"Center-of-the-Picture" Guy?

I've been searching my digital archives looking for photographs to upload to MySpace and, as many readers know, the process can be a difficult task. We search and search for that right picture, the one that conveys us perfectly and then we censor and crop until only we remain. We draw in the borders so tightly that all context and environment is lost. The picture has been distilled down to its barest elements, so that in its simplified form we'll stand out. We're only amplified because we've muted all else.

But I'm not really a "center-of-the-picture" guy and there is valuable information that I've been lopping off my pictures. I rationalize that it's just a technical constraint placed on the medium that we're all employing so we can differentiate ourselves and engage in a little self-promotion.

And that's all that we're really trying to do here: cut through the clutter, rise above the din. We do it in the most vainglorious of approaches: "look at me, see only me". We shine the klieg lights so brightly upon ourselves in the hopes that our lines and faults will be washed away in a sea of white, redeeming light.

But it shouldn't be like that really. We're human beings, replete with our many facets and inclusions whose complexity constitutes our uniqueness as individuals. And that's what I love about others: something gritty and real not plasticized and sanitized existences.

This will be a recurring theme here and I'll revisit it soon. And interesting closing thought is that while I seek the "realness" of others, I cannot always accept it in myself.

(To be continued.)