year (now more than half over!). His delight at discovering how our cherry tree makes a tent of leaves in the summer, his silly games, his newfound skill at pouting.

After seven months, I can look back through the year and re-experience the emotional journey that is early parenthood. It’s a precious, precious gift to myself and even if this were the only outcome of the project it’d be worth it. (Worth it, because make no mistake–taking these pictures can be time-consuming and annoying, just like any other thing in this world that takes effort.)

But in addition to the benefits I had anticipated, taking these self-portraits have given me a huge and unexpected bonus prize: I’m learning to love pictures of myself. Like many women, I used to cringe whenever I saw myself captured on “film”. While I have buckets of pictures of infant Jacob, I have almost none of the two of us together–I’d take them, and then delete them. Instead of seeing the two of us, together, I’d see my double chin, or the roots in my hair, or an unflattering angle on my stomach. I wish I could take it back, now–Jacob was such a snuggler compared to his brother and I crave the kind of visceral memory of Jacob sleeping curled up on my chest that a photo can spark.

I spent the first two or three weeks of the 365 project clicking the “upload” button with my eyes closed, impulsively, because I hated the way I looked in most of the pictures. I took dozens and dozens of pictures, throwing away most of them, searching for the one photo I could stand to look at for the day. After a few weeks, I looked at the splash page for my 365 flickr set, and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Viewed in aggregate, I lost my focus on the small imperfections and saw my hair, my eyes, my smile. Saw myself with the boys, in aggregate. A happy family instead of some caricature of myself built out of imperfections.

A week or so after that, I could look at individual pictures with my new perspective, and taking the self-portraits got a lot easier. After a couple of months, an even more wonderful thing happened: I started separating, in my mind, the things I didn’t like that I could do something about (my weight, the frequency with which I make it to the salon) from the things I’ll never be able to change (short legs). This separation motivated me to do something about the first, and just let the second category go. So I have short legs. I dress to disguise them, I take pictures to disguise them. Done. No more head-space wasted worrying about it.

After Jacob was born, it took 18 months of exhausted/exhausting self-criticism before I finally got off my tush and started doing something to make myself healthier. This time, it took 3 months. It’s silly to ascribe all of the change to the self-portrait project, but it’s also silly to discount the profound effect that getting a different perspective on myself has caused. Seeing myself through the lens of a camera has given me a whole new view on who I am and how that measures up against who I want to be.

And as if all that weren’t enough, I have some pretty great pictures of myself and our family to show for it, too.