Shutter Sisters

The Courage to Tell it Like it is

By

 

Lucy like she is: eyes obscured for an entire season by her favorite blue hat

Whether we’re writing or shooting, we are always telling our stories. There is so much we are trying to capture–how it is, but also the feeling or the experience of the moment. With all of our digital tricks and tools, I can’t help but wonder if our idealism isn’t sneaking in to tinker a bit, much like a writer using her words to defend herself, her point-of-view or position rather than lay herself bare.

And who among us does not at times crave a life that is sharper, a little more in focus? Or a love that sports a little color boost, an adventure with some ambient light or a moment with a soft blur around the edge? We’re surrounded by media that whets the appetite of our ideals, and sometimes through our lenses and our software it seems the key is finally in hand–that our ideal life can come into being in our albums or on our websites, which conveniently leave out our bad moods and arguments and all the living that unfolds inside less-than-perfect lighting.

It takes courage to tell the story as it is, not as it could be. Many photo spreads in mainstream magazines look so exquisite because they don’t have human beings in them to mar the scene. They portray a world above the fray of our messy humanity, something to which we can aspire because it seems divine. By following their lead, even with our small “improvements” like editing out blemishes and strategically cropping, which have become endemic in the photo world, are we chiseling away at our humanity? At the truth of our experience? Are we solidifying idealistic expectations for the next generation that bear little resemblance to the reality they will find?

I understand that there is the thing, and then there is the interpretation of the thing–and that much of our work lives in the realm of interpretation. But in honor of today’s giveaway for a copy of Don’t Write: A Reluctant Journal, I’d like to encourage you to shoot or write a piece of your story in a way that takes courage and a willingness to lay yourself bare. Just maybe you could tell it once, the way it really is, without your seductive little moves. You don’t have to show anyone, you don’t have to tell–but between you and the page, the journal, the photo archive, you would know the story.

Just the way it is.

Words, photograph and giveaway by Honorary Sister / Guest Blogger Jen Lee. Jen is a writer and spoken word artist in Brooklyn, NY. She is the author of Don’t Write: A Reluctant Journal and Solstice: Stories of Light in the Dark.

 

 

Leave your comment here today for your chance to win a copy of Jen’s Book Don’t Write: A Reluctant Journal.

Comments

  1. me bare – what a horrid sight for anyone but myself as it makes me vulnerable to all around! But the moment I am – the moment I becometrue to those around me and myself and find that I am better to be with and have more friends that want to be with me!!!
    I speak from from the sadness of losing my parents within two weeks of each other and yet finding that I am surrounded by more love than I could have ever wished for!!!!

  4. This is exactly what I wish for in 2009: To have the courage to lay myself bare. To tell the story as it is, regardless what "the others" will think. Over and over again.

  6. This post makes me smile. I like it so much. I wish we all tried this more often, the truth.
    What I commented on yesterday’s post can serve as an example for me, because it made me emberrased and I still wrote it as it was.
    "…Once, I found on the floor a ticket from a library with the name of a book I wanted to read. I didn’t ask anything to my husband, because I thought he bought it for me. But the time passed and he didn’t give me the book for my birthday. So, I thought he bought it for someone else and didn’t tell me (nothing creepy, just thought that he didn’t want to tell me everything he did). But then, our anniversary came, and the book came to me too. It was for me after all! And he bought is so early thinking of our anniversary…
    Here is a picture with that feeling for me:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliealvarez/3145672465/
    I first thought that a bunch of dried dandelions didn’t look well, until I left them on this glass. "
    I took this picture trying to capture the ugliness of them, and it still turned out beautiful to me!

  10. Wow!! That was truly one of the deepest posts I have read in about a month. Yet, it is right on time as a reminder to me to live as authentically as I can. There have been many a time I feel like I have to show face and being a part of the blogging world, it is easy to show whatever face you like.

    I have been vulnerable on my blog recently, earlier this year, in fact and I tell you, it was an amazing experience on so many levels. What I noticed was how powerful I truly was in a situation where so much was against me. Talk about kicking the ass out of a mountain, that is what I did. Second thing I noticed was all of the people who lurked on my blog commented and surrounded me like a circle of kindred spirits. One woman told me she had taken my posts to her women’s church group and they prayed for me to overcome the trial that was upon me. Honestly, I knew then that no one and nothing could bring me down unless I allowed it to.

    Now, I am not one for pity parties, but I do believe that showing you are human, real, feeling is a good thing. Always a good thing. Sometimes you have to be that way for someone else more than yourself. It’s that whole connectedness thing.

  16. It’s hard to tell it like it is. So often nobody wants to hear it so they yell really hard. I hate the yelling but I like telling the truth.

  17. This post brought the idea to me that it is important to keep moving forward. Sometimes laying something or yourself bare can be so harsh you get stuck there, examining the minutiae, analyzing and wishing things were different. But if you look and then move on, the beauty in the truth is what stays with you.

