Kids and Cameras
Our Best Shot to the World
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
I had the occasion to play around with a camera phone , transfering the photo and video files via infrared to my laptop, when I chanced upon two kids, two or three-yr olds in the middle of their temper tantrums. They were causing such a commotion in front of a corner commodity store (it’s called “sari-sari” or variety store here) that the line of customers to include myself as the last in the file, could only gawk at them. Their mother who was in a quandary between concluding her purchase and appeasing or disciplining them was obviously not successful and the growing restlessness in the queue of customers awaiting their turn had to be addressed.
It was really just a shot-in-the-moon reflex, but I found myself pouncing on them in complete paparazzi fashion with the camera phone, which jolted them for awhile, but as they began to increase the decibels of another round of bleatings, I replayed the video before them showing their wrinkled crying faces and pointed to it saying “look…pangit(ugly)”
They stopped, pointed to the camera monitor, looked at each other and giggled. I said I was going to take their photo one more time and whaddyaknow… they posed. It was like a magic wand waved over them to chase those bleating evil spirits. As things settled down and I was finally able to pocket my change after making my purchase, I wondered if I had then just discovered a 21st century equivalent of the disciplining rod. I scouted around for another temper tantrum event, found one in a 2-year old boy. I repeated the same photo-shoot sequence and true enough, the boy stopped .…to pose. Jeez.
Kids must have a built-in sense of propriety or at least a discernment of what seems pleasing and ugly to predictably do that. Instinctively, we grown-up “kids” mostly carry that sense of propriety whenever we pose for “best-angle or best profile” photograph. We don’t want the warts and the green stuff between the teeth showing. Inversely, we wince when shown stolen shots of socially unacceptable behaviour as in public officials caught receiving largesse in corruption cases or marital infidelity cases, exemplified by that Robin Williams starrer, “One Hour Photo”.
I add to memory photos of a number of kids whose disfigured faces from congenital anomalies, trauma or burns we were able to improve and those we could not save, knowing they never had a choice as to posing before a camera to look their "best". They remind me of the words from a craniofacial surgeon (Dr. Kenneth Salyer’s) that the most impressive imprint left when we leave this world is how we look(ed) . Link
http://scatter6291.busythumbs.com/entry_id/157475/action/viewentry/
