Photosensitive

I hate being photographed. By some weird alchemy, the person staring back at me from the picture is never the same person whose reflection I see in the bathroom mirror each morning. And, believe me, I’ve got more than my fair share of photo ID about my person, so I know whereof I speak. On any given day, you'll find me in possession of a driver’s license, a student card, a permit to enter premises pursuant to the Occupational Health & Safety Act 2005 (Vic)...

It’s enough to make the self-conscious positively paranoid!

A sensation reinforced recently when I needed to renew my passport. I decided there was no way I was going to have my pics taken at the Post Office or the chemist: too many people standing around who might point and laugh and say Get a load of that stupid git! So my only option was to use one of those five minute photo booths. Fate, however ( and who says the cosmos doesn‘t have a sense of humour?), decreed that Australia‘s entire compliment of such booths were to be located precisely where they‘d most effectively activate my chicken reflex: at train stations and shopping malls.

Not, I think you’ll agree, what you’d call conducive to privacy.

But cruel fate was to be mixed with crueller self-delusion; for a brief and splendid moment, I thought I had the problem licked. Since, at the time, I was attending an evening lecture and tutorial, I reasoned that by the time I rode the tram down to Melbourne Central station to catch a train home, the place would be practically deserted. So one night after uni, I picked the loneliest looking booth in the remotest corner of the station, fed my ten bucks into the machine, and smiled for the camera.

It was an unnerving experience, sitting in what felt like a very public commode with a rictus grin spread across my dial, mentally urging the damned thing to hurry up and get on with it. Especially in these security-conscious times. At any moment, I thought, the curtain shutting off the outside world would be thrust aside by some gimboid, walkie-talkie toting security dude determined to discover whether or not I was hatching a dastardly plot to strike back at oppressive capitalism by blowing up the Western Hemisphere's supply of photo booths. A great picture for my passport, I imagined: Yours Truly, my face the colour of an outraged tomato, as I'm having the crap strangled out of me by a buzzcut hair-doed Wyatt Earp attired in an appropriately outlandish cowboy uniform.

Finally, however, four blinding flashes and a fidgety wait later, the new pics dropped with a tiny clunk into the receptacle outside the booth.

They weren’t great, I have to admit. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are better mug shots out there. Was my face really that fat? Did I truly have so little hair? And what was that odd indentation in my forehead, so suspiciously like a thumb mark? More importantly, why didn’t these many blemishes manifest themselves during my reflective inspections each morning...?

Thrusting aside such unworthy thoughts, I took my photos along to the Post Office, filled out the forms, handed over my dough, and waited. But the way the woman behind the counter clucked disapprovingly and shook her head immediately sent shivers of fear rippling down my custard-like spine.

“I’m afraid this photo’s not acceptable. Your hair’s sticking up, out of the frame. We’ll need to take some more photos of you now. That'll be an additional fifty dollars, please.”

I could sense it as I stood there, propped in front of the camera while all the people waiting to buy stamps or post a letter looked on. They were thinking to themselves.

Get a load of that stupid git...

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Man fools himself: he prays for long life, and fears old age. (Chinese proverb)