    Kath

  18. Being "real" is so hard because you don’t want to stand out, or not blend in, or not be "in." So for me it’s not just that I have to work on baring myself but I have to take it to the next level and learn not to care about what "the others" think. When I can do that I think I can truly be myself.

  19. I would love to be able to lay myself bare and not worry that people would think I was absolutely a nut case.
    maybe I should just do it…and stop worrying.

  21. This is really something to consider. I think your photo illustrates your point very well. I often want to avoid coming face to face with the naked truth when it ain’t pretty. It’s much easier for me to expose my exuberance & enthusiasm for the pretty side of life. There’s the tension between how much to expose & how much to keep close to my heart.
    I’m looking out my window where the dead perennials stand proud above the snow. The early morning light baths them in a rosy warm glow. They are magnificent. But I know in a matter of minutes the light will change & the color will go flat. As I write, the magic is already leaving. Are they ordinary? Sure. But I saw the potential of light.

  22. What a fantastic and wonderful post and thought for all of us. As I read through all of the comments, I was reminded again how so many of us want and strive for the same way of living-having our authentic, real, unedited self present, known and supported and how at least for me, it is hard to remember that everyday. I think it is first about stepping back and knowing who and how you want to live, and then following that to its core. When I have ( I think about a blog that I started as I started the journey of motherhood and the decisions I made, to not link to other web sites so work colleagues wouldnt see etc…) and then, what happened as a result of being honest and the beauty, love and community that came from it. ( a serious investor who we were working was going through her own fertility challenges and as we spent more time together personally, have become real friends..)

    http://www.plainandsimplejourney.blogspot.com/

    Your thoughts today, inspire me to relink the blog, write in it more frequently and give voice and act on what is in my heart.

    Thank you for that gift.

  25. I don’t know how to use Photoshop. I’m attempting to learn, but I don’t know any tricks or treatments. To me, this is an advantage, because that means when people like my photos, it’s because it’s a good photo, rather than an okay photo that’s been tricked out. It’s good practice for me, and I plan to continue taking good pictures that I can just do small things to once I do learn Photoshop, rather than just okay photos that I can wildly decorate. Photos that are overdone in Photoshop aren’t real to me. They don’t express what’s really there, or even what could be.
    Thanks for reminding me of this.

  27. for a long time i so desperately wanted to lay myself bare, to write freely and without shame. i was so afraid of being judged.

    and so i started a blog and told no one about it, it became my online journal and i poured my life out in those pages, until people started to read it… and then i once again began to censor myself. i stopped writing entirely when i realised that i was no longer telling my own story.

    i just started writing again, just for myself, and i am striving to keep it real and honest and true… every day.

  29. This is exactly what I"ve been working on the last month or so. I was challenged to perform a fearless moral inventory. I laid myself bare and cried at what I saw, but it enabled me to make some changes that will have a positive influence on me and on those around me. Thanks for your post. It gave me a challenge for my photography as well as my life.

  37. oh, yes this is my theme right now too, as I start to pay attention to what really wants to be written, and WRITE it. I joined Jen’s portfolio project, and I posted on my blog about it. I’d love to win a copy of the journal!

  44. Wow. I am web surfing in an attempt to avoid writing right now. What a (great) kick in the behind for me. Going to have to get this journal.

  45. I grew up with a photographer father who refused to crop his pictures. Whatever he saw through the viewfinder was what he put on the paper. I don’t know what other tricks he used, but he never cropped a millimeter.

    I don’t know how that has influenced my art. I do know that somewhere a long the way I learned secrets are damaging. I learned I preferred the ugly details, because it is in those details that the true beauty can be found.

    So what can I learn from the self portrait I took yesterday? Is there something in my frizzy hair and break outs that tells the story of me right now? Maybe that I need a hair cut and my period is coming. That truth doesn’t seem very interesting.

  46. Too lay myself bare in my writing is scary. I’ve already been thinking about how I censor my blog in case certain ex-family members should ever read it. I’m realizing though, that I’m not being true to myself when I do that.

  47. Wow! Great post, Jen. I must have been anticipating your challenge to us because I found myself getting out of bed at 11 p.m. and writing in my journal until 1. I haven’t written in my journal since…oh…July maybe. Lots of things to get off my mind and onto paper to be able to clear the decks for a brand new year that’s just around the corner.

    Thanks for keeping it real 🙂

  52. i love it when i lay myself down bare on the page or in a photograph, the cringe that follows as i realize that i have captured a piece of me in awkward relief. i once posted a photo of myself crying in grief, mascara streaming down my face and realized that as i grabbed the camera and snapped the shot that somehow in that moment of capturing my pain, my pain subsided a bit as i helped round out the pieces of my sometimes beautiful sometimes messy life … this post makes me smile.

