Don’t mind me, I’ll just be over here, acting natural

“You don’t look natural enough.”

“Can’t you sit more like him? He looks natural.”

“(Under breath) He’s not the one being photographed, is he?”

I agreed to be interviewed for this Chinese magazine because 1) one of the editors is a friend and needed someone easy to access for questions and photos, and 2) she is very keen on promoting the print edition of What’s On Xiamen, and promised to do so in the interview.

Every issue I (well, the company that publishes my little rag) put out invariably has me searching for a photo of myself to include in the editor’s note. I’m not necessarily the most comfortable in from of the lens, despite years of enduring my dear sister sticking her camera in my face. You know how people sometimes look pained, or dazed, or just plain cheesy in those instant passport photos? That’s always me. I don’t know how to arrange my features for that optimal photo-taking expression, and please don’t tell me there are classes for that.

So I’m not good at being photographed. I’m not painfully shy, but I’m no ham for the camera either. The team from the Chinese magazine came over to our flat to photograph me ‘doing my thing’ last week, which meant photographing me and my sock dolls, me and my magazines, and using my computer (I lead such a full life). The photographer let me look at the shots when he was through (the wonders of a digital SLR), and I have the usual ‘this is slightly torturous’ half-smile on my face while posing with the sock dolls and the first first issue of What’s On Xiamen. The shots of my surfing the Internet on my laptop were a small problem, because I sit at a desk to work and the wireless router is plugged into my computer so there’s no chance I can be mobile anyway, especially if Neil needs to be online too. Sitting at a desk trying to keep my back somewhat straight and resting my arms on the armrests so my trapezoids don’t cause me agony: not natural. Sitting cross-legged (as in a semi-lotus position) on the sofa, pretending to surf while using Neil’s laptop (I was looking at Google Earth): not natural. Neil, his arse practically grafted to the sofa, also sitting cross-legged (but in a more manly way): perfectly natural, according to them. I can’t help it if the way I sit and work is not what they would conceive as natural, can I?

Then there were the outdoor shots. The lanky photographer ran ahead to snap me walking along a busy shopping street — “Look natural, don’t look at the camera!”

Eh. It’s kind of hard to pretend someone’s camera isn’t there when it’s constantly pointed at your face. I only managed to stick my tongue out at him once before I was admonished for looking into the camera lens. I’ve either got to be more… er… media-friendly and learn that a camera isn’t going to capture my soul like in that dumb horror movie we saw most of at The House last week, or stay away from more photo shoots in future. So while it appears he got hundreds of shots of me, I’m not sure if enough of them are usable, and if there aren’t enough, they’ll have to schedule another shoot and that will probably make things worse because I’ll be so aware that I wasn’t natural enough last time that I will be even less natural next time and it will all be shit.

Because, you know, the camera could capture little bits of my soul, and I can’t afford to lose any weight.

• 1 Dec 2005

• Thinking