I’ve never liked having my photograph taken. After experiencing several years of bullying that involved ugly candid photos of me being publicly laughed at, I started hiding from cameras. From the ages of about 11 to 18, there are very few photos of me. I appear in the occasional family holiday or homecoming dance photo, but if I were to cease to exist, there would be very little evidence of my life. All of the photos are carefully posed; I’m dressed to impress. They say nothing about who I am or what I am doing.
In the beginning of the semester, we talked about embodied experiences of emotions and illness– how depression is manifested physically as aches and exhaustion, how physical illness can affect mental health. Since befriending an incredibly talented photographer who likes taking portraits of her friends, I’ve been thinking about physical embodiments that exist outside the body. Let me explain:
When I get depressed, I get messy. I lay in bed and forget about laundry. My clothes pile up on the floor; my dishes pile up on the desk. Papers get lost in the abyss. Even my notes get sloppy and inconsistent. If you were to walk into my room, you can see the physical manifestation of my depression just like the bags under my eyes or my acne or my aching shoulders. I think that the evidence we leave behind in the intimate spaces in which we exist can be extensions of our embodiments.
So, back to photographs.
Allowing myself to be photographed by very talented unnamed student is a new experience for me. She likes to capture candid photos. She freezes intimate moments in time and immortalizes them in a way that takes embodiment from within the body to embodiment outside the body. These photos create physical evidence of our existence that becomes extensions of our embodiments. Looking at these photos, I can see what I was feeling when she took them. I don’t always like the way I look in them, but I have learned to like the honest way in which my existence is validated by these photos. I like looking at the photos she takes of our friends because I feel like I can share a moment with them through their photographic embodiment. 
Thinking of the marks I leave on the physical world as an extension of myself is a very grounding experience. It is a reminder that I exist and I create impact whether I like it or not. It helps me feel connected to the people I’ve lost through the pieces of themselves they left behind and makes me wonder what pieces of me I’m leaving, too.
Unruly Bodies 
I definitely understand the resistance to getting your picture taken by others. I wonder if it has to do with who is doing the photographing and how they photograph you? Personally, I’m a lot more comfortable with selfies than chancing it on someone who I may or may not know taking a picture of me. Seflies have the appeal of complete control; I know what I look like in the photos and I can share them if I like. Photographs by talented friends are something else entirely. It seems like they’re able to capture something that evades selfies and generic group photos. I have a friend who also used to take pictures of my friends and I, and now that I think about it, they were pretty special and rarely made me feel self-conscious in the way other pictures do. This anonymous student and friend is so talented, and these photos really capture you in a way I haven’t seen before.
I really enjoyed this post! The concept of one’s embodiment also existing outside of oneself is so interesting and it’s something I never thought about before. I definitely have the same resistance to people taking/seeing photos of myself.. I consistently disassociate from my body size, so when I see photos of myself, I’m always surprised and dismayed at how big I am. When someone else takes a picture of you, you have no control over the photo, as you would have with a selfie. You can’t hide the parts of your body you’re not comfortable with.
Looking at it a different way, photos of my dad, who passed away when I was 8 years old, have always been extremely important to me. Photos are an extension of one’s embodiment, so in that way, I feel more connected to my father by looking at photos and watching videos of him..seeing an extension of himself through the photos and using that as a way of understanding him.
I also like what you said about existing and having an impact whether you like it or not. It’s easy to forget that you exist outside of your small, individual world, and photos serve to remind us that we do exist in the larger world and that we will have an impact no matter what we do.
I, too, totally understand your hesitation with photos, as well as your battle with depression. Sometimes I have to realize that even though I don’t like how I look and I’m not necessarily happy, I still love myself and I wouldn’t want to be anyone else. I think it’s mostly about overcoming personal battles within ourselves to be happy with what we see in the photos, and it sounds like you’re doing a great job of it!
This was such a beautifully honest and moving post. You so very eloquently described so much about depression.
I had never really thought about photographs and their ability to create an external embodiment. That is a fascinating concept and has really provoked me to think about other art forms that can do this such as videos and portraits. Like photos, they are an external form of embodiment that can still be around long after we are not physcially embodied anymore.