  53. This makes me want to run home and grab my camera but I’m stuck at work in a beautiful snow storm.

  59. Yes its very difficult to let people inside in our daily lives let alone this beautiful place. But healing can come from just letting it all be open. Too many times we only allow the pretty parts to show.
    I am struggling to come to grips with a situation I have with my daughter. On christmas day she challenged me to give In to what she wanted or I would never see or speak to her or her children. I stood firm. It was and is the right thing to do. But a part of me is dying inside. It’s ugly. And I have kept it close and secret inside me. "Keep the happy face on!!!"
    So altho I am immersing myself in my art because it brings me such joy; I feel empty inside.
    It isn’t showing is it?

  60. This is so interesting – and surendipitous (sp?) to me!

    First I got excited about the Portfolio Project thing you (Jen Lee) have going and then I see THIS post. I’ve been writing all day – very excited about just getting to it— and now I read your post about " telling it like it is". That’s pretty much what my Portfolio Project will be – writing straight from the hip.

    I’ve done that different times – but also come back and fuss with things..so much wanting that shined up life you mentioned…Today I’m playing with writing about – Naked Writing – writing "bare" – exposed – vulnerable ..as somewhat of a companion piece to a fun piece i wrote on a little blog i started recently. THAT piece (link here) was called Writing Naked : http://artellacafe.com/blogs/a_square-peg_view/archive/2008/11/03/22025.aspx

    I LOVE this idea – the openness, vulnerability. The trust – in self, in ? , in life – that seems to me is the bedrock of doing this! Awesome post!

  61. Oh … such a meaningful reflection. I totally, 100% buy into what you’re saying. I believe in imperfection. I try to live it (although it’s damn hard). And it’s important that I try to document how it really is, how it really feels. Because I’m hoping someday my girls will read my journals, look at the photos, page through the scrapbooks … and know … know that they are *perfect* when they’re not. And that they are not failures b/c it’s hard, or ugly, or imperfect, or messy. Thank you for the inspiration. It’s so beautifully, thoughtfully, truthfully written.

  64. Um, I’ve always been slightly afraid of challenges but this is a good one – I am going to rise to the challenge and overcome my fear!! Thanks for posting this – I’m also uncomfortable with self portraits but this is a good catalyst to get past that!

  68. This is very timely. A good dose of TRUTH is just what I need to move forward with my Portfolio Project! Oh how much I’d love to have a copy of Don’t Write.

  69. I started journaling a year or two ago – hadn’t since highschool. I’m finally finding my voice – telling my story the way I want to tell it. It took awhile to let go, to hear my voice, but the sound of it is good – not always pretty, not always nice or sweet, but it’s me and it helps.

  73. One of my recent posts on my blog was about how I stopped baring my soul b/c I knew there were people that I considered friends reading my blog, how I stopped being honest b/c they might get to know the ‘real’ me. Nuts, I tell you!! So thank you for your challenge. I was thinking about this very thing. Peace and honesty to you and yours this holiday season!

  75. I don’t seem to really know myself until I let it out! But it’s a timing thing,
    sometimes I find I have to uncover some layers of "shoulds" before I
    find out what I really think and feel.

    I’d love to read this book.

  80. Your post was very inspirational. It’s given me lots to ponder and as a result, a fresh view of 2009 in my own little corner of the universe. Thank you for that.

  82. What a beautiful post and excellent, much needed reminder. It is so easy to hide behind things, especially for photographers behind the camera. Half-truths or gussied up realities are easy to let ourselves get away with. Though there is always fear in laying yourself bare, I think often we are at our most beautiful when we allow ourselves to be the most vulnerable. Thank you for this and I would love a copy of Jen’s book because who doesn’t need a little help along the way. Thanks again for this amazing post!

  83. I knew as soon as I felt I had triumphed PPD, that I wanted to share my story with other women in crisis with the illness. Here I am two yrs. later and I am in full swing to offering my physical support, but my "story" remains, largely, unwritten. I WANT to write it all out. I want to give women, not the glossed over version, but details of the darkness and the shafts of light that finally shattered through it. I don’t care if it’s poetic, I don’t care if it’s not something that any publisher would approve and distribute in massive quantities…I simply want it to be authentic enough to offer hope to someone who is lost.

    It’s more than lack of courage that stops me though. It’s the pain of re-living that time of my life, and it’s the possibility that it won’t make a difference, and what a waste it all will be. And now, here…I see an opportunity to just write it for me. Just tell it like it happened, in a saner state of mind, experience it all over again, and say adios to the pain, but not the memories. Really…can it be that simple and that scary?

    "Are we solidifying idealistic expectations for the next generation that bear little resemblance to the reality they will find?" PPD may be a scary part of motherhood, but it exists for some nonetheless. And I wish that I had known the truth, the real truth before I slipped into it, so I knew better the signs to look out for. I am unpeeling layers as I type away here…

    Thank you Jen for this…telling it like it is is not always easy (duh!), but it fels like it need to be done anyway.

    WIld Roaming One