Photograph

“We keep this love in a photograph
We made these memories for ourselves
Where our eyes are never closing
Hearts are never broken
And time’s forever frozen still
So you can keep me
Inside the pocket of your ripped jeans
Holding me closer ’til our eyes meet
You won’t ever be alone, wait for me to come home”
~ Photograph by Ed Sheeran

There is something so utterly perfect about the photograph you send to me of you in the bath, or the one she sent me of her beautiful breasts spilling out of the her bra. The ones where you think of me and take the picture because you know it will make smile or turn me on and I return the favour, sending you a picture of me laying in bed while you are getting your hair cut, or taking a shower while you are out at work.

Then there are ones the kids send me of them with their friends and partners, laughing, pulling faces, posing. Oh how I hate the stupid duck face and yet every single picture they send me makes me smile, even when there is duck face.

There is a tendency for people to be snotty about selfies. “All young people do these days is take their pictures” “They are on their phone and not actually interacting with the people they are with” And other whinging type comments which always tell me that 1. They spend very little actual time with young people, apart from observing them from afar and 2. They have never truly experienced the joy of sharing yourself through a selfie.

Because it is joyful. The images that turn up in my DM’s (consensual ones of course) make me smile every single time I get them and I know that the ones I have shared in return have done the same for other people because in that instant, captured forever in my phone, we shared a moment even though we were maybe hundreds or even thousands of miles apart. As I press that button and take that picture and send it to them, we are as connected and close as it is possible to be and it is perfect.

My blog is full of self portraits. I am hugely proud of my body of work here. I have learned so much about myself, how my body looks, the good and the bad of it, how it is aging, how it is imperfectly beautiful. I have also learned about photography, how to make my camera work for me, how to use light and angles and props and locations to tell a story. In photographic circles the person who takes the picture is referred to as the author of the image and at first I thought that was all a bit pretentious but over time I have come to view it as the right word because just like the stories I write, the images I take are my creation where I use the tools I have to tell a story. Sometimes that story might be one of slutty filth and other times it might be more abstract than that but they are still all stories I am telling.

And whilst the selfie I send to someone privately might not come from the same process, that doesn’t mean that they are less as a result in fact maybe those images are the most truthful ones off all. The quick glance up my skirt, my cleavage in my best bra, me laying in the bath, my face moments after I have come while the after pulses still throb inside me. I want to share that moment, that part of me with someone but quite often those images, snatched in the moment, the epitome of a selfie, turn out to be some of the best images I put my name too and because they capture a sense of me those image often end up here too.

But not all of them because something are not for everyone and that makes those images that I send you and the ones you send me back so very special. Like the song says they are the ones you keep inside your pocket, that you look at until the next time our eyes meet, that remind us that we’re not alone. Those are the selfies that to me are the best photographs of